Crossroads of History

By: Ethan Wong

Our planet has existed for more than 4.5 billion years, has seen 6 mass extinctions and countless eons of fanciful fauna and flora. Humans have only been around for 0.0066% of it. However, what’s truly amazing is that we’ve become the most successful species ever in that time. In 300,000 yrs we’ve outcompeted lifeforms that have had more time to develop, despite not having scales, claws, not being able to fly, not being able to swim/run quickly, not having supervision/hearing, etc., humankind has become the undisputed master of this world. Against ‘insurmountable’ odds, humans have prevailed, survived, and thrived from the demise of other creatures, and are close to near-total control of our planet.

A question that has defined our existence is: why is this? How have humans emerged as the leading species on this planet? Most importantly, what makes us different? Are we/our accomplishments good or bad for this planet?

In our lives right now, the most striking thing is our level of co-operation. No other species can work together to produce works of art, best-selling novels, transportation methods, and space rockets. Our ancestors knew the power of co-operation and developed methods of communication and ways to motivate thousands to work together across generations, using their imagination and the ability to think of things that don't exist. Think about the world we live in today; it’s built on so many labels that give objects imagined value: such as a thin slip of paper that can magically be exchanged for a desired object; whose value depends on a number printed upon its surface.

Yet, what’s different from our ancestors is the scale of this cooperation; our ancestors formed social groups of hundreds, while we formed communities of billions. But throughout history, what stands out isn’t our accomplishments with that co-operation, but the horrors that we have caused on a scale this planet has never seen. Our world is riddled with so many problems; many of which persist despite our efforts.

I want to believe that people are fundamentally good and can learn from ‘mistakes,’ but some of those mistakes were so evil that I can’t imagine how they would have thought about it in the first place. Is humanity truly moving in the right direction if we allow things such as WWI/WWII, the Holocaust, Berlin Wall, Segregation, etc. to happen? Even if wars are getting less and less common, the War in Ukraine is proof that the evils of war still blight us today. But sometimes the worst of times can bring out the best in some people and spread ideas and innovations. Perhaps history is simply a succession of ‘noble’ failures leading to revolutionary developments?

Yet, these events seem very disconnected and separate from day-to-day life. Sometimes the sufferings of a few people close to you have a bigger impact than large-scale tragedies, such as the 80 million people who died in the world wars. Nowhere is the fact more self-evident than when thinking about the current pandemic (I wrote this in early 2021 but updated the statistics): Nearly 7 million have died from Covid-19. Yet there are people still refusing to vaccinate themselves to protect others, "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." -Josef Stalin/Kurt Tucholsky. What does this tell us about ourselves?

Perhaps this is what’s special about humans; that even though we form ‘social groups’ of 100 people, we can form immense imagined orders that affect millions across the globe and cooperate with strangers we’ve never met. I’ve mentioned before how impossible it is that we’re in the position that we are now, dominating the world. What if it wasn’t that impossible in the first place; is intelligence our special trait?

What speaks to me throughout history are the people with this intelligence who have united countries and their people, leading them to achieve heights that on the surface seem impossible, making decisions that have impacted our world today. The present might seem dull compared to the awe-inspiring explorations and discoveries of the past. Yet, we are living in the most productive 200 years in history. In two centuries, we’ve leaped from swords to nuclear weapons. 50 years ago, Apollo 11’s computer landed on the moon with less memory than a box you can carry in your pocket. If our hunter-gatherer ancestors had had access to this technology/innovation, where would we be today? More importantly, what can this teach us about the future?

These insights/ideas lead me to think about one thing more than anything: Is history a series of crossroads that humanity is currently traveling through? How can we act in a way that will make humans of the future look back; thinking that we made the right choice and took the right path?

We like to think that the world we live in now is better than the one before, but the world that we’ve created is one that’s really cruel to a lot of other living creatures (including other humans) that are suffering, starving, or homeless because of us. We’ve started the aforementioned 6th extinction and are causing species to disappear forever.

Perhaps history can be thought of like a storybook without an ending, one that we are currently living in and capable of radically changing. It’s up to us to make sure that our chapter is one that future generations will look back on as one of the turning points that transformed our world. It needs to become one where all creatures have equal value, where we respect our planet which has given us so much, and a place where everyone can live happily ever after.