History Repeats Itself

Unfortunately for human beings, we have a habit of repeating errors from the past. The course of human history is full of cycles of war and peace, conflict and harmony. If this section added anything to our understanding of climate change it is that it may serve as a regressive force, drawing us back from the modern age of relative peace to the dark ages of conflict. The scene on pages 274 and 275 is meant to make us remember the huge battles which have taken place in human history. It made me feel uneasy about the future. Will humanity, after advancing so far in such a short period of time and making the world more peaceful than ever before, be thrust back into large scale conflicts? We may be repeating the same mistakes as the great empires in history. We get too large, too confident in ourselves, and willfully complacent in the face of impending difficulties. The only difference may be that instead of neighboring kingdoms or corruption being our downfall, mother nature will be. It’s a shame it has to be this way because as humans we are the architects of our planet and our destiny, and it is within our power to make a change. I use the word architect because the image on page 294 of all the different tv screens reminded me of a scene in The Matrix: Reloaded, where Neo meets the architect who controls the matrix through all his different screens.

Perhaps the Earth has a natural limit on how much humans can develop and the history of fallen civilizations may prove true once again, but only if we let it.