Existential limits of hubris

Bruce Mau believes there’s no reason to believe our ancestors were kinder or better than us - there were simply fewer of them.

One key distinction of the modern era is scale. The world's population has more than quadrupled since 1900 - a massive acceleration in growth.

The other key distinction is technology, which amplifies our power to impact the environment. The scale of our impact can give us new insights into our relationship with nature.

We are finding that nature does not merely submit to our interventions, it also responds. Ultimately, that response - climate change, soil erosion, species extinction - will prove more powerful than any conceivable human technology.

Nature’s response to our activities now threatens to overwhelm us. We are ultimately reaching the existential limits of hubris.

Now is the time to radically rethink our status as a species, and to re-engineer our activities in order to reflect our true context within the natural world.