We condemn child sacrifice in history.
And yet…
Many modern adults are so self-centered that they sacrifice their children’s futures:
Spending every dime they have so there’s nothing left for future generations
Supporting unsustainable industrial and agriculture practices
Fomenting war and diverting resources away from education
Our ancestors have passed us many stories in an attempt to explain that it’s unwise and / or immoral to sacrifice the well-being of our offspring to secure our own personal comfort or success.
The most salient example is Abraham and Isaac.
From an evolutionary perspective, it is the responsibility of the cognitively mature to serve the youngest members of the species.
But, instead of passing the torch, many modern adults are devoting their time and energy to finding ways they can make their own torches burn brighter and longer before they go out.
The risk of this is that the next generation will be woefully unprepared to pass the flame forward.
This is how humanity descends into darkness.
In this way, virtue becomes its own reward and vice becomes its own punishment.
When older generations do not cultivate antifragility in younger generations, they increase the risk of our species’ extinction.
So how do we flip this?
Start acting like adults. That means we need to learn to f^cking control ourselves.
Start supporting the next generation. This doesn’t have to look like handouts. Quality time and life lessons are more valuable than “birthday money” and inheritances.
Start building infrastructure that will not benefit us, but will ensure that future generations can thrive. That means stabilizing the food supply, protecting clean air and water, and, ideally, finding a way to get off planet.
Time turns us either into heroes or cautionary tales.
Which we become is up to us.
“People who love their children don’t drill holes in their children’s life raft.
And the modern world, post World War II is a life raft to get us to the next stage.
And the number of older people I see liquidating everything so that they can live out their final days in the same style to which they’ve become accustomed is impossible in a world where people love their children.”
— Eric Weinstein on The Modern Wisdom Podcast by Chris Williamson (Source)
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Excellent piece, Christopher. Worthy of contemplation. Reflects some of my own thoughts expressed on Life UnCorked.