Mom was right?
As I look at today's news, I wonder if maybe 'things' are not worse than they were. I arrive at the same conclusion whether I approach it from a 'what I see' deduction or from a 'what has probably led up to this' viewpoint.
Let me start with the latter. It would make sense to accept that there is 'more' of everything today. We have cell phones, hence far more communication. Please, for those that are older, remember that in the 'old' days, if you wanted to call someone, you called their home or office, not them directly. Now, whether at the airport about to leave, at some remote hotel, in the car or in the toilet, their personal mobile phone will ring. Then there's travel. Yes, the number of planes, routes and destinations has multiplied enormously. Consumer goods? More than ever! And then there's the Internet. The web allows us to share, teach, incite, cheat or lie to the order of ten to the fifty.
Back to what I see. Today's news is about Thai unrest. If memory serves me right, there has always been unrest, war and plundering. So, nothing new. This year is the year of the Icelandic volcano eruption and air travel disruption throughout Europe. Here too, nothing new. Volcanos have been erupting since the dawn of time, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis too. The news is also filled with crime stories. Were there not brigands and pirates in the middle ages? Famines are another news story along with refugees, pandemics and slavery. Sorry to say, here too, no new invention. History is replete with all of the above.
Here's my simpleton take on the matter. I actually think that mom was right about the scale. I just think that she wasn't right about the reasons. It's not that there is more crime, disease or war. It's just that our growing population, with its growing ability to communicate, travel, manufacture, sell, transport, build, waste more and more, is pushing ever closer to the edge of the environmental, social and personal health boundary of disaster. In short, the more we are, the more we do, the closer we get to the chaos point where the system fails. That's what we are doing.
For those of you who have been on an ocean liner, a ferry, a bus or a plane, you know the paradigm of everyone rushing to one side of the vessel to look at the xyz. You know that if we all rush over, the vessel will tip. In many cases, this is not theory, it is fact. Our problem is that we have all been rushing in the same direction. We all want the same comfort, possessions and prestige. We either find a new equilibrium or we topple.
Mom was right. Now what am I going to do about it? Are we just going to sit and watch the earth as time rushes past and matters worsen?
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