Adaptability of Humanity

The other day, I saw one of my old Twilight Zone favorite episodes: To Serve Man, written by Richard Matheson (it also came out as a short story). The gist of this story is that aliens landed on Earth and had all of the answers to the pressing human problems of the time, particularly in the areas of war and food. And they presented their high-tech solutions to humanity as gifts! Within weeks, while the Earth became covered with a web of alien-”manned” stations, the entire human race became complacent and dependent upon the newcomers. Even to the point of embarking on vacations and research trips to other worlds on their spaceships. The episode’s protagonist, toward the end of the story, reflected to his partner how quickly humanity adapted to new things and incorporated them into what they called “normal”. And that hit me as one of the more profound things I’ve heard from this series.

In 1969, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, the whole world watched in wonder. By Apollo 14 few were paying attention, walking on the Moon having become passé. In the nineties, when Clinton was President, having the life of even one American soldier in peril was regarded as a national news event. How quickly people got used to hearing about the rising casualty figures during the Bush years!

And look at how quickly people are adapting to new technology that speeds everything up and interconnects us with multimedia! Eager customers camp out overnight to buy an I-Pod and find out a few weeks later that there are better products available. How quickly large segments of our population got used to the Internet in the late nineties, and then how quickly the laptop computer became a required piece of equipment for college students! If you’re riding the wave of technology, this may seem pretty cool. But if you are on the outside looking in, it looks as if the world is passing you by.

It is easy, with the seeming omnipresence of computers and the Internet, to simply assume that everyone has access to them and uses them. But many people do not use computers at home, and many have no intention of ever starting! Even among those who do, there is the constant pressure to upgrade in order to keep up with the latest innovations.

The idea that we can possess machines that speed things up and open up opportunities for us to reach out, either through communications or transportation, should make those who benefit from them happier, wouldn’t you think? But, since humans are such an adaptable species, what happens instead is that people adjust to the new reality and as a result just become more impatient and demanding. I remember when most of the cars on the road had standard transmissions, requiring a clutch pedal and manual changing of gears. At an intersection, when the light turned green, everyone would go through the gradual buildup of speed that standard transmissions required. But with the advent (and eventual dominance) of automatic transmissions, drivers now simply react with impatient annoyance to any manual-shift drivers they find themselves behind.

I wonder, if the global warming phenomenon keeps worsening, whether people will finally band together to heroically solve the problem. Or will they just adapt to the worsening situation as it develops, treating it as “normal”? Sadly, it looks as if the latter may be our destiny! Wouldn’t it be the ultimate paradox if, as was the case in To Serve Man, our adaptability turned out to be our downfall!!