Internal Dialogue

Questions like “Why are we here?” have been asked so many times that it’s almost a cliché to bring it up. Yet people never really think about it. Why are we here? What good is it all? What’s the use of living?

After my post about the LHC someone told me that even if this thing destroys Earth, who cares? Does it really make a difference? Certainly no one outside of Earth is going to notice – except perhaps the poor saps on the ISS. Sure, every one of the 6.7 billion people on this planet has a life which they probably don’t want to lose. But once we’re gone, who would care? I realize our instinct to survive (as a species) is something that can’t be turned off, but if you stop and think about it for a second: would it really make much of a difference if we were gone?

Besides, wouldn’t the universe be a much better off with us not in it? That sounds incredibly dark, I know. Especially coming from someone who can’t wait for us to start colonizing the galaxy! Everything that I write below is pure speculation, but I feel it’s important that I think and to a lesser extent write about it. Because if the past is any indication, we as a species simply cannot be trusted. For all the good in the world there is so much evil, and we all participate in this evil one way or the other. We’re all part of this enormous society, and it’s exactly this society that is of the biggest threat to our own species, this planet, and eventually the universe.

Why? Everyone knows the answers, and even though they’re undeniably true, so many people choose to ignore them. In the past few centuries, our industrial revolution, unnatural interference with nature and uncontrolled growth has caused the extinction of countless species. Many people don’t even know that the Earth is currently experiencing the quickest and possibly the largest extinction event ever. And for the first time, it’s not nature’s fault: humanity is the sole cause behind this ongoing extinction event. Though there are plenty of people who’d rather be blind than acknowledge that this is taking place. But the truth is that we’re destroying this planet.

It is Stephen Hawking who said the following:

The long-term survival of the human race is at risk as long as it is confined to a single planet. Sooner or later, disasters such as an asteroid collision or nuclear war could wipe us all out. But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe. There isn’t anywhere like the Earth in the solar system, so we would have to go to another star.

Yet I wonder, if it’s in humanity’s nature to destroy itself (or, in my eyes more unlikely, await for our extinction due to a natural disaster), what good would spreading out into the galaxy do? Eventually these colonies would also either destroy themselves and the planets they inhabit, or await being exterminated by a natural disaster. Sure, humanity as a whole would go on because of the many colonies in different regions of the galaxy, but what good is that do if the only thing we do is spread and destroy? And eventually, we’d run out of planets and space. Another quote, this time from Agent Smith in The Matrix:

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet

While it’s obviously debatable whether Agent Smith’s comparison is valid, to me it seems he does have a point. We spread, and multiply. There is almost nothing stopping us. In Richard Dawkins’ book Climbing Mount Improbable, he touches on the subject of human evolution, and that in today’s society, natural selection doesn’t really apply anymore. I’ve tried to get this point across to many people, but everybody insists that evolution is still very much alive and that natural selection still works. Of course it still works! Nature can’t be stopped. We as humanity will still evolve. Just differently than nature would have it. Because there’s also no denying that we, as a species, are now keeping people alive that would have died had they been born just a few millennia (or even a few decades) ago. In my eyes, natural selection isn’t really compatible with our modern society. We’ve become so advanced that artificial selection is now the norm. We chose who lives and who doesn’t. Not to mention the future applications genetic engineering will give us. Why wait for nature to improve us if we can engineer ourselves? Once that happens, nature will be completely out of the loop. And unfortunatly for nature, our instinct to survive is many, many times stronger than the will to truly acknowledge that we’re destroying this planet’s (and with it our own) future.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to die either. It’s obvious that I’ve got feelings too, and right now I don’t want my existence to end any more than the next person. My instinct to survive is very much alive. Though I wonder: what good are these emotions if humanity is bound to destroy itself? Again, don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t give up my feelings and emotions for all the money in the world, but what good are they? I realize that they’re very important in a person’s life, and that they’re a logical step in the evolutionary ladder. But on a grander scale, do they really matter? Why do we even have the ability to feel compassion if we don’t use it half the time? Where is our compassion for this planet? Why has nature blessed us with such a strong survival instinct if we have the power to destroy nature?

I wonder if perhaps it is nature’s fault after all, since evolution allowed such a destructive species to evolve. Perhaps it’s in nature’s nature to destroy itself, because given enough time, evolution will always lead to the creation of a species that is capable of destroying the planet this nature lives and depends on.

So perhaps, for the better of this planet and the universe, humanity should be part of this ongoing Sixth Extinction.

Or perhaps not. Because I for one really like being alive (most of the time). And if we don’t have a purpose, does the universe really have a purpose? We might aswell destroy it while we’re here.