Surviving Progress Page #2

unobservable phenomenon to explain the observable.

It's what's driven us to discover gravity,

it's what's driven us to probe

into the mysteries of quasars,

and it's the same thing that drives us

to probe into mysteries of each other

in our every day lifes.

'Why does she keep doing that?'

'Why does he keep behaving like that, he must think

this, he believe this, I don't understand...'

'Why, why, why, why...'

So the upside of the human

capacity that asks why,

to continuously probe behind appearances

and to try to find out how

the world really works

is we develop fabulous new medicines, fabulous new

therapeutic techniques to take care of people,

we invent the whole cascade

of modern technology.

But the downside is that

we invent the whole cascade

of modern technology.

Arguably we are the most intellectual

creature that ever walked on planet earth.

So how come then that so intellectual being

is destroying its only home,

because we only have the one home.

Maybe one day people will be on Mars, but

at the moment we've got planet earth.

We are destroying, we are polluting, we are

damaging the future of our own species

which is very counterproductive

from the evolutionary perspective.

This capacity that seems

so wonderful to us,

ability to ask 'why'

the very ability that

defines modern science

as a double-edge sword.

If humans go extinct on this planet

I think what's gonna be our

epitaph on our gravestone is:

'Why?'

We have the ability to

think into the future

but most of our mechanisms,

most of our brain mechanisms

evolved before we had any ability

to think forward to the future

and when it made some sense for

decisions to be short-term.

A lot of our brain mechanisms, what I call

ancestral mechanisms or reflexive mechanisms

are tuned to making snap decisions,

right away, like fight or flight

you see a lion, either you're

gonna fight or you gonna run

no time to think about

long-term consequences

and that's good when we're stressed about something

immediate that we can deal with, for example

but those very systems that work by reflex

are not so good at cooperating with these

more modern systems, deliberative systems

that allow us to make

long-term decisions, and say

is this good for me, is it good

for my society, for my planet.

NOT ENOUGH PLANETS

Between the fall of the Roman empire

and Columbus sailing it took 13 centuries

to add 200 million people

to the worlds population

now it takes only 3 years.

A simple thing like pasteurization, the warming

of milk so that the bacteria are killed

and the control of smallpox.

Things like that have led to a

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