The longer I am on this planet, the more I think that we are the stupidest albeit most talented species and are outdone, especially socially, by many other species already.
That pretty much since... the industrial revolution. Or since dynamite.
Prettt much since we ended up at the top of the food chain.
Thinking we will always be the top of the thinking food chain, is the height of hubris and by default, pretty stupid.
Species like delphins don’t have as many talents as we have yet they are at the top of the evolution and master everything in their existence... and pretty much also in their territory. With the exception of human intervention and destruction, obviously.
Socially, even the meerkat has a better - although at times also discriminatory - structure.
Humans? We merely are the proof that nature, earth, and evolution function perfectly. The repetitive cycle of self-destruction, also found among for example rabbits when there’s too many of them l, will repeat itself also with the human species.
Unless, of course, we can learn from history. But history taught us that we don’t really excel at that skill.
Maybe that is the problem, we aren't hungry and, nothing is hungrier than us. yet.
I think it is our limited capacity to understand consequences (or even pay attention to them) that holds us back. We seem to have lost our sense of responsibility to existence and instead live as if we are outside of the universe itself.
The question here is whether we ever expressed any responsibility to existence.
We’ve never been in situations like this and first event that comes to mind would be CFKs in the 90s.
Before that I can only think of the rise of (liberal not communist) socialism between both world wars and then in the 50s again. Although those weren’t responsibilities towards existence but towards human existence only.
It seems to me that we only run after the curve each time. We invent, create the next big thing and awareness of its damage/negatives happens only when it’s too late already.
Will graphene repeat be the same as plastics again? I wouldn’t love to see 50 years feasibility and sustainability studies on the material before endorsing and embracing it. But am I demanding too much when I do? Is my hope while rational too idealistic?
What might be interesting is using them as carbon traps. I don't know all the tech but some at least are great insulators so, could they be used as building materials and could the foundation material be pulled out polluted air?