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Flying analogy
Sep. 30th, 2006 12:20 amThe flight of a bird is a tenuous, fragile-seeming thing. It relies on the complex interplay of eddies and vortices working out just so, to keep the bird oriented right and balance out both gravity and drag forces. And yet flying is, in fact, an incredibly robust survival strategy. To choose just one obvious example: where other creatures run and hide, birds can always be seen flitting brazenly from tree to rooftop to power-line no matter how many humans are around.
Similarly, human nature may not permit us to build any civilization that maintains freedom, justice, and equality on truly strong, stable foundations. Instead, we may have to learn to fly, in the sense of balancing unstable forces until it becomes second nature, and the potential catastrophes surrounding us in almost every direction simply hold no terror for us anymore.
It would help a lot if we knew, as DNA does, that we had more than one chance at this: if a single bird falls, the species and Class Aves as a whole will go on. And despite globalization, the same may be true of individual human societies, but I'll feel a lot better once we establish some serious space colonies.
Similarly, human nature may not permit us to build any civilization that maintains freedom, justice, and equality on truly strong, stable foundations. Instead, we may have to learn to fly, in the sense of balancing unstable forces until it becomes second nature, and the potential catastrophes surrounding us in almost every direction simply hold no terror for us anymore.
It would help a lot if we knew, as DNA does, that we had more than one chance at this: if a single bird falls, the species and Class Aves as a whole will go on. And despite globalization, the same may be true of individual human societies, but I'll feel a lot better once we establish some serious space colonies.
