It’s common to classify things as natural and man-made. Though at times useful, these two seeming buckets can produce a giant misconception; namely that what we do is not natural.

Human-made things are a subset of nature. They are part of nature. They are natural. Anything made possible by the laws of physics by definition is natural. If it violates the laws of physics then it simply does not exist. It cannot exist.

Claiming that humans are messing with the fixed pattern of nature is just like appealing to the supernatural. Since humans are natural. What we do is natural. It is a wave of nature. We are not fiddling with nature. We are it.

We can do very bad things. Very bad natural things. But that depends on us and our moral progress. Nature isn’t supposed to be all good. In fact when you see beyond the serene forests, most things in nature are bad and dangerous for us. Floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, asteroid impacts—these all count as natural-disasters. Human-made technology equips us with the ability to fight off the evil things nature puts forth upon us. Essentially what humans have been doing is stretching beyond their inherent abilities to better equip themselves to nature.

However lucky we are to have this beautiful planet Earth, we wouldn’t have been able to thrive here had it not been us humans doing the work to make Earth more to our liking. We wouldn’t have been able to thrive (or even survive as it seems) in the colder regions (around zero degrees C) without technology like clothes, fire, houses and now thermostats.

Humans and what they do are natural. Everything that exists is natural. It might not be good, but that’s a moral problem. We must not degrade technology as “messing with nature”. It is natural and it often saves us from nature itself.

The Amazing Things & Ideas List

• Why Fun Is the Secret to a Healthier Life | Catherine Price | TED:

“... fun is not just the result of human thriving, it's a cause.”

A new definition of fun and the ingredients you need to have it and experience truly being alive:

• Book I’m revisiting:

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

“If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.”

“You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you.”

“It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed.”

• Should We Trust Nature More than Ourselves? | Slavoj Žižek & Yuval Noah Harari

This conversation FASCINATED me. Very much related to the piece at the start of this newsletter. Is nature our friend or foe? Who should we trust—nature or humans? This conversation is simply amazing:

Thank you for reading.

Onward,
Arjun

Blog | Twitter