Humanity, I have found, looks best from the perspective of 30,000 feet. I’ve never tired of the God-like view of man’s works one gets from a plane window: the geometric symmetry of farms, with their precise circles and rectangles; the intricate lacework of roads and highways; the tiny cars and trucks, windshields glinting in the sun; the teeming anthills of cities, dense with hundreds of years of accumulated ambition, ingenuity, and industry. From on high, we human beings seem so numerous, and so…busy. In 10,000 B.C., there were just 5 million people on Earth; it took until A.D. 1800 for there to be 1 billion. In just a few months, the United Nations announced this week, the global population will reach 7 billion. Can we keep going? Will we finally destroy ourselves with our busyness, and ruin the planet we cover like kudzu?
There are so many reasons to be pessimistic. As the stories in this magazine make clear this and every week, human beings are largely driven by the same primitive, tribal impulses that governed us in 10,000 B.C. We slaughter one another in appalling numbers. We’re petty and selfish and shortsighted. We routinely fall prey to gobsmacking stupidity. And yet, whenever it has seemed darkest, heroes and geniuses and visionaries have stepped forward to awaken what’s best in us, and we have continued on, a bit better than before. By 2100, the U.N. guesses, about 10 billion people will share the Earth. As financial advisers say, past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, but my bet is that our species will be as busy as ever at century’s end, and that the view from 30,000 feet will be more impressive still.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Editor's letterfeature
-
Editor's letter: Are college athletes employees?
feature The National Labor Relations Board's decision deeming scholarship players “employees” of Northwestern University has many worrying that college sports itself will soon be history.
-
Editor's letter
feature
-
Editor's letter: When a bot takes your job
feature Now that computers can write news stories, drive cars, and play chess, we’re all in trouble.
-
Editor's letter: Electronic cocoons
feature Smartphones have their upside, but city streets are now full of people walking with their heads down.
-
Editor's letter: The real cause of income inequality
feature When management and stockholders pocket all the profits, the middle class falls further behind.
-
Editor's letter: The real reason you’re so forgetful
feature When you consider how much junk we’ve stored in our brains, it’s no surprise we can’t remember our PINs.
-
Editor's letter: Ostentatious politicians
feature The McDonnells’ indictment for corruption speaks volumes about the company elected officials now keep.