- Human evolution has three stages
- Jeffrey Charles Hardy: We’re in the second stage
- First stage: Dominated nature for 2.5 million years
A futurist claims that human evolution is divided into three stages, with our species currently in the second.
Jeffrey Charles Hardy, the founder of the non-profit Care for Peace, devised a global view of the ‘human chronology,’ placing us in the ‘Suspended’ condition.
The first phase, which lasted approximately 2.5 million years, saw humanity subdue nature, but Hardy believes we have now transitioned ‘toward sustainable coexistence of the planet and its inhabitants.’
According to Hardy, humans will have to’ reassess and move away from the unsustainable practices of endless expansion and waste that we acquired from the first human evolution. ‘
He went on to explain that we have been idling since the creation of the atomic bomb in 1945, which consolidated our dominion over nature, but the only way to the ‘Second Stage’ is to undo the damage that has been done.
The current phase of human evolution is on hold since there has yet to be a plan for the Second Human Evolution.
‘It is still to be determined, and it is our responsibility to imagine, discuss, plan, design, and implement,’ Hardy stated.
The visionary adds that to allow this momentous shift, society must learn from the past and draw on views from academia, media, governments, and non-governmental groups. ‘The process is the solution.’
Hardy’s evolutionary human timeline was motivated by his work as an international healthcare planner in the 1970s.
He realized that people’s humanitarian actions might prolong peace, so he set out on a global mission to develop a schedule for addressing humanity’s most pressing concerns, such as climate change and environmental degradation.
Hardy then built four templates.
They featured the personal prime directive, which focused on individual ideals and obligations, and the relational prime directive, which emphasized the necessity of harmonious relationships.
The second two templates included cultural aspects that balanced a person’s overall well-being and organizational elements that corresponded with greater peace and sustainability goals.
When I worked as a hospital corpsman, I remember catering to young, sick, or wounded sailors returning from the Vietnam War,’ Hardy said.
‘In those moments of giving shots, changing gauzes, and simply being present for them, I understood there is a direct link between caring for others and feeling at peace.’
For millions of years, people strove to master nature, most recently through industrialism, believing that the planet was ours to rule.
Humans conquered nature by attempting to control everything around them through urbanization and infrastructural development.
This enabled the development of the human population by introducing mining and fossil fuels for energy, as well as increasing food supply through irrigation, crop rotation, and selective breeding.
In 1949, Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud stated that civilization’s advancement necessitated ‘taking up the attack on nature, so forcing it to obey human will, under the supervision of science.
Humans have been in a paused state of evolution since the 1950s when the government established the Manhattan Project, which was tasked with developing nuclear weapons capable of destroying humanity.
According to a press statement, the development of the atomic bomb marked ‘humanity’s complete dominance over nature and the conclusion of the First Human Evolution.
The repercussions of the atomic bomb, which killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people when it was dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, are still felt today.
Nearly 80 years after the assault, areas of the United States, particularly Missouri and Utah, are still experiencing cancer-causing radiation poisoning from mines and nuclear waste.
According to the World Nuclear Association, ‘the nuclear sector still has no answer to the ‘waste problem.
Despite countries’ efforts to create trash avoidance and recycling systems, the Stanford University School of Sustainability predicted that cleaning up the remaining debris from the Manhattan Project alone would cost at least $300 billion.
Hardy warned that humanity will remain in a state of stopped evolution until we grasp the importance of reducing trash generated during the initial phase.
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I call suspended human evolution because we’re flopping around like fish on the deck, or we’re in one of those Indiana Jones movies where we’re on a bridge that goes from one side to the next. There’s a chasm below; if we fall, we’ll die, Hardy said on the Care More Be Better podcast.
He argued that people will only be able to progress to the second evolutionary stage once they discover a strategy to overcome and eradicate waste and unsustainable expansion established during the first evolution.
You have to have this discussion with the rest of the world if we’re going to get from the first human evolution, which is dead and gone, to a second human evolution, which we haven’t planned yet,” Hardy remarked.
‘It’s still to be determined and is ours to imagine, discuss, plan, design, and implement,’ Hardy said, adding that academics, the government, and non-governmental groups must learn from the past for ‘groundbreaking transformation’ to occur.
‘The first human evolution has ended, and we must learn from our mistakes, history, and each other to shape the second human evolution.’
