POWERRR!

NPR reporter Adam Frank put the paradox perfectly: “The Babylonians didn't do it. The Romans didn't do it. The Chinese of the Tang Dynasty didn't do it. The Persian Empire didn't do it. For 50,000 years of human cultural evolution it didn't happen. For 6,000 years of civilization it didn't happen.”

For all of our human existence, we have managed just fine. But in the matter of a century, we imperil all of civilization; With what? With civilization.

Our first time approaching that danger zone was with the nuclear arms race. It had families fearing the safety of their entire city. Now, it’s resource depletion, which may leave families fearing for their entire world.

Such irony; I can almost hear a violin playing in the distance. Or the soundtrack from Psycho. But seriously, it is a fascinating quirk that the more technologically advanced we become, the more we are doomed to our own actions.

We have so much more power now than ever before. This is because we’ve gone from human power (physical labor), to human power PLUS the incredible amount of energy stored in fuel, gas, or even an atom. It used to be that a thousand slaves were necessary to get a big job done. The demand for things was kept in check by the supply of power that we had to give.

Now, our demand has skyrocketed because each person possesses much more than one person’s manpower. With increased supply of power, we can enjoy the benefits of increased demand. Yet, all this time, our resources have hardly changed their supply at all.

Everyone wants to be a comic book/ Cartoon Network action-character who acquires an exorbitant amount of power for an average human body. In a way, Our advanced civilization IS that superhero.

But as we Cartoon Network fans know, the hero doesn’t always come out on top. If he doesn’t limit his use of power, the story ends badly. Sometimes, even, he becomes corrupt with his own power and spirals down a path of self-destruction. This may be a dramatization of the position that our global population is in (everyone would have to wear capes/ underwear on the outside to be that dramatic). But we must realize how our current power exceeds our resources if we aren’t discerning about when to use it.

If we master the ability to reserve our technological, twenty-first-century strengths for the times we need it—limiting our power rather than spending in excess—our generation will become its own hero.