The Gods Must Be Crazy

There is a quirky, funny 1980 movie with this title about a bushman who lived in the Kalahari Desert. One day he discovers a coke bottle that was accidentally dropped by a passing airplane. Knowing nothing of airplanes beyond their sound and vapor trails, having never seen anything like this bottle before, he assumes it is a gift from the Gods. So he takes it back to his tribe, where they create all sorts of new uses for the bottle.

Now, beyond an amusing premise, the life of this bushman and his tribe probably seems to represent a lost time and land that could not be more distant and different from yours. While once true, the distance and differences are about to disappear.

We are all descendants of and immigrants from the Great Rift Valley in Africa

Over millennia we humans left Africa and settled throughout the world. In the process we learned how to excel at toolmaking and advanced to the top of the planet’s food chain. From there we created more tools that enabled us to advance knowledge to the point where we had developed a truly dynamic global civilization.

But what was the point?

On the one hand, this bushman and you represent lifestyle extremes. Yet both he and you want to survive and be safe. You both want to belong to a caring group and be respected for who you are. And, both want to be free to be whatever you want to be and be able to do it. For the bushman, however, this last self-actualizing aspect of life is seriously constrained.

The constraint emanates from the fact that civilization is a technology of technologies. Every technology created has mutated and evolved in parallel with us to give us ever more and better self-actualizing options. It is the diversity and abundance of these options that gives us the freedom and capability to live the life we want the way we want. It is, however, an innate human ambition. So, the bushman has it, too.

What goes around comes around

Despite xenophobia, fundamentalist zealots, racists, bigots, nationalists and ideologues, we all originate from the same latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates with an identical genomic heritage. That most of us have seen an image of this blue dot against the black vastness of the cosmos should highlight our intimacy. That it all too often does not is a marvel of willful blindness or idiocy.

Inherent in every technology is this same paradox. That whatever the original purpose every technology can be used for good or ill. A knife can aid a surgeon save a life or enable a disturbed person take one. In this respect it is quite fortunate for us all that technology is not yet self-aware.

Yet, despite our mix of myopia and hubris, neglect and idiocy, technology is an indefatigable Panspermian force. Like water permeating every pore in the planet, and lava creating new land for it to explore, technology spreads and expands with a cosmic manifest destiny. This, like or not, ready or not, means the bushman in the Kalahari is about to become us. The gods must be crazy.

There’s a place for us. A time and place for us. Hold my hand and we’re halfway there.

From writing came books. From the abacus came computing. From Jacquard came software. From Marconi came the smartphone. From the Library of Alexandria came the World Wide Web.

We can now communicate with anyone anywhere anytime. If the bushman in the Kalahari wanted to speak with you, as a technical matter, it would be simple. As a practical matter, he does not know you, or how to locate your contact information. Perhaps more importantly, why would he want to talk to you and about what? In other words, wireless phones are great devices, but communication is secondary to some need or purpose.

We can now access information about anything ever known about human history or the universe. If the bushman in the Kalahari wants to access some information on the Web, as a technical matter, it would be simple. As a practical matter, however, he does not know how to evaluate the information he gets. Perhaps more importantly, he does not know whether it is appropriate for him to use it. In other words, accessing information the Web is great, but access to information is secondary to identifying useful, reliable knowledge.

When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are.

Communication can be clear and good, or difficult and useless. Information can be clear and good, or difficult and useless. No one wants to communicate with someone they do not care about, or about something they have no interest in. No one wants more information they do not care about, or that they have no interest in. In each instance, it would be a waste of time.

Life is short. We all need and seek out shortcuts to get to who and what we want and need, when we want and need them or it. What should be a wake-up call to us civilized folks is the fact that the bushman in the Kalahari knew this before we did. His daily survival and safety, and that of his tribe, depends on it.

Without giving up any options, we civilized souls have the technological ability to advance the bushman’s situation and our own at the same time. To do this we need to identify reliable knowledge in areas of life where reliable knowledge is important and useful. Then we need to separate the best from the rest so we can simply and easily obtain it on-demand. This should be a no-brainer. (Full disclosure, this is what my company provides.)

Thanks for the memory, of faults that you forgave, of rainbows on a wave.

The Roman god Janus had two faces, looking both to the past and the future to signify a beginning, a transition and an ending. Humanity is on the cusp of ending its journey from the Rift Valley to a kind of Shangri-la. But this next step is treacherous. If we succeed we become truly worthy of the name, Homo sapiens, wise people. But reaching this destination is far from a foregone outcome.

Technology also has a Janus face. While living in our shadow and evolving in parallel we dismissively operate on the assumption that it lacks ambition, needs and wants. It is tantamount to the bushman ignoring an approaching storm and the chaos it can create. Of course, he would never ignore it because he knows his survival and safety are in jeopardy. We civilized folks are less mindful of risks on the horizon.

Humanity has always been in a race to survive. Technology has been our companion. We are easily distracted and often complacent. Technology always has an eye on the horizon and never wavers in its intensity. In helping the bushman we help ourselves in this race. Who could have imagined. The gods must be crazy.

If you enjoyed this post, please recommend it, and click the hearth ♡ icon below.

You can share this wherever and recommend to whomever you like. My only request is you keep the “learn more” links to my website at the end of every article you republish or share.

You can learn more about my work at https://medium.com/a-passion-to-evolve or my website http://www.dochuston1.com/ You can also find me on Linked-in.

In any case, may you live long and prosper.