Extinction

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I’ve been thinking about the universe and what matters most. I begin with the knowledge that planet earth is just a small speck in a much, much larger universe, and while scientists debate the existence of a multiverse a la Marvel comics, all we know for sure is that this universe began with a bang, we have no idea what was happening before the bang which was theoretically before there was time, but since the bang, our universe has been expanding, with galaxies accelerating away from each other. In a couple of billion years if humans are still around the night sky will be dark as the stars will be too far away for us to see. Much more locally, our sun will eventually consume all the energy it has, and become a red giant that will be so large earth will be consumed. That is probably about 5 billion years away, but even so, it is coming. Planet earth will end. The universe will not notice. If humans are still around we will become extinct like all other life on this little blue marble.

So if we know that is our eventual future what should we be doing now? IMHO, we should start doing everything we can to preserve and improve our only planet and we should be doing everything we can to find another place to live. Failure to do either will end us. There will be no other life forms who will ever discover the existence of humanity and all we mucked up and accomplished. When 7 billion or more humans drop to their knees and pray for a god to save us, nothing will happen and we will finally accept that we made gods in our own image, then we will become extinct.

If my assumptions are true, and there is no evidence that they are flawed, then as a species we must learn to cooperate, tolerate and embrace humanity. No one nation can avoid these eventualities. What we consider “good” and “evil” must be redefined. We must accept that anything that benefits me but hurts you, or hurts others, or hurts the planet is evil. We must accept that collaboration is powerful, dictatorships, my way or the highway, top-down decision-making is evil. We must embrace each other regardless of race, gender, gender identity, beliefs, and income. When the end comes no one will care who has the most money or the most toys.

Organizations that grow rich at the expense of the planet must be seen as evil. We must stop global warming or we will never have the opportunity to find another place to live. That will turn economies and our social class system upside down, but upside down is better than not around.

And at the simplest level, we must honor truth, we must honor each other, and we must not insist on having our own way. We must, we absolutely must, recognize we are one species on one planet and we are racing to extinction. We have no time for the KKK, for Oath Keepers, Putin, Xi, Trump, or their ilk. Honoring those who would seek power and wealth is evil and is condemning us even faster.

5 billion years may seem like a long time to get our act together. I think getting our act together requires action much sooner than that. We may only have 100 years or so before our planet becomes uninhabitable.

So vote.