The Living in the Service of the Non-Living

The living are human beings, who have an unusual way of relating to the world around them. We have Language, that allows us to think about the world - and adapt to it rapidly. About two million years ago, we appeared in East Africa - and soon appeared everywhere in the world, except Antarctica. There were not many of us, but we were everywhere - one animal among many others, speaking hundreds of languages.

We soon realized, we could invent tools that would make us more successful. Take careful note of this fact - our minds had come up with the idea of success. Our most important idea - that was going make us something else entirely.

What we would become, we had no idea - but we had to find out! And this still applies today - we don't know what we will become, for better or worse. But we are finding out - at an ever-increasing pace!

We next became civilized - and became something else entirely. What we became, we are still not sure - but different entirely. And not always better. Some of us began to think about what we had become (they became Philosophers) - but they started too late, and the Roman Empire collapsed. And this collapse lasted a thousand years.

We had failed, our first big failure. The pattern became familiar - boom, and then bust.  A pattern we were helpless to prevent. Something much bigger than us, was in control.

With the Industrial Revolution, this big something became more visible - with its machines everywhere. And global warfare. We now speak of Globalization - but it began then, in the 19th Century. And eventually led to the development of the Atomic Bomb, in the 20th Century.

And the development of the Computer, a new kind of machine entirely. It is too soon to tell how successful we will be, in adapting to it.