For one, It’s almost universial for us to stress over the future, idealize our childhoods, bemoan the state of society, and be obsessed with and sometimes even claim to spiritually be animals.
Mistake ? No, the laws of nature will prevail, we’ll be gone eventually and life will prosper. We thrived for >100k years, in the last couple thousand most of us have made everything worse. Muchof that was ignorance so it’s somewhat understandable but since the 1970s we’ve been well aware.
It is bemusing to see a species self aware enough to understand it’s destroying it’s own home and literally do everything it can to make it worae.
Nature has time, billions of years. Inequality is our greatest act of stupidity, from that leads all the other stupidity (nation states, agriculture, roads etal) eg you can’t have 5 billion people driving cars, so no one drives cars, you can’t have 8 billion people flying so no one can etc). Eventually we’ll drown under a pile of our own waste. Climate change is I think the solution to the human problem (the collapse of “civilisation” not human extinction). before pollution etc but perhaps nuclear annihilation will do us in before cliamte change does ?
I think so, yes. I think the Earth would generally be a better place if we had never evolved.
As a species, homo sapiens have managed to adapt to every environment on Earth. We are the first species to have any measure of control over the natural forces which have wiped out countless other species. Diseases which once ravaged our populations are now gone or minor inconveniences and we continue to find new ways to mitigate the worst effect of many diseases. Should a large asteroid be heading our way, we are the only species which may stand any chance of diverting it or mitigating the long term impacts when it does hit us. While it was certainly not a “choice”, the evolution of higher cognition, problem solving and intra-species communications has put our species in a unique position of having a high degree of control over out fate. Sure, it has its downsides (we are the only species which might be able to end all life on Earth), but it’s been a pretty amazing run for us. On the balance, I think we’re in a much better position to keep going as a species than our ancestors or cousins (homo erectus, homo hablis, neanderthal, great apes, chimpanzees, etc).
So, was it a “mistake”, I think the current state of evidence is against that. While it may result in a really shit deal for individuals of the species from time to time, as a species I think it would be silly to consider it a mistake.
No not at all.
I love cheeseburgers.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
I think a better quote would be
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move and that no one should ever have left the oceans.
Ah, I forgot about that one. Definitely better.
oceans
Moisturized, floating in place. The world’s biggest basement.
A mistake implies there was a choice involved at some point. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re on the evolution or intelligent design side of the argument, us monkeys were never given a choice.
Humans domesticated themselves, making tools they later depended on for survival. Each layer of entrapment, by tools, over the millions of years demanded some sacrifice that never went away.
Each generation learns the pain of entrapment on their own, and are invalidated by the older ones who shrugged the feelings away. But the feelings of unease never go away.
Any other animal can tell people this is insanity
Just because the global dominant culture at the moment is profoundly confused and emotionally unstable doesn’t mean that humanity at large is not up to the challenge of consciousness and free will. 💪
It was a bungle in the jungle.
Not really
We have more tech n all, right?
Read Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut.
