Three (3) mistakes and you are out of touch with reality.

Now that we number in the billions and most of us live in cities, we owe it all to science and industry and modern infrastructure. Most have never learned this or have now forgotten… that is our first mistake.

We owe our continued species-survival to a steady stream of problem-solving, but above all, recognizing that some risks are ‘existential’ and putting those in a class by themselves, on the top of the worry-heap. Throughout history people in all walks of life and all ages knew of these risks and they were a staple of conversation. But in modern times children are kept inside childhood bubbles where the world is a perfect place with no danger, then as they mature they are encouraged to just “follow their dream”… as if mankind is not faced with any danger of real importance. Failing to identify existential risks and introducing children these ideas at a young age, which would have nurtured in them a natural desire to attack these problems… that is our second mistake.

Now we have compounded the second mistake by moving far away from our families more often than staying close to them. Existential risks and lofty goals are best communicated from the oldest to the youngest. This skip-a-generation connection has been broken and grandparents are now merely acquaintances, where they once had real day-to-day influence.

Even worse, our arbitrary separation of adult-things and child-things has upset the natural balance and backfired. I observe that there is less real communication between parent and child than ever before. In nurturing our children we have also provided them free access to networks, and not surprisingly they choose to spend their whole childhood communicating with other children. Child-adult interaction with family and with strangers, once common throughout human civilization, has altogether ceased. Many of these children who only communicated with other children have become adults who act like children. And these ‘children’ are raising children who are often more mature than their parents.