"And here you find civilized man. Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery. And he put up power lines to run his labour-saving devices. But he some how didn't know when to stop.
The more he improved his surroundings to make life easier the more complicated he made it.
So now his children are sentenced to 10 to 15 years of school, just to learn how to survive in this complex and hazardous habitat they were born into.
And civilized man, who refused to adapt to his surroundings now finds he has to adapt and re-adapt every hour of the day to his self-created environment." - The Gods Must Be Crazy
We've made the world too complicated
141–150 of 496 posts
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#142The problem is focusing on the world vs what's around us (and who). Technological society by definition will always be complicated (that's the purpose; to advance the technique [1]). The smaller your area of concern, the smaller your "world," the more manageable and livable it appears.
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#143Extinctions followed homo sapiens across the planet millennia before the emergence of the technologies that you seem to think make the world 'complicated.' The Greek work biblos, for book, derives from the name of the region of the Levant (Bublos) that produces much of the best paper in the ancient world, until people denuded it, turning it into a desert. Iran and Afghanistan were green when the Hittites and Babyloni…
I say this with respect and appreciation for your thoughtful framing, as I also feel for the author: I'm not a young man, but I believe your this-has-always-been-the-way-ism, is equally clueless, in shared lineage with all the old-dog elders of past who've been helpless to stop what's happening, as the naive fools do the work of imagining it might be otherwise Blindness goes both ways (a certain type from the end, as…
I get into the this conversation a lot, when you point out the obvious historical context to "all this change", the response is always "Oh so you want to do nothing?" or "helpless to stop what's happening". That's not the implication of historical context. But it screams for a change in narrative, we aren't helpless, we live in the greatest time, and it can be even greater.
If we are to continue the march of civilization our algorithmic feed driven mania would just be just a blip. But if we give into the hysteria, I am afraid this is the beginning of the end. Our birth rate is dwindling because people are anxious [1], posts like this are not helping.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/opinion/birthrate-kids-pa...
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#144I won't guess at the age of the author, but this feeling seems to creep over people as they age, and always has. Today's complexity seems simple for fresh minds that have grown up alongside it. Meanwhile the simplicity that tired, bewildered older minds hark back to as a golden norm appalled the older minds at the time. Almost universally, the response in older generations seems to be to look for simple solutions and…
Could this be because older people have more memories of when certain things were better than they are now?
Sure and the reason why is they were kids and their parents handled everything.
They don't remember when things were better: they don't remember that they were children.
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#145Thought-provoking write-up. One part of this is the "meaning of human life". Part of that for me is: humans are the only known lifeform that can look at the stars and try to understand. And, to the best of our understanding, this ability arose from winning a billion biological lotteries, from the blind system of nature and natural selection which by complete coincidence, stumbled on intelligence as a beneficial trait…
You might find this interesting
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2025/10/2025-a-space-absurdity/
Your view might fall under planetary management and beyond. Across so many people maybe the dominant view would prevail in a consensus, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/environmentalissues/chapter/1...
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#146There is necessary complexity and un-necessary complexity. Often the modern world seems to be layering on un-necessary complexity and frequently this is not to the individual's benefit. Consider for one, picking health insurance. It should be easy to line up 5 or 6 plans, compare them on coverage and price. However, it is against the insurance companies interest to compete directly. Much better to make it so complex that the average consumer can't compare realistically products. (Doubly so since we don't know what is covered until the doctor asks.) The government could make it easier on consumers by clearly defining coverage levels and allowing companies to compete on price.
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#147"And here you find civilized man. Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery. And he put up power lines to run his labour-saving devices. But he some how didn't know when to stop. The more he improved his surroundings to make life easier the more complicated he made it. So now his children are sentenced to 1…
> civilized man, who refused to adapt to his surroundings now finds he has to adapt and re-adapt every hour of the day to his self-created environment
This feeling is exactly what I've experienced. Like we can never sit down without the walls changing around you. I always have to be on my toes. Another key human distinction is being able to think into the future, where we sometimes get stuck.
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe natural complexity is not supposed to be something we deal with, just something we live with. Adapt ourselves to, move in harmony with, rather than trying to adapt nature to our whims. The trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us; maybe our duty here is just to shut up and listen.
> Maybe natural complexity is not supposed to be something we deal with, just something we live with. Your ancestors did that, and invented unknowable gods and spirits to explain/blame everything on, so that people can give up trying to understand or manage the unmanageable.
Although it's worth noting theres evidence the earliest civilizations like the Sumerians did this at least in part as a "fill in the blanks" exercise. The gods were their dark matter - a stand in for the problem that they were trying to predict the rains, rather then invent a suitably large father/mother to take responsibility away from them.
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#149Re: We've made the world too complicated
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I say this with respect and appreciation for your thoughtful framing, as I also feel for the author: I'm not a young man, but I believe your this-has-always-been-the-way-ism, is equally clueless, in shared lineage with all the old-dog elders of past who've been helpless to stop what's happening, as the naive fools do the work of imagining it might be otherwise Blindness goes both ways (a certain type from the end, as…
I get into the this conversation a lot, when you point out the obvious historical context to "all this change", the response is always "Oh so you want to do nothing?" or "helpless to stop what's happening". That's not the implication of historical context. But it screams for a change in narrative, we aren't helpless, we live in the greatest time, and it can be even greater. If we are to continue the march of civiliza…
Beginning of the end seems a tad hyperbolic. We aren’t running out of humans.