Humans are smart.
Collectively, we’ve built a civilisation that would be unfathomable to our ancestors, made stunning technological advances.
But is that really a good thing?
“Humans have evolved a unique form of intelligence, with cognitive complexity unseen in other species. This has been the secret behind our agricultural, scientific and technological progress. It has let us dominate a planet and understand vast amounts about the universe.
But it has also brought us to the brink of catastrophe: climate change looms and a mass extinction is already under way, yet there is little sign of a concerted effort to change our ways.” – New Scientist, “World Turned Upside Down” – issue #3033, 2015
Humans are smart—but we’re also complex.
For all of our imagination and inventions and advancement, we’re also still partially ruled by our primitive brains. This is what drives our need for food and sex, gives us base reactions like anger, and motivations such as greed and jealousy.
We’ve evolved into beings capable of great intelligence, but what we create has to sit alongside our less desirable traits. It’s why we’re smart enough to invent the atom bomb, but stupid enough to actually use it on each other.
So, what will it take for our primitive brains to catch up to our intelligence?
Likely, it’s already happening at a faster rate than we realise. We live in what is arguably the most enlightened time in human history, thanks mainly to the connective powers of the internet. We have the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, but we also have something more important—access to each other.
Consider that for children growing up today in Australia, chatting with other kids in China and Russia and Alaska is the norm. Their exposure to other cultures and other ways of life is unprecedented.
Consider also the way that, after a major disaster or incident, most people flock to online forums like Facebook and Twitter, in order to discuss how they feel about these incidents with others, including strangers.
What this is fostering is a greater emotional intelligence, and greater interaction between humans. For all that people blame social media for ruining human interaction, it’s arguable that it has actually made that interaction deeper and more meaningful.
Of course, there is a darker side, where anger and negativity can be flamed in the same way. But even that teaches us to be more aware of these emotions in others and ourselves.
Humans are smart, and complex, and constantly evolving. While our intelligence may currently be our downfall, our growing emotional intelligence might just be our saviour.