Quite the close call
On high school football conferences, the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the worst place for us to expend human energy in a world full of hazards
In case the troubles of the world ever get you down, a helpful perspective-generating exercise is to read the scientific research which concludes that the entire population of human beings once hinged on just 1,280 breeding individuals -- a population about equivalent to the enrollment of the smallest high school in the Central Iowa Metropolitan League. In other words, quite the bottleneck.
■ The human species survived, and thanks in part to the persistence of spontaneous mutations in our genes, our ancestors between that bottleneck and today managed to differentiate well enough that we don't all look alike. It could have gotten pretty monocultural there.
■ But while thanking our lucky stars that we managed to persist through and beyond that near-extinction event, we ought to ask ourselves whether we're doing right by that great good fortune. Other humans are not the enemy: Nature is.
■ Nature's chronic indifference to our fate (at the level of the individual as well as the species) is what endangers us most. Nature blows up volcanoes that can block out the Sun and showers down deadly rocks from space. Nature has been known to send killer pandemic viruses our way, too.
■ There are two menaces who should be recognized as the obstacles to human progress: One intentionally brings pain to others, out of greed, bloodlust, malice, or some other deviance. The other concentrates attention on exaggerated differences among us, creating strife and conflict where none need exist.
■ Whenever those menaces gain influence, attention, or power, they sap our already finite supplies of human energy that could otherwise be put to work solving the problems of nature and its never-ending threats to our survival. We only have a limited amount of time, a limited number of brains, and a limited supply of resources. Whatever of those we waste on sadism and cruelty and petty tribalism are no longer available to solve our greater problems, and that brings shame on us.
