Survival Is the Exception

This gem is from 20th Century American astronomer and philosopher Carl Sagan.

There is no reason to expect that organized human civilization will persist indefinitely, even under the best of circumstances.  And these aren’t exactly “the best of circumstances,” are they?

It’s possible that our experiment with democracy is at an end, as the United States is facing enormous internal pressures to join countries like Russia, China, Turkey and Hungary, not to mention the dozens of other autocracies.

If that’s the case, it will prove what many sages have been saying for the last 2500 years, i.e., that the common person is simply too stupid to govern himself.  (They probably put it more elegantly.)

It’s also possible that we’ve lost the battle to mitigate climate change and the other factors that could mean environmental collapse, before it’s too late.

Yet we all need to try our best.