Destroying ourselves

We are destroying ourselves. A lot of us already know this. Every natural system is in decline. We are polluting the air, water, soil, everything. Scientists are talking about the hole in the ozone layer, about global warming, about the oil spill catastrophes and peak oil, about top soil erosion, about the mass extinction we are currently causing, and they are suggesting ways in which to combat these problems.

What scientists don't see is that all these problems are caused by this system, the consumerist society we have created, where we exploit finite resources in an insane way. We are not thinking about the future. We are brainwashing each other to consume more to keep this system going, even if we don't need most of these things. We are blinded by material goods so we don't really think about the world, about nature. We have created huge trash piles, just for the sake of consumerism, it is extremely wasteful.

If we are stupid enough to destroy ourselves, we deserve our fate. I'm ashamed to be a human. There is more poverty now than there has ever been. More people are starving than there ever have. This system is killing more people than Hitler or Stalin ever did, it's killing more people than the Second World War did, even if this system caused it (indirectly) by the Great Depression. People in poor countries are poor because they don't have money, not because there are not enough resources on this Earth for them to live decently. Money, this coloured paper, this religion we have created, is destroying so much, so many lives. Why can't we see this?

We will all die eventually, one by one or all at once. Does it matter how it happens? I believe it does. If there is only a slight chance to destroy ourselves, we should change the system. We should live in a world where nuclear war is impossible, where terrorism and murder and violence don't exist. We can create that world, we really can, but we don't seem to want it enough to do something about it.

We can't really destroy the world, we can only destroy ourselves. We don't have the technology to disintegrate the whole planet. We might get it to the point where it's not suitable for most life, but life will find a way, some bacteria and some insects will thrive even on a world that's toxic for us and most life, and even radioactive. Some people jokingly say the cockroaches will inherit the world in the eventuality of nuclear war. They might be right in a way. There are lots of life forms that are very resistant to radiation. So, we may console ourselves with the thought that life will survive.

Some people are eagerly awaiting the end of the world because they have some religious notions about this. They have been brainwashed by religion to believe that paradise awaits them after death. A religious ruler of a technologically developed country can try to provoke the end of the world because of religious reasons.

The end will come, sooner or later, but it matters if it will be caused by us or by natural phenomena. There is a difference between destroying ourselves out of ignorance or stupidity and being destroyed by a natural event. This is our choice.

I am amused by movies in which aliens come to destroy us or robots destroy us. We don't need such things, we are doing a good job ourselves.