By Nicholas Pediaditakis, MD

Are we humans going to make it?  We could and we may. We have all the qualities for it.  But, we should not take that for granted, even though, we have intellect, flexibility, the ability to think rationally, as well as given the proper circumstances, to cooperate towards common goals. On the other hand, we carry with us along with these admirable traits mentioned, others that while they were useful for our survival hundreds of thousands of years ago under the prevailing circumstances, as small bands of hunters roaming the Savannah. Now, as they are still with us, are in conflict and on a collision course with modernity. These traits like; tribalism, aggressive territoriality, eagerness to go to war,  fanaticism, irrational belief in each groups’ specialness and sense of exclusivity and eagerness to look down on the other tribes/nations, not only endanger us with extinction since the sticks and javelins we used “back then,” have now morphed into atomic bombs and killer drones. But, in addition, we have created problems threatening our existence, such as, over population, destruction of biodiversity (e.g., killing and making extinct, many species that contribute to the balance of our planet), pollution, and rapid climate change (never mind the ice sheets on the Greenland several thousand thick are melting rapidly for anyone to see raising the sea level in Fla. ).  All these defects in our nature now in a collision course with the problems we have created, are making our survival on this earth, iffy…iffy.  After all, 99% of species which have ever lived on this Earth, have already become extinct.  For those of us who are people of faith should not expect salvation from above, as it were.  After all, the creator gave us all the qualities to enable us in survival, like rational thinking, a cooperative spirit, a religious and racial tolerance, compassion, and empathy. We should use them. All the holy books, the world over remind us of these qualities as a prescription for survival. And as I said before, we are worth saving. We are the only creatures on this corner of the universe who are ponderers, story tellers,  chroniclers, and able to husband and protect the rest of our fellow living creatures and the planet itself

Fortunately and hopefully recently, under the pressure by these real problems worldwide, we are developing each one of us – in addition to the loyalty we have for the tribe  we belong to – an awareness that we all humans literally are “boiling in the same pot.” As the  survival of all individual tribes/nation are  completely connected to the survival of the next one. The very one which only too often tend to look down and ready to make enemies and war with it .