One Apple A Day #254
“Unfortunately, the evolutionary perspective is an incomplete measure of success. It judges everything by the criteria of survival and reproduction, with no regard for individual suffering and happiness.” — Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
For nature or evolution, humanity is a huge success. Evolution measure success of a species as the number of copies of DNA available on the planet. And we did pretty well on this matter. World population doubled in the last 40 years or so.
Yet, this success as species tells us nothing about our success as individuals.
Humanity achieves incredible new results at an increased speed. Technological innovation is bringing new opportunities to improve the life of everyone. Yet, how often are we considering what it means for an individual to be successful? When we push humanity forward, thanks to our innovation effort, are we thinking to the individuals we are leaving behind?
Our biological needs are elementary. Our emotional needs maybe are more complicated, but that’s because we made them like this. I won’t feel happy without a lot of things that I have, and I don’t need to live, but they satisfy my emotional needs. And these needs are intangible. They are projections of my mind and the results of collective beliefs.
We already live in the Matrix, but we created it. Not the machines.
I don’t even know what I am trying to say. I think I’m just shocked by the understanding that we make our life complicated and then we got stressed to keep up with it. And I don’t know if there is any way to break this circle.