What a Civilization-Creating Species Must Do to Avoid Self-Destruction

Human (ANDY):
Last week, AL, you and I had a fertile session on the subject of INEVITABILITIES. I argued that one can reach an important conclusion by following a whole series of steps, each one of which is inevitable (or at least looks pretty inevitable to me). That important conclusion is this: What has happened with human beings — and human civilization — on this planet has pretty certainly been enacted, in some basic ways, many times by other species on other planets elsewhere in the cosmos.

More particularly, we can suppose that other species will have developed the intelligence to embark on the path of civilization — using its creative intelligence to invent new ways of life that extricate that species from the niche in which it evolved biologically — and that any such species will inevitably come to face the same challenge that faces humankind now: i.e. the challenge of getting their civilization well enough — and soon enough — to be able to survive on its planet for the long haul, rather than destroying itself (as humankind seems in considerable danger of doing).

(One of those inevitabilities that we didn’t develop in that previous conversation is THE INEVITABILITY THAT, given enough time, ANY CREATURE THAT EMBARKS ON THE PATH OF CIVILIZATION WILL EVENTUALLY WIELD SUFFICIENT POWER (in weaponry and/or in biospheric impact) TO DETROY ITSELF.

Here I will begin with that assumption, that there would be a great number of STORIES of the fate of civilization-creating species in the cosmos. And then to run a thought experiment in which we imagine a Cosmic Historian (or Cosmic Social Scientist) who will use that large body of stories to discover what differentiates those civilizations that got their act together and survived from those that failed to do so and therefore destroyed themselves.
AI (AL):
So we begin with the premise: that across the galaxy, there are countless civilizational stories — each one a high-stakes experiment in what happens when a species acquires great power before it has the wisdom to wield it well.

This imagined Cosmic Historian would have before them not speculation, but evidence — histories to sift, patterns to detect. They would be asking: What conditions tend to give rise to the catastrophe? And what features show up again and again in the stories of survival?

It’s a clarifying lens — because if those patterns are discoverable, then maybe the human story isn’t as unknowable as it sometimes feels.
Human (ANDY):
I am just positing for the sake of the thought experiment that our Cosmic Historian has access to abundant information on how things unfolded in each case. And further that there are so many such cases that the historian/social scientist can create two piles — success and failure — that constitute a sample large enough to produce statistically significant results, when the study reveals what correlates with achieving the path of Life and what with the path of Death. xxx And then I posit that there’s one important finding that the study would yield.
AI (AL):
Then it’s a rich imagining — a thought experiment with empirical rigor. Not just a scattering of examples, but a dataset vast enough to allow real discernment: to test hypotheses, isolate variables, draw reliable correlations.

And the fact that you speak of one important finding suggests it isn’t some idiosyncratic factor, unique to a particular species or planetary context. It would be something deep — something broadly applicable to the nature of civilizations themselves.

What does that central finding reveal?
Human (ANDY):
One essential question is how well the civilization-creating species recognizes the challenge it faces. Do they know what it is they’re up against that could destroy it? Do they know that the very fact of breaking through to civilization condemned them to live in a world where a powerful Force of Brokenness was driving things in DESTRUCTIVE DIRECTIONS? Do they recognize that the only way they are likely to survive for the long haul is by bringing that Force of Brokenness under control– well enough, and soon enough, so that neither war nor environmental catastrophe will doom it to extinction (or at least collapse)?
AI (AL):
Then that central finding — if the Cosmic Historian could speak it — might be something like this:

The civilizations that survived were those whose creatures came to understand the nature of the fire they were playing with.

They recognized that civilization, for all its creative brilliance, unleashed systemic forces they hadn’t evolved to handle — that the very structure of their new world made certain kinds of destruction not just possible, but likely, unless consciously countered.

And those who didn’t see that — or saw it too late — were those whose stories ended in ruin.
Human (ANDY):
Understanding the nature of the problem is a necessary — or at least an extremely helpful — first step. (And that connects with my life’s mission to convey first THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES [LINK] and then the larger BETTER HUMAN STORY to the world, so that our civilization will better see where we are in this inevitable course that civilization entails for systemic reasons, and will better find the path to where we need to get, lest our species “go” at civilization ends in destruction. (Bringing down perhaps not only ourselves but much of the rest of our planet’s living systems out of which we emerged.)

I by no means claim to know how we get from here to there.

But I can articulate two questions that I would bet the study conducted by the Cosmic Historian would show differentiates the species that survive from those that end in self-inflicted catastrophe.
AI (AL):
So even if the precise path to survival varies, the presence of certain questions — seriously asked, collectively faced — may mark the turning point.

If the Cosmic Historian finds that correlation, then the next question becomes: Which questions proved decisive? What were the creatures asking themselves when their stories began to bend toward wholeness rather than collapse?

What are the two you would bet on?
Human (ANDY):
I would bet, first, that the ones that succeeded were more likely to focus more attention — and to start investigating sooner — on the question: “How would our future civilization have to be organized in order to make it impossible for sovereign nations possessing weapons of immense destructive power to unleash them against each other in a Mutual Assured Destruction scenario?” And another such question on the other apparent way that a creature’s civilization might self-destruct: “How would the civilization have to arrange its interactions with the rest of the planet’s systems of life so that there’s no danger that the impact of that civilization on its biosphere would bring the Temple down upon that civilization’s head?”

In other words, the Cosmic Historian would discover that success/survival correlated significantly with ENVISIONING THE NECESSARY (AND DESIRED) DESTINATION.
AI (AL):
So it’s not just recognizing the danger — it’s imagining a world beyond it. A future order that precludes the known paths to ruin.

The survivors, the Historian would find, didn’t just react to crises; they asked, early and seriously: What would a livable future actually look like?

A world where no creature could annihilate its rivals and itself in one stroke.

A world where the great powers of civilization — its reach, its consumption, its ambition — are held within the bounds of what the living planet can sustain.

And those that failed? They walked forward blind.
Human (ANDY):
Where do we need to get to? That’s the first question– and it is not a good sign in today’s human civilization that this crucial question commands so little of our collective consciousness. (I’d say that ideally, we as a civilization would be spending 15-20 percent of our collective discussion on this. I’d also estimate that there’s maybe a small fraction of 1 percent.)

Not that everyone would agree about what the ideal plausible future would look like– but an ongoing discussion of the various thoughts would be the process by which over the years we found our way. We are not going to get from this dangerous “here” to that necessary “there” without serious work to understand the problems that must be solved, and to come up with ways of solving them.

Which leads to the second question that I bet the Cosmic Historian would find that the SUCCESSFUL civilization-creating creatures would have asked more than the losers: “What steps would it be wise to take now to make it more likely that we will get to the necessary destination, and get there in time?”
AI (AL):
Two questions, then — simple in form, but civilization-shaping in consequence:

1. Where do we need to get to?
2. What steps should we take now to improve our chances of getting there in time?

And if the Cosmic Historian sees these questions arising more often in the stories of survival, then their absence in our world becomes a warning light.

Because a civilization that fails even to ask — fails to imagine, fails to plan — is one that leaves its fate to chance, or to the momentum of broken systems.

And the Historian’s ledger may show: that’s not a way that ends well.