Has humanity evolved?

Honestly, I don't think humanity has evolved since ancient times.
The reason is simple.
The 'hardware'—our bodies and brain structures—hasn't evolved that quickly.

Perhaps the mental structure of people in the Roman era isn't that different from modern people.
When it comes to emotional movements like getting angry, crying, worrying, falling in love, or feeling joy, I don't think much has changed between now and then.

Even if something goes viral on social media, isn't it basically the same thing as people gossiping in a tavern back in the Roman era?

So, does that mean humanity hasn't evolved at all? That's not quite right either.
For example, if you told someone 200 years ago that 'you can heat up food in a microwave,' they would have laughed at it as a fairy tale. And as for airplanes, I don't think ancient Easterners, who had concepts of ascending immortals and dragons, could have imagined such clunky things as 'a lump of iron flying through the sky with people inside.'

The idea that you could make clothes from petroleum, and that anyone could wear them, and that they would be soft and look good—that must have been beyond their imagination, too.

Therefore, if we can say that 'humanity has evolved,' it means thatsociety itself has evolved.

Things that seem plain and taken for granted—like daily cleaning, standardizing tasks, stacking up checks, stable operations, and the attitude of making improvements whenever there's free time—I think those steady, incremental efforts are what have resulted in humanity's evolution.

Humans don't suddenly evolve through emotions or aesthetics; ever since the pre-Christian era, since the time of Aristotle, we have kept 'ideals' in our hearts and worked with our hands toward them.
That attitude itself hasn't changed, has it?

The only thing that is different is the 'environment'.
Humanity has gradually refined that environment.
We have unraveled black boxes, created technology, failed, verified, improved, and created and spread safe and comfortable things. We kept doing it until it became 'the norm.' I think that accumulation is the footprint of humanity today.

Of course, there are failures along the way, and big failures too. There have been irreversible mistakes. But even so, we have given them shape. I think the result of that is where we are now.

Everyone has moments where they think, 'Maybe my efforts are in vain...'
But if you throw away the ideal in your heart, I feel like humanity's progress will stop right there.

When someone is in despair, the person next to them might be experiencing the greatest happiness of their life.
I think that gap is the very diversity of life.

The change in ethics is also quite dramatic, isn't it?

Actually, I've been researching various things since the other day, and looking at Arab culture, I felt it strongly.
'What a harsh land they have lived in.'

There is an indescribably large difference between modern urban areas and the harsh, untamed nature.

It is easy to see that life itself would not be sustainable there without male labor.

Killing beasts daily for meat (protein), carrying rocks for house walls, making iron, fighting beasts, fighting the weather, not dying from heat or cold, continuing to move even when injured (hoping it heals while you're at it), and working with your hands rather than complaining—well, maybe a group of women could do it, but that would require considerable sacrifice and resolve. If you think about efficiency, and there are a significant number of both men and women, it would be 'efficient,' that's for sure.

To survive, you have no choice but to live while fighting the harsh nature every day.

If you live in an environment where your life is on the line, 'strength' and 'division of roles' inevitably become survival strategies. The structure where men go out and risk their lives while women protect the home was likely more of a 'rationality for survival' than cold-hearted discrimination.

From the perspective of modern values, these are cultures that would be called 'male chauvinism'.
But there must have been wisdom, experience, and culture itself there, passed down by people who connected their lives for generations in that land.

From modern values, we can't say 'that is correct,' and there are mountains of things that should be improved—but I think understanding that 'there were times and lands where they had no choice' is very important so as not to deny a culture one-sidedly.

Besides, the men weren't having it easy either.
Jobs bordering on death, securing food, fighting—they weren't just 'rulers,' they were also the ones 'burdened' with the weight.

Even if women were often forced into painful lives, it wasn't because men were taking it easy—
it was perhaps because they were living while carrying heavy responsibilities in an extreme situation where they might be dead by tomorrow.

In other words, I thought that the structure of that society might not have been just because it was unfair, but a 'desperate rationality' on how to connect lives in the midst of harsh nature.

And perhaps the current era is a 'period of reconstruction for that balance'.
As the environment has changed, values are in the middle of being updated. But I don't think it's right to deny the entire past in that process.
Rather, the more we know about how they connected their lives in such harsh lands, the more the attitude of us living today is called into question.

Humanity, having lived on Earth, has managed to make the most of what was available in each country, culture, land, and era.
They have improvised with what they had, organized it, and given it shape. Even while suffering at times under cruel authorities or unreasonable social structures, they have still managed to connect it through industry and technology, and for the last 2,000 years or so, they have somehow made it work.

There are regions that have hardly changed even now, and cities that have changed dramatically.
While there are pros and cons to imitating and adopting successful systems, products, and social institutions, it is not all bad. I think that emulating and spreading excellent things is a very natural form of evolution.

But on the other hand, the culture, systems, and methods that have developed uniquely in a particular land are, in themselves, irreplaceable human wisdom.

They are not just local rules; they are a 'record of survival' detailing how the people who lived there managed to survive.

And then, I suddenly thought.
If, in the future, humanity encounters a completely different star or a civilization on another planet—
Wouldn't the wisdom gained from surviving in that land be the key to breaking through new problems and unknown situations?

And I wondered if the era and culture itself that preserves, respects, and further utilizes these things is the 'minimum passing grade for exploring unknown planets' if Earth's humanity goes or is able to go into space.

Cultural diversity and local wisdom are not just 'differences,' but perhaps something like a 'collection of survival strategy samples.'

I think that because of this, humanity might be able to adapt to a future we have yet to see.

Well, it might just be idle talk.
But isn't that what diversity is all about? In other words, rules are 'compromises made through bloodshed for the sake of negotiation that does not rely on violence.'

If you value diversity, then keeping the 'promises' of that land—the rules—is the absolute minimum requirement. If there is a problem, you have no choice but to commit little by little, talk it out, and search for a new compromise to change it. If you don't want to return to an era of solving things with violence. That's all there is to it.

That is what I have been thinking lately. That is the story.