Oceans change continually, the world changes constantly. Everything in our world is changing as well whatever our species does and whatever you do.
And it will continue to change fast. Most likely faster.
In the confines of your Micro World, your immediate surroundings, family, work, play, whatever, change happens all the time and you notice. It’s in your face — moving house or country, losing/finding a loved one or starting a new job, or just looking at your mobile device (it stopped being just a phone a few years ago) whatever it is, change has a big impact on us.
But so do changes outside of our Micro-World — in the big wide world, we have less control over change and and how it affects us and it happens very quickly. So quickly in fact we often don't notice until we find a reminder. Open a drawer and there’s your first mobile phone or somebody mentions a Polaroid even.
That’s all about change/evolution and it is inevitable - but we have a problem.
These developments are outpacing human evolution.
Humans are not keeping up with the changes very well at all. We have developed foods that make us ill, polluted the planet to the extent that some people are having trouble breathing, developed weapons capable of destroying us all in the name of peace, there is still famine and we have to face up to global warming.
We have amazing technology, inconceivable developments only a few years ago. But we are not really coping very well. The hosepipes of technology showering us with information and knowledge. Everything at our finger tips — literally, screaming for attention and action.
But we have not developed the physical and mental capacities to deal with all that has changed. These amazing bodies and brains that we all possess are becoming ill equipped for the job. We are just not keeping up with what we are developing. Humans don't take a few years to change, to evolve, it takes thousands of years and that is a timescale that just doesn't sit well with current developments.
Our world is developing like crazy - Moore's Law, 10X and Exponential Organisations, but we are not keeping up as a species.
Our mental and physical capacities are not developing fast enough to cope. We need to spend more time thinking and learning how to deal with the environment we are creating and its impact on us and the planet, rather than rushing headlong into an abyss.
There is a danger of extinction by the evolution of our ‘progress’ without us evolving as a species to cope. Extinction — The fate that has befallen so many species that failed to adapt.
Adapt or die?
But as so much is unique about Humans on planet Earth, will we also be unique in being the only species to bring about our own extinction when we have the wit to do otherwise?
So we are between Rock and a Hard Place, either slow down the pace of our change or step up the pace of our own evolution. That really will take some smart thinking.
Or does ‘Singularity’ approach a bit faster than we think?
Answers on a postcard anybody? Remember those?