It’s worse than inconvenient. It’s devastating and inevitable. Our quest for satisfaction is rapidly depleting the resources needed for our descendants to satisfy needs, desires, comforts, etc. Our institutions (religions, governments, schools) reflect our primitive tribal instincts and so cannot respond rationally. Astrophysical and geological events will destroy us even if we could respond rationally.
Given these facts: What matters? What should we care about? What should we do with our temporary existence? I would argue that suffering matters, that we should care about and try to minimize unnecessary suffering. That would be worthwhile.
Most suffering is out of our control. Wild sentient animals suffer much of the time with hunger, fear, exposure, disease, parasites, injury, etc. Western societies generally recognize a duty to treat domesticated animals humanely. Modern medicine is advanced though poorly distributed. But we haven’t figured out how to prevent crime and war. We harm each other unnecessarily and often regrettably. We don’t have the institutions to address the suffering coming our way due to over consumption and resource depletion. Every effort to address this problem is met with political opposition. The promise of tax breaks prevails over reason. No political system and no religious movement promises better outcomes.
We need a new institution built with new technology.
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