Evaluating Humanity

This post was adapted from something that I had previously written.

I frequently evaluate who I am, but I thought that I would do something a little bit different. I am going to evaluate how well the human race is doing. If you are new to this blog, beware that I am not always positive when it comes to modern day man.

Let me start off by looking at how far we have come. I should actually say how far backwards we have moved. Independent thought drives progress, and we seem to be in the most mindless era in history. While progress that was set into motion decades ago exists today, we seem incapable of generating legitimately new ideas.

I used to think that criticisms of greed were overblown. Now that I’m a little older, I realize we are sacrificing quality of life for the economy. Individuals sacrifice themselves for money because they have been conditioned to feel happy when they have money. Government treat the economy as their biggest concerns. We have developed schools that try to convince young children to give up their childhoods to prepare for their future jobs.

It appears that true happiness is no longer felt. We trick ourselves into believing we are happy when we are doing well financially. If we are struggling, we are miserable.

Globally, countries are fighting for the wealth of the world. To better compete with each other they develop their ideas regarding the ideal employees. These ideas become the basis for social engineering. Each country shapes each employee, generally by forcing children through the flawed schooling process. The governments’ attempts to control businesses effectively creates government controlled businesses. While America claims to be a capitalist nation we have developed strong socialist tendencies.

I know I have focused quite a bit on the financial aspects of humanity so far. If this is supposed to be an evaluation of mankind, then why have I focused on this one thing? It’s because a lot of the flaws that I see today are tied to this one problem.

Not everybody is the same. When we develop the concept of the ideal employee and force people to conform to the standard, we destroy personal strengths. This prevents us from exploring ideas beyond what is already known. Contributions beyond the misguided and reachable ideal cease to exist and the collective capabilities of the human race are greatly diminished.

If someone is strong enough to maintain individuality and personal strengths, he or she is effectively turned into an outcast. Businesses are built around the conformity provided by their countries. Those who fail to conform lack the appeal to potential employers. Without the ease of finding employment, individuals will be labeled as non-contributing members of society. Those who are credited for contributing are doing nothing more than filling a role, while those who are capable of making significant contributions have this ironic label attached to them that prevents them from making contributions.

Another problem with humanity is our tendencies to stab each other in the backs in order to help ourselves. While some competition can help provide motivation, there are benefits to creating a more cooperative society. A society where we help each other out rather than mistreat everyone that we encounter.

It’s not just individuals who are creating problems. Countries are fighting each other over financial strength. While I do believe in a degree of globalization, I think that our approach has caused some problems. Once again, our focus is on money. Each country is willing to sacrifice its people to help win over customers in other countries. To compete with sacrifices in one country, other countries will make similar sacrifices.

Outside of the economy, we have other problems. We seem to try to cram as many people onto this planet as possible. We work to extend the life expectancy and improve the mortality rate of infants, but we do nothing to slow down our birth rates to accommodate these legitimate improvements. We are destroying the planet in order to squeeze in a few more people, and individuals have lost the space that they need in order to live comfortably. Many people have large families and say that the size is a blessing. In reality, these people are simply acting irresponsibly.

Conformity prevents true progress. The current schooling system is pretty much identical to the system that we had in place a hundred years ago. This is how the governments of the world have generally applied their social engineering practices. Teaching is clearly the least progressive profession around, but we feel that it is vital to progress. Just about every assumption about mankind’s progress has been proven overly optimistic, and no major new ideas have appeared in the last few decades.

While I feel that society has already deteriorated significantly, I am more concerned over our future. The path that we are currently on could be catastrophic to future generations. Thought and individuality will be further sacrificed for the supposed common good. This will further diminish our collective capabilities. Any threat that we have not already prepared for will be nearly impossible to overcome.

I think there is a lot of potential for the human race if we can unlock it. We were smart enough to create fire without matches. We came up with the ingenious wheel, which made moving people and possessions far more efficient than ever before. We learned to make sounds that could help us communicate with each other.
 
Some of the most notable contributors in the history of mankind made themselves who they are. There are numerous indications that Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright Brothers, and many others had problems with or lacked extensive exposure to the socialist schooling system. Ever since we made schooling a way of life, society has not seen anyone contribute to the levels of these people. I’m not going to go into details of my educational beliefs in this rant, but this is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed.

Unfortunately, getting onto the right track is not going to be easy. The global financial model ensures that sacrificing the economy for the good of mankind will make life very difficult. Additionally, we have become too arrogant to admit past mistakes. We are not likely to completely rethink anything that we have invested centuries worth of effort to create.

Change is vital. The longer we wait, the harder it will become. If we continue down our current path, mankind is doomed. Fixing our mistakes may be an inconvenience for us, but not fixing them would be beyond an inconvenience for future generations. We need to stop talking about whether its best to walk, run, or skip down this path. Instead, we need to find a completely different path.