Evolution, Environment and Us

Reality has influenced us through evolution and taken us across paths never thought imaginable. Fundamentally God has designed us in the image of Himself and through it, He has blessed us with the greatest of His acts: the act of creation and destruction. Bestowed to no other, except the human.

       This has directly led to our current predicament. The fundamentally impossible stand of humans against reality itself. We have forged this world and changed its landscape as we continue in our conquest of understanding. We may not understand all things that we are tampering with but we are continuing full speed ahead anyways.

Perhaps we have forgotten one of the great classics written in the English language; Frankenstein or alternatively The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. Though there are many points worth mentioning within the novel, one of its points is the runaway imagination of science itself and the reaction of mankind. We have nearly forgotten that lesson. Frankenstein’s monster was created from the mere curiosity of man but it lit up horror within the mind of mankind and his creation was a rejection of reality itself. It could be interpreted as an attempt to shape reality as man saw fit. What we desire rather than what we have. Today Frankenstein lives and the lessons of his monster are forgotten.

       This has one unfortunate consequence. Our shaping of reality also means that all that reality has shaped on earth is shaped in turn. i.e., we affect evolutionary patterns of ALL species. We are affecting the evolutionary patterns of humans themselves. This is perhaps not as recognized as it should be. We ourselves are slowly weeding out the weak and frail. Those that cannot survive with the new diseases, the new environmental disasters that we create ourselves are going to bring forth the next stage of our own evolution.

       I may not speak about this enough. Nietzsche was right, again and again his foresight astounds me. Our shaping of the patterns of evolution is us literally shaping the world in our image. Fundamentally altering the pathways decided by reality. At our current stage reversion is possible but it is nigh impossible. The speed at which we keep on altering our environment is not something that recognition alone will stop.

       Capitalism itself plays a role here. It’s exploitation of all that it sees, the all-consuming might of adaptive change comes into full force here. It too weeds weakness out. We have chosen our evolution. We have chosen our path. For good or for ill, we will overcome climate change and all other incoming disasters.

       Humanity will emerge triumphant once more. Shaped by the very cities, temples, institutions, and landscape that we crafted from our own hands. We will shape ourselves from the very roots of humanity. There is no choice, there is only fate. Amor fati my friends.