Cliff's Edge

I remember Bucky Fuller saying that civilization was right on the edge of a cliff: in a position to get better footing and save ourselves or to lose our footing and perish. (That was 1968 or so. He was speaking at Colby College in Maine where I was an instructor in the English department.) Bucky added that civilization had been seen to be on the edge of a cliff before. I saw all that to be true. But then Bucky added a point that really wowed me: he said that mankind was routinely on the edge of a cliff. It's not that we're imagining dangers: a little kid with a bogey man to worry about; the dangers are real, and it's mankind's signature trick to find a new threshold of danger as soon as the previous problems are solved.

New Threshold of Danger

So far we've been adequate to the task. And we've been lucky. It wasn't entirely luck: our not following other species march of oblivion relates to our abilities. But it wasn't entirely skill: a great deal of engineer's "redundancy" came with the environments we've come wrapped in. If we polluted that stream we found another stream; if we exhausted that resource, we found another resource. Plus ça change ...

There's nothing new about an oddball seeing danger and some priest of some church shouting him down to the flock:
Don't worry about a little sin. Buy me dinner and I'll see that God forgives you.
Don't listen to Galileo telling you that Jupiter has moons; listen to your church's denials, to the denials of your university professors ...
Don't pay any attention to your experience of the government's hand in your pocket, ignore the school board kidnapping and brainwashing your children; listen to the school ... and the government ... and the press ... and big business ... when all join hands and tell you, You're Free!!!

No. I think the cliff will win. Soon.