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A man can do what he wants, but not will what he wants.
Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they’ll never sit in.
“What is it we’re all going after?” There has never been a vote about our collective purpose.
By the time we developed a taste for meat, we were already building weapons to catch more meat. By the time we were on our feet, we were building machinations to carry us faster. There wasn't even a thousand years between our realising the stars were teeming with new worlds to discover, and the building of machines to go and visit them. All our stupidity and violence, we took it out into the black, tucked away under mathematics and uniforms. Sapiens made it to the heavens. The animals came too, hiding inside us.
Where there are tyrants, we’ll bring death. Where there are no tyrants, we’ll call them tyrants and we’ll bring death. Where there is anarchy, we’ll bring laws. Where there is no anarchy, we’ll call it anarchy and we'll bring laws.
We're still slaves to our evolutionary roots, unfortunately. And evolution didn't have much interest in making us happy creatures.
We really are still up against the old problem: shall we be clever or happy?