The Human Animal

Before I start this, I just want to make sure that everyone understands this is my view of the world, my view of humanity.  I don't expect you to agree with me, in fact I would like this to open a dialogue that allows you to form your own opinion on the matter.  I have not taken the formulation of this blog post lightly and has taken several days in fact to bring together concepts and ideas.  Otherwise I hope you enjoy.

How to open, this has been a debate for me for several days now, but I decided to start at the start, the very beginning of what we know of human beings.

Unlike our ape cousins we stood up, in doing so we changed everything, we were omnivores that allowed us to take advantage of multiple food sources during the seasons and in different parts of the world.  But we had something else, the opposing thumb, it allowed us to use tools, and in doing so our brain evolved.  As man got more successful we did something that no other species on earth has done successfully.  We traded, ideas, tools, weapons, jewellery and hundreds of other products.

We became adaptive, we spread from Africa through Europe Asia and the rest of the world, peoples became diverse and varied dependent on the environments in which they lived.  But more importantly that genetic variance ensured that during the greatest disasters that man was able to survive. 

We have been pushed to the brink many times, changes in weather and climate, ice ages, warming and cooling periods, through war and pestilence and we are still here today the most dominate of all species on earth, but are we smart enough to  ensure our own existence past this period by leaving earth for good?

Man is master of his world, he rebuilds after disaster, he rebounds after threats, and his cleverness has allowed us to reach for the stars, cure diseases and build weapons so devastating that only one nation has ever used them in Anger. 

  Welcome to the Human being.

We are a sum of all the above and more, our genetic variance has seen us recover from events that have wiped out apes and other hominids.  But its these variations that have seen some of the greatest crimes against our own kind.

We like to fight, we like to scrap, and we like to go to war.  We hold ourselves to the highest ideals but in the end it will be the strongest that stands not those with the moral High ground.  To make things more interesting is the fact that we are very good at waging war on each other, with the second world war killing between 25 million and 70 million people, most of those non combatants.  

The atrocities against the Jews that we promised we would never allow to happen again has.  In places like USSR, Cambodia, Africa.  We stood by.  Why ?  There was no gain to the trading empire that we had built.  Humans are violent, we are untrustworthy, we are underhanded, we are sneaky and only look out for our own interests.

But we have amazing traits of humanity, of selfless sacrifice, and providing help and service when no one else can.  It starts with helping the family then the friends then the community then the state then the country then the rest of the world.  Selfless religious orders that work with the sick and dying, who provide safe havens for those the world wishes to destroy.  The friendly priest, or religious leader who dedicated his or her life in service.  Our world would be a far more horrible and brutal place without the humanity of those who give of themselves for the betterment of others.

Im reminded of a picture I saw a a child of a man getting out of a limousine in front of a very top end hotel.  To the left a woman in a plain white T-shirt and Jeans is handing out blankets to the homeless man in the alley way.  That image has stuck with me my whole life, it helps me to remember what I have, and what I have to lose. 

In the end Human Beings are incredible animals our individual ability to forward humanity into a new age has never been unleashed in a way it has now.  Our invention of the internet and the ability to make ideas a reality because of that has brought us into an golden age.  Our wealth of knowledge continues to accelerate at rates that have been unheard of in human history and I would like to think, that we will leave this rock for the stars, first as explorers then as settlers, and in doing so ensure that we continue to survive for many thousands