I’m a scientifically literate guy. I’m well aware of the statistics of how unlikely it is that we Earthlings are the only forms of intelligent life in the galaxy, let alone
Essentially, the argument is that if there is any likelihood that life can spontaneously come into existence (and there is, otherwise we wouldn’t be here), then
And I think it’s crucial that each and every human acknowledges this truth. As the great Carl Sagan described, it gives us a sense of humility. It humbles us before the vastness and (pun intended) gravity of the universe in which we live. It helps us appreciate that some creator did not create the universe just for us, that we aren’t predestined for greatness, and we don’t own the universe, let alone the Earth.
In these ways, it is a cure for our narcissism. But let me tell you why I believe it is irresponsible for us to live with that truth as our mantra.
Let ask another question: how many intelligent civilizations do we know of? Not that we think exist, but that we are sure exist?
The answer: N = 1. We are it. While we might assume that the above logic is correct, we have no way of proving it. At least not yet. Our current data set has one point. One point! We would base how we live our lives off of one data point! We can’t even have
Now, if we believe we are one of many, we have an easy out. An easy way to say, what we do doesn’t matter. What we do to the Earth, and other species… it’s all just futile in the vastness of the universe. It’s a classic case of diffusion of responsibility,
Let me tell you a story:
Twenty-eight-year-old Catherine Genovese, who was called Kitty by almost everyone in the neighborhood, was returning home from her job as manager of a bar in Hollis. She parked her red Fiat in a lot adjacent to the Kew Gardens Long Island Railroad Station, facing Mowbray Place. Like many residents of the neighborhood, she had parked there day after day since her arrival from Connecticut a year ago, although the railroad frowns on the practice.
37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police; Apathy at Stabbing of Queens Woman Shocks Inspector–NY Times
She turned off the lights of her car, locked the door, and started to walk the 100 feet to the entrance of her apartment at 82-70 Austin Street, which is in a Tudor building, with stores in the first floor and apartments on the second.
The entrance to the apartment is in the rear of the building because the front is rented to retail stores. At night the quiet neigborhood is shrouded in the slumbering darkness that marks most residential areas.
Miss Genovese noticed a man at the far end of the lot, near a seven-story apartment house at 82-40 Austin Street. She halted. Then, nervously, she headed up Austin Street toward Lefferts Boulevard, where there is a call box to the 102nd Police Precinct in nearby Richmond Hill.
She got as far as a street light in front of a bookstore before the man grabbed her. She screamed. Lights went on in the 10-story apartment house at 82-67 Austin Street, which faces the bookstore. Windows slid open and voices punctuated the early-morning stillness.
Miss Genovese screamed: “Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!”
From one of the upper windows in the apartment house, a man called down: “Let that girl alone!”
The assailant looked up at him, shrugged, and walked down Austin Street toward a white sedan parked a shortdistance away . Miss Genovese struggled to her feet.
Lights went out. The killer returned to Miss Genovese, now trying to make her way around the side of the building bythe parking lot to get to her apartment. The assailant stabbed her again.
“I’m dying!” she shrieked. “I’m dying!”
Windows were opened again, and lights went on in many apartments. The assailant got into his car and drove away. Miss Genovese staggered to her feet. A city bus, 0-10, the Lefferts Boulevard line to Kennedy International Airport, passed. It was 3:35 A.M.
The assailant returned. By then, Miss Genovese had crawled to the back of the building, where the freshly painted brown doors to the apartment house held out hope for safety. The killer tried the first door; she wasn’t there. At the second door, 82-62 Austin Street, he saw her slumped on the floor at the foot of the stairs. He stabbed her a third time–fatally.
It was 3:50 by the time the police received their first call, from a man who was a neighbor of Miss Genovese. In two minutes they were at the scene. The neighbor, a 70-year-old woman, and another woman were the only persons on the street. Nobody else came forward.
The man explained that he had called the police after much deliberation. He had phoned a friend in Nassau Countyfor advice and then he had crossed the roof of the building tothe apartment of the elderly woman to get her to make the call.
“I didn’t want to get involved,” he sheepishly told police.
Six days later, the police arrested Winston Moseley, a 29-year-old business machine operator, and charged him with homicide. Moseley had no previous record. He is married, has two children and owns a home at 133-19 Sutter Avenue, South Ozone Park, Queens. On Wednesday, a court committed him to Kings County Hospital for psychiatric observation.
When questioned by the police, Moseley also said he had slain Mrs. Annie May Johnson, 24, of 146-12 133d Avenue, Jamaica, on Feb. 29 and Barbara Kralik, 15, of 174-17 140th Avenue, Springfield Gardens, last July. In the Kralik case, the police are holding Alvin L. Mitchell, who is said to have confessed to that slaying.
The police stressed how simple it would have been to have gotten in touch with them. “A phone call,” said one of the detectives, “would have done it.” The police may be reached by dialing “0” for operator or SPring 7-3100.
Today witnesses from the neighborhood, which is made up of one-family homes in the $35,000 to $60,000 range with the exception of the two apartment houses near the railroad station, find it difficult to explain why they didn’t call the police.
A housewife, knowingly if quite casually, said, “We thought it was a lovers’ quarrel.” A husband and wife both said, “Frankly, we were afraid.” They seemed aware of the fact that events might have been different. A distraught woman, wiping her hands in her apron, said, “I didn’t want my husband to get involved.”
One couple, now willing to talk about that night, said they heard the first screams. The husband looked thoughtfully at the bookstore where the killer first grabbed Miss Genovese.
“We went to the window to see what was happening,” he said, “but the light from our bedroom made it difficult to see the street.” The wife, still apprehensive, added: “I put out the light and we were able to see better.”
Asked why they hadn’t called the police, she shrugged and replied: “I don’t know.”
A man peeked out from a slight opening in the doorway to his apartment and rattled off an account of the killer’s second attack. Why hadn’t he called the police at the time? “I was tired,” he said without emotion. “I went back to bed.”
It was 4:25 A.M. when the ambulance arrived to takethe body of Miss Genovese. It drove off. “Then,” a solemn police detective said, “the people came out.”
The above reported events are true and took place on March 14, 1964.
The brutal murder of Kitty Genovese and the disturbing lack of action by her neighbors became emblematic in what many perceived as an evolving culture of violence and apathy in the United States. In fact, social scientists still debate the causes of what is now known as “the Genovese Syndrome.”
Now, why is the story of Kitty Genovese important to the point I’m making? Diffuse responsibility. Those people didn’t
Unfortunately, assuming that the universe is teeming with life has the same result: no single human or society will claim responsibility for what we really have in our hands. It’s easy for us to say that even if we fail to advance and eventually die out, the universe will be OK. There’s tons of life, our situation isn’t unique or special.
But I hope you see now how that is inherently flawed. We are the only life we know of in the universe. Therefore, we have an
We must all accept, that as far as we know, we are special. And we must accept the responsibility that comes with being special wholeheartedly. We, in this generation, have the potential to expand life to more than one planet, to ensure the future survival of life no matter the survival of Earth.
We also, perhaps even more importantly, are the last generation that can prevent the massive extinctions we are causing. Humanity has put the biosphere on a trajectory of destruction, and our own nature makes the inertia gargantuan. But we do have the power to change it. We have great leverage on the future right now.
But the first step is acknowledging that it is our responsibility to use it for good.
And that means living like we’re alone.
July 27, 2016
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Inspiration, Sources, and Suggested further reading
Wait But Why: The Fermi Paradox