The word civilization comes from Latin civitas, meaning city. That is, one who lives in a city is civilized.
Living in cities has enabled humanity to pool resources and make the advances in healthcare and other areas of knowledge possible.
However, the problems with civilization since the industrial revolution have magnified with each passing year.
This has led to many problems:
- Over use of anti-biotics leading to drug resistant bacteria.
- Massive build up of trash and just dumping it in the oceans.
- Pollution of the land, water, and air.
- Micro-plastics, PFAS, radioactive materials, the list goes on.
- Cutting down the forests.
- Preventing all fires to the point where any fire is now too hot to serve the purpose it should for the renewal of the forest.
- Using more water than is available in the arid regions of the Western U.S. and other places, leading to drought.
- CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases flooding the atmosphere to enhance any naturally occurring global warming. This exacerbates drought and other problems which leads to loss of ice caps, rising sea levels, and loss of sea life.
- Extinction of many animal species that serve purposes in the ecosystem.
- Overuse of pesticides and other chemicals that are harming bees, which threatens to impair pollination of food crops.
- Building things like nuclear reactors without keeping in mind that gravity is free, but expensive to overcome, and that water flows downhill.
- Self-centered national policies on the part of every nation seeking to get their slice of the limited pie which leads to more problems than it solves.
- Too many acting like the resources of Earth will never run out. When else can we go?
- We could eradicate polio in a decade, if we really wanted to.
- We could eliminate hunger and poverty, if we really wanted to.
- Rich get richer at the expense of the not rich with a rapidly increasing wealth gap.
- Multi-billionaires could each keep one billion dollars and their descendants could live very comfortably with wise investment and disciplined spending. They could use the “excess” billions to solve problems governments can’t or won’t.
- Punishing poor and minorities with disproportionate prison sentences and conditions. All while so-called “white-collar” criminals get off with minimum security or house arrest for a very brief time.
- The African continent has been pillaged and raped by Europe and Asia for centuries, keeping it down. Similarly, indigenous peoples of the Americas, Australia, and many other places have been shoved to the side and ignored when outright genocidal efforts went out of style.
- Corruption and greed among the rich and powerful keeps things stirred up. If we don’t blow ourselves up or die by an apocalyptic pandemic, things won’t change unless the way we’ve always done it changes.
We may be civilized, but only because cities are the foundation of our current way of life. We are barbaric in that we treat the world, its resources, and each other like stepping stones as we each claw our way to the top of the heap.
Not all humans are like that, but enough are, and they end up in positions of power. This ensures that they can maintain the status quo that keeps us in this perpetual cycle.
Instead of common sense overruling our base nature, we stay the course. We’re waiting until things are so horrendously bad before making a change. That is a fool’s errand.
What world will my grandchildren and great-grandchildren inherit? How many generations of humanity are left?
From the vantage point of a study of history and current events, I sense we are heading toward a turning point. What that might be, I can’t say. I grew up in the Cold War with the ever present thought that we could all die by nuclear war. I naively thought that was past when the Iron Curtain fell. The world is a much more dangerous place in some respects.
Some violent re-shuffling of the world is coming. The way the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world and continues to be felt is a sign that our current way of life is fragile. Supply chains are vulnerable to disruption, the healthcare system in the U.S. is strained due to the ignorance and willful selfishness of too many. A breaking point or turning point is coming. The U.S. is getting ready to give up it’s place as the world leader. Russia doesn’t seem to be ready to step in, but China does.
It could all happen without a shooting war. All because over the last century and more, the U.S. has meddled with the internal situations of other nations. This meddling made unstable situations worse, or created instability where there was none. As those of European descent become one of many minorities in the U.S. the changes will accelerate. European Americans will have their comeuppance.
Will the U.S. survive? Another Trump presidency, or one like it will probably shatter our constitutional republic. It will either fall into tyranny of the kleptocrats, or see the oligarchs and corporations grow in power and influence, or the nation will fracture like the former U.S.S.R.
I’m tired. The small minded, selfishness of those in power and their mindless supporters are just exhausting to deal with. Logic and reasoning have no power. Common sense isn’t common. I weep for the future.