Regarding the Age of (Super)Man, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Anthropocene
Part I: Introduction
It is always fascinating to learn of kindred wavelengths in the expression of the mind!
Tragically, however, most folk are quite averse to be exposed to evidence contrary to their beliefs; call it confirmation bias, as Kahneman did, or some other stripe of cognitive bias that seeks to avoid dissonance at the most private of experiential realms. In history and mythology, this foolhardiness has stood as a pillar of hubris, that fatal streak running through civilization’s endeavors.
To the cherished author of a piece partly inspired by bit of writing of my own (and to anyone else who cares to observe or participate in this exchange): please, do keep this in mind as you read along.
Mankind has excelled in the accumulation and transformation of energy, thereby allowing technological innovation, be it abstractly in pursuit of knowledge or materially in the creation of tangible goods. This process has reached its current acme in less than a tick of the clock if one is to measure time upon a geological scale, and, given the impact of humanity’s activity, that which has prompted the coinage of the Anthropocene as our geological era, such a purview seems entirely appropriate.
Beyond appropriate, in fact. What of all that innovation? What does it become at the hands of a veritable force of nature? The means whereby civilization reached its current state, at the dawn of awareness of its conduct as an existential threat to itself, are the same and only whereupon to draw in response to the whole of nature shifting.
What should we value now, as we face the uncertainty of change on a scale unbeknownst to the whole of life?
