Happiness
How do you gauge the happiness of the human species — taken as a whole — now vs. 100, 200, 1,000, 4 million years ago? I’m not aware of any scientific study that has addressed that question (or possibly could). We know from recent studies that a greater percentage of the population is “unpartnered” than when the first study of this phenomenon was undertaken. What does this mean to our species? It has been recently postulated that in the last four million years of human evolution, two events have had a dramatic effect on the species perception of intimacy. The agricultural revolution and the internet revolution. Each of these watersheds, in their own way, have led us towards a decreased need for monogamous bonding and have (presumably) led to a decline in long term intimacy. This could potentially having a blow-back effect on reproductive trends.
Will the human race become extinct? Will a handful of people with the resources live forever and the rest of us die off? That is anybody’s guess. I think the real point here is happiness. Happiness will be the driving force which chooses our path as a species. Let us think about happiness and how important it is not only to our personal survival, but the survival of all of us.
I hope you find them useful, or perhaps even enjoy them.