2119 AD: An Alien Research on Earth's Ruins

 

I don’t intend to sound like a frustrated loudmouthed propagator of doomsday scenario. However, with our iron-fisted, hard approach, resulting in taming nature and subjugating other species, giving rise to a scenario when we humans are too many to be friends and in the consequent fear and suspicion we become enemies of each other, there seems to be a sure-shot possibility of crash-landing in a pit.

With love and emotions taking a backseat, and mechanization of human self gone full throttle, there is a possibility of the confrontation going out of control. The chances of peace plummet down. Then you can expect anything. With our steely nerves, we are more of the agents of destruction instead of creation. The things that we count as creation are nothing but desperate efforts to counterbalance our own previous follies. And solutions to follies themselves are no lesser follies.

Since mankind’s occupation of earth, by beating rest of the species through his main faculty, brain, everything has changed. Creaking carts with wooden wheels changed to spaceships. The acts of Gods came to be resolved as mere weather phenomena. Everything changed it seems. But there is an exception: happiness hasn’t increased and misery hasn’t come down. The latter in fact has soared up like never before.

In fact, modern man is far unhappy than the ancient one. Simple reason is the use of logic and science for creation and destruction at the same time. One step forward, one step backward: Life and death overlapping. Where will we go? The net result is zero. So we stand at the same place where we started from.

Medical research is doing wonders to beat mortality, overcome diseases, lessen pain and increase the quality of life. One step forward, accepted. But then the destructive face is no less on innovation. Nuclear weapons that can wipe out the entire earth, chemical weapons, missiles, warships, guns, bullets: many steps backward. You make deadliest weapons to take as many lives as possible. Then you contrive the best means to save lives through bullet-proofs, bunkers, shelters, helmets, surgeries and medicines.

Ease of life through modern utilities, one step forward of course. The consequent destruction of environment, multiple steps backward. The latter puts up innumerable challenges before mankind, thus necessitating further chains of remedial actions and innovations. The so called solutions to the problems turn out to be still bigger problems in the medium and long term. All this doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. It’s simply going nowhere.

It has been a plain, mindless hot-pursuit. Ever since we surged ahead on the path of civilization, it has been a rampant, mad rush to go ahead, at whatever cost. There has never been a civilized pause, a hiatus, a break to ponder over, to think about the costs we have paid: a calculating look back and around to evaluate future. All civilizations pushed for a relentless thrust, to march on, with full force, at whatever cost. Mind you, marching on and on, the storm, the fire, these cannot go forever. Such hot-pursuit and crazy race cannot sustain itself. It has to come to an end. It’s as per the laws of science. If you run forever, you will collapse. One has to take a pause somewhere to sustain the march.

The progress without a pause ends in a disaster. It simply isn’t sustainable. In genetically ingrained and socially ordained hot-pursuit, have we ever thought of devising the means of systemic pause and rest, for ourselves, for countries, for this planet itself? Only rest, peace, calm and love are sustainable, because these are not burning with the fiery energy. So before we continue rampantly and dive headlong into the abyss across the precipice, cannot we learn to devise civilizational pause, when this planet earth gets a holiday, for some time, its lungs getting a lease of life, its freshwater bodies getting lesser pollutants, its sickly body getting a sound sleep to help recovery and rejuvenation?

Just like we have carbon cut quotas, cannot we have population cut quotas? It will help. It will save earth from being inundated with human ant-swarms, who will ultimately eat the environment itself that sustains them. Cannot everything be slowed down at regular intervals to save the critically exponential stats from nose-diving into a deathtrap?

Long before a superior, antagonistic extra-territorial life overpowers us, or a rogue planet crashes into earth, or sun explodes, we will surely destroy ourselves before any such eventuality. And when that happens, some alien researchers will sigh with wonderment, looking at our ruins and archaeological remains, much like we marvel at the ruins of ancient human civilizations such as Harappa, Egypt and Babylon, and think and build hypothesis about the causes that brought about the downfall.