Aah, of course I'm not ignoring our inherent destructive and violent tendencies dude (although I'm not sure we can or should accredit the Mammoths extinction solely with humans, I'm more of a global cataclysm guy for the disappearance of those hairy suckas), I was more alluding to the actual connection we had to the environment and potentially to each other. We had to care about it to a greater degree than present. The seasons. Food. Astrology and navigation etc. We don't have to do feck all these days and I would suggest that years of technological dependence has robbed us of vital skills, instincts and awareness. Gives us all more time an energy to concentrate on bullsh*t. Plus, there's more of us and tech has swept us forward at breakneck speed so we do more damage per head than before I'd have thought.
And while I agree there has always been an element of the 'I', the 'we' I was talking about was a much stronger force even as recent as the 80's. I was lucky enough to grow up in a very close community. Yeah, sure, all families looked after their own first but those families also looked out for each other. It was very close knit. The people were very close knit. The breakdown of these communities over the last 30 - 40 years has been astonishing so I think it's acclerated the replacement of shared interests with yet more ego. More ego is rarely a good thing and ego is nearly all I see when I look around now.
I live in the same area now and no one even knows names of folk 2 doors down and no one even tries. A valuable and precious thing has almost vanished. Yeah, you could argue we all have a wider net of connection and communication thanks to the internet but virtual relationships aren't real, they're shallow and utter sh*te in comparison to person to person, impossible to actually connect (IMO) and going back to ego, I mean look at this place, it drips with ego, everyone 'in character'. Yes mate, I know, I'm old!
Sad thing is, I genuinely feel there's no rescuing it. Way too far gone. Way too fragmented and divided.
I recently read Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, really good book, that and Homo Deus but I've since slid over to Dennis Hoffman, Terrence McKenna and Michael Pollen now so personally, I reckon an orchestrated, simultaneous, compulsory, global dose of psilocybin or DMT (nothing else) for anyone over 18 would help humanity greatly. Be interseting to see what ripple of change would sweep through humans after a simultaneous dose of 'we are one, we are connected'