The Direction of Human History

 (An edited version of the essay below was published on 6th March 2022 as the lead letter in the Economist magazine. It deeply saddens me that I have had to write such words which still apply in Aug 2025) 

I find it reassuring that, from my experience, the vast majority of humanity has already chosen not to make war, but chosen  a peaceful co-existence with their fellow sapiens. The major problem, highlighted by tensions over Ukraine, is how those peaceful people get rid of the minority of people who choose to use force and violence to increase their  power and status. How do you control someone who points a gun in your face?.

 The direction of  humanity will be decided if it can stop such people. But how?

 If a tyrant  gets elected, by making popular  promises of short term gain for their electorate, you may think that  using the law to expose their corruption or illegal activity will bring them to heel. But the law  and constitutions are human constructs, which can be  changed to suit those in power, and judges can be manipulated with rewards and bribes.

You could try protests on the streets, but these  don’t seem to work. Leaders will just send in the police as in Hong Kong and Belarus or tanks as in Tiananmen Square.  

Will spreading the truth about those in power control their behaviour? No chance, as speaking out will get you branded as a terrorist trying to cause harm to society. Arrest and a long term in jail will follow, which silences you and deters others.

Perhaps people should vote for different people at the next election, but it will probably be too late by then, as the opposition has been locked up  and voting  rigged  so that real change is impossible.

Perhaps feminism can exert soft power over powerful men? Well this has never happened in the past and would need a massive show of girl power to work.

Don’t look to religion for help either, religious leaders have never done anything in the past, as they are too intermeshed with the elites, to want the status quo to change. They think some supernatural, made up force will sort it all out  anyway. After 2000 years where has religion got us?

Will the freedoms and anarchy  of the internet  promote free speech and  enable the people to co ordinate and rise up against the oppressors? Well not if it is constantly monitored and controlled by those in power. Once in power the elite who have no shame to use force are proving very hard if not impossible to shift by their own people.

So international help is needed from  other peaceful countries imposing sanctions, but this is a long game, and if you look at North Korea seems to have no end. Also Sanctions only have the effect of harming the peaceful majority of people rather than the uncaring leadership, who continue to live in isolation, luxury and delusion. I’m sure Mr Putin knows that Russia will be worst off economically if he invades Ukraine, but I doubt if he cares. He will still be in power, living in luxury and wealth, convinced that his world view is correct. As long as his army obeys him, nothing can stop him, and his army is currently busy a long way away from Moscow, dealing with other matters. No the uncomfortable and inconvenient truth is, that the only way to stop dictators is by an internal coup (which will probably just replace one dictator with another) or by meeting violence with violence ie threatening war.

 After all, wasn’t the modern version of democracy born from war during the French revolution, American war of independence and the English Civil war? And what happened to the first democracy in Greece when the Spartan's and Macedonian's turned up? Historians go quiet on that one. Democracy is not the default setting for human societies.

 If the free world wants to stop Putin and protect the fledgling democracy in Ukraine, it will have to threaten to meet force with force and treat Ukraine as if it is already a Full member of Nato with all it’s implications of possible imminent nuclear war. I’m sure that everyone reading this will find this statement shocking, but what other way is there? Many in the past have fought for freedom, is our time to stand up for what we value fast approaching?

 Hitler was elected by a free and fair election , and if Trump had had an organised paramilitary wing he could at this very moment be the first dictator of the USA. The destiny of humanity is most definitely in all of our hands. The Question is not what to choose but how to act.

  

Invisible Rivals?

 I’ve just read a book called “Invisible Rivals - how we evolved to compete in a co-operative world” by Jonathan R Goodman. This is the first book I’ve read that acknowledges humans have evolved the capacity to act co operatively, but also competitively, as they mainly act in their own self interest. I totally agree with this premise, and even my partner (who is far wiser than me) said “isn’t that obvious?” so I strongly recommend the book. 

If you have dived into my blog (thanks for being so brave) you may have come across my thoughts that run parallel with Mr Goodman’s. In response to life’s problems we have the capacity to choose different strategies  because we do have free will and the mental ability to assess likely outcomes if we engage our frontal cortex. Ie think before acting. Being co operative is best, but deep down our biological drive to reproduce with the best genes means we all complete in the mating game for the sake of our offspring. Mr Goodman describes this wonderfully in his book which highlights how we are all invisibly exploiting one another to get ahead. Life is a mix of hidden Darwinian competition and Kropotkin’s more visible mutual aid. 

However, I cannot help but think that the book is a product of a younger generation that has grown up with the internet and social media as a integral part of their lives. Thinking about all the people I have encountered during my life time, I would not describe them as exploitative. I would describe them as collaborative. But the book more accurately fit’s the online world, where trust is breaking down, and anonymity enables uncaring exploitative relationships to develop with out social constraints. Is the exploitative behaivour invisible in the real world as the author suggests? Or is this an expression of a mild form of paranoia, rooted in a socialist fear of capitalism? Or am I just lucky to have only met nice people in my 60+ years of life on this beautiful planet? 

Highlighting that humans are both competitive and cooperative is obviously correct, but the balance between the two is not set in stone. The balance is different for different people, different cultures and different circumstances. It is always changing, This important fact is not made clear in the book and I was left with the worrying idea that humans are more exploitative than cooperative. Perhaps this is only because the author is promoting his “new” idea and has to focus on the exploitive, but I feel it is just an expression of the authors bias. My bias is that people all over the world are far more co operative than competitive, but in exposing our potential for competition the author should be highly commended for attempting to shift human nature to being more cooperative.

Further thoughts 

If the laws of physics are universal, then they also apply to human behaviour - after all, humans are a complex mix of chemical reactions and electron exchanges. Therefore the second law of thermodynamics applies and humans are always going to increase entropy. In his book molecular storms, Liam Graham describes life as a very efficient “engine” increasing entropy and evolution is driven by producing ever more efficient “engines“ or life forms. Certainly energy hungry humans are the most efficient creators of disorder on the planet. This needs to be understood by evolutionary biologists and perhaps worked into their theories of human behaviour. It would certainly explain humanities great difficulty to give up burning fossil fuels (which increases entropy more efficiently than renewable energy sources) and building energy hungry data centres to use our computers. Humanities energy consumption keeps increasing year on year.

Finally, with humans use of contraception which has freed up women’s lives from being constantly pregnant and a life of child rearing, are evolutionary processes no longer applicable to human behaviour? Birth rates are falling in richer countries as people choose not to have kids and this does not fit evolutionary theory. If this trend continues, will the human race shrink and ultimately go extinct? This seems unlikely, but evolutionary biologists applying their theories to human behaviour need to think if these theories are still applicable.