The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
You can also look at it from the point of view that life is a miraculous event in an unbelievably large universe and that we should treat every person and every living thing on this tiny planet with all the care and humanity we can achieve. Because as far as we know at the moment, it’s the only life we know of.
It’s basically the philosophical perspective I learned from reading the writing of Carl Sagan.
If we all just began thinking that there is no mystical religion or magical realm beyond this life but instead realize that this existence is the only reality we will ever know … that it is just a completely random miracle that we even exist and are aware of it … than maybe we would look at each other and every living thing in a completely different way. If we knew that this is the only time we have, we’d probably treat each other a lot differently than the way we are now.
Think of it on a smaller scale: kids who treat their classmates like shit in order to be “the best” in a small town. The achievement isn’t great, but the cruelty is still significant.
Turns out every successful empire is actually just a successful cult.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Following the same logic, killing all those people isn’t that bad since they are small
This doesn’t hold up.
Depends on how you want to look at it
You can also look at it from the point of view that life is a miraculous event in an unbelievably large universe and that we should treat every person and every living thing on this tiny planet with all the care and humanity we can achieve. Because as far as we know at the moment, it’s the only life we know of.
This is a good comment. Thank you for your perspective !
It’s basically the philosophical perspective I learned from reading the writing of Carl Sagan.
If we all just began thinking that there is no mystical religion or magical realm beyond this life but instead realize that this existence is the only reality we will ever know … that it is just a completely random miracle that we even exist and are aware of it … than maybe we would look at each other and every living thing in a completely different way. If we knew that this is the only time we have, we’d probably treat each other a lot differently than the way we are now.
Think of it on a smaller scale: kids who treat their classmates like shit in order to be “the best” in a small town. The achievement isn’t great, but the cruelty is still significant.