Humanity achieved the impossible. We’ve defeated gravity to stand on the moon, come together to dominate nature, and discovered many of the universe’s deepest secrets.
But our accomplishments don’t tell the whole story. We’ve also made some massive blunders along the way.
Biggest Mistakes in History
From the beginning, our accomplishments were overshadowed by our missteps. The biggest mistakes in history show that despite how much we’ve achieved, we still have so far to go.
Sometimes I’m awed at how far we’ve come given some of these awful failures, aren’t you?
Leaving the Trees
English writer Douglas Adams once proposed that leaving the trees in the first place was humanity’s biggest mistake.
We’d still be one with nature and could have avoided the other horrific errors on this list.
Of course, we also wouldn’t have achieved humanity’s most impressive accomplishments if we had never left the trees, so I guess you win some, you lose some.
Separating Ourselves from Nature
Maybe Adams was wrong about literally leaving the trees, but right about our disconnect from nature.
Humans are animals, yet our egos often thrust us into a position above the rest of the natural world. We feel entitled to its bounty yet somehow immune from its adverse effects.
The idea that we’re someone better than nature will ultimately cause our own destruction.
And Destroying It
Humans don’t think twice about plowing entire forests to make room for livestock or condos. However, some of our greatest discoveries came from nature.
We’ve found cures for exotic diseases inside the very forests we’re destroying.
Factory Farming
Predation pre-dates humanity by millions of years, so I’m not mad at humans for eating meat.
But I am mad about how we treat prey animals before slaughtering them for food. They live in tiny enclosures, never seeing the light of day. We torture mothers and babies, never even allowing them a moment’s joy or peace.
We could at least be kind to the animals before we kill them.
Genocide
Humanity’s biggest flaw is the tendency to commit genocide against those we deem “different.”
Our long and sordid history abounds with horrific acts of genocide, and I can only hope that we’ve learned from these atrocious events.
Othering
Genocide starts with putting people in boxes.
Our refusal to respect each other’s differences and celebrate the full breadth and flavor of human expression leads to “othering,” where we decide that certain types of people aren’t actually people.
I think it’s a tribal instinct, lingering on from our earliest ancestors, that we need to rise against.
-Isms
Sexism, racism, ageism, etc. highlight a subset of othering that we can’t seem to overcome.
How many inventions were never invented because we reduced people to slavery due to the color of their skin?
How many scientific achievements never happened because women weren’t allowed an education? Exploring the breadth of women’s achievements stolen by men can give us a small idea, but it doesn’t showcase the millions of women who were prevented from excelling.
We’ll never know how much we missed out on because we discriminated against each other over phenotypic differences.
It’s insanity.
Social Media
Social media was supposed to keep us connected, but instead, it allowed the worst aspects of humanity to shine through and multiply.
People feel comfortable sharing their darkest thoughts through the relative safety of their keyboards. They make vile remarks that they’d never make in public, just to get a rise out of folks.
These platforms highlight, and worse, celebrate, our worst behaviors. I think it will go down in history as one of humanity’s biggest mistakes.
Plastics
We invented a nearly indestructible material and then proceeded to litter the world with it. Plastics destroy ecosystems and even our own health, yet we can’t seem to stop using them.
There’s even a part of the ocean that has so much plastic it’s almost like a floating isle of trash.
I hate it, but I also know I’m just as guilty of it as everyone else.
Refusal To Learn
Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it. Humans don’t learn; thus, we keep repeating the same mistakes that doomed our ancestors.
And the worst part is that we’re capable of it. All of us could be better, but it’s hard, so we take the easy way out.
The refusal to learn goes hand in hand with the refusal to teach. We’re not funding schools and allowing parents who don’t know anything to homeschool their children. The distrust of education will leave millions of children without critical thinking skills. They’ll refuse to learn because we never taught them how.
I see that as an even bigger mistake than the refusal to learn. Let yourself be stupid, but don’t take it out on your kids.
Anti-Science
Our refusal to learn goes hand in hand with a relatively new phenomenon- the complete and utter distrust of science.
We cured illnesses with vaccines and used physics to travel to outer space, yet people now refuse these very same vaccines and insist the Earth is round.
Maybe it’s not so new. After all, everyone hated Darwin for his discoveries on Natural Selection, and one of the most famous scientists of all time, Galileo, was persecuted for insisting that the Earth revolves around the sun.
I guess humanity’s penchant for distrust of science has been a massive problem throughout history.
Corporations Are People
via Shutterstock.com.
The US has made some horrible legal decisions, but Citizens United stands as one of the worst.
It granted corporations all the legal rights and protections of “We the People,” with no accountability.
How can something have all the benefits of personhood with none of the legal responsibilities?
Profit First
Far too many human cultures put profits above people. We can’t get over our base animal instincts that force us to hoard resources, so our entire planet suffers.
Examples include paying poverty wages to the people actually doing the work, the aforementioned Citizens United ruling, and the way we allow companies to lobby for tax breaks at the expense of citizens.
Fearing Nuclear Power
Nuclear power offers clean energy that would help turn the tide in the fight against climate change. However, we refuse to harness the energy for fear of its great power.
I get it, disasters like Chornobyl should give us pause. However, we can also learn how to harness nuclear energy safely.
War
Humans have waged war against each other since the dawn of civilization. You’d think with our superior intellect, we’d find ways to resolve our problems without resorting to violence, but we haven’t yet.
Instead, we find new horrific ways to slaughter each other. The endless war machine is the biggest mistake in history, I just hope we learn to see it that way.
So Many Mistakes
I know I’m probably leaving a lot of horrible events off this list, but I when I think of humanity’s biggest mistakes, I’m trying to consider long-term, far-reaching problems rather than a one-off catastrophe.
But if there’s anything major I missed, I’d love for you to share in the comments!
I’d also love to hear your thoughts – what do you think was the biggest mistake in history?