The question of human suffering throughout history has always perplexed me. Suffering continues to persist even after we have seen it happen in the past. Perhaps it is something deliberate, or some sadistic pleasure that we have evolved to like. Or maybe we are all just fools, for only a fool does the same thing twice and expects different results. We, humans, are the perfect examples of such fools.
I suppose each of our environments, our milieus, offers some insight into our habits and the traits that we as a species have allowed to propagate. Much like baboons, we stick to our tribes and expect others to bend to our will. We have gone so far as to make entertainment out of it. Maybe baboons are the evolved ones. After all, we have had two major wars (creatively dubbed World War I and its sequel, World War II). Yet, I still asked myself, was that the end? Is this the end of people suffering every day without food, a home to go to, or a day to look forward to? Nope. The Congo War, 5.4 million deaths; the Syrian Civil War, 207,000 deaths. I could go on and on.
Only a fool does the same thing twice and expects different results.
However, history has not just repeated itself. No, no, things have actually changed. I believe it has gotten much worse! Yesterday I could trade my friend for a cow. Today, I can trade ten of my friends for a virtual picture of a cow. Furthermore, we are currently winning the Earth Race and have eliminated 600 (and counting) competing species. But we are not satisfied with winning just the one contest. This is the human race, after all! We are going interstellar. But for now, let me be a bit down to earth. From the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the Holocaust to the "Peace Treaties", there is a lot that humans have been through, and I would like to hope that we have learnt from the mistakes we made in the few million or so years that we have been around, but hope is for the optimistic.
From what I have seen, I do not believe history fully repeats itself. I believe it repeats itself in a manner that is just horribly convenient for the time being. Then again, convenience is only a matter of time, and I think we have plenty of it. Unless some asteroids ruin it for us, as it did for the previous tenants...
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