Who is Godzilla ⇡

Godzilla climbs out of the ocean, and levels the city. Seems simple enough, but there is more to it. There are a number of powerful adversaries, natural or otherwise, in the history of fiction and legends, but none of them possesses one trait that's so representative of Godzilla: popularity. We love Godzilla.

Other calamities are feared or hated, they test us, just so we can prevail at the end. Some of these forces don't even have names. The alien race in the War of the Worlds are just referred to as Martians, the result of zero seconds of contemplation. It does not matter, they are just a threat. These creatures represent the dangerous forces of the natural world, akin to crocodiles, volcanoes or disease. They remind us to be vigilant, and be prepared to defend our civilization.

Godzilla is different. He represents our own mistakes, and the self-repairing nature of the world. If you wander off too far from the right path, nature punishes you. Even if you can't fix things, can't convince your fellow men to mend their evil ways, you will still be vindicated at the end, as Godzilla stomps on the aberrant, and restores balance. In this sense, Godzilla is a positive force, his destruction might be painful but necessary in the process of healing.

Many people feel we've left the right path, and while many of us see this clearly, we are powerless to fix things. So they are hoping for Godzilla to show up.

Waiting for Godzilla ⇡

What's so wrong with the world that Godzilla needs to stomp on it? You are hard pressed to find any metrics that indicate evil or rotting in our world. Wars and armed conflicts are on the decline, especially long deadly wars. Hunger and poverty are on the decline. We produce more food on smaller land, we produce better food, and we understand more about food every year. Our factories and power plants are cleaner and safer, our workplaces are more comfortable, we are, or at least can be, healthier than ever. Technology in every field advances at a rapid rate, even if there is, of course, a lot of room for improvement still.

Possibilities are at an all time high. We can live much more interesting and fulfilling lives. Our entertainment is better, our learning opportunities are better, and our tools are better. We have access to almost any information, we can communicate with everyone on the planet. We can easily do things our ancestors didn't even imagine was possible. We can cheaply travel, or transport items all over the globe.

We are on the brink of becoming a space faring civilization. We are about to unlock the code of life, heal any illnesses, extend life and multiply the capabilities of the human body and mind. These are the most exciting times mankind have ever experienced, and we have no reason to think it won't be even better in the future.

But, but, but! Aren't we poisoning the atmosphere and exploiting natural resources, causing a mass extinction never seen before? Aren't we living in the virtual world of social media instead of engaging with each other, thus ruining culture? Aren't we the generation that knows everything about nothing due to over-specialization? Haven't we amassed so many weapons that can eradicate life on Earth many times over?

Sure, many of these criticisms have a grain of truth. But does anyone seriously think the solution to these issues is to destroy everything we've built during the many centuries and millennia? If you really ask yourself the question how we can make things better, the best option you can think of is bombing human civilization from orbit? Or cutting it out like cancer? Don't you think you are overreacting maybe just a little? The problems we are facing, these allegedly deadly sins, don't seem to be all that fatal once we look at them from a problem solving perspective. One can not honestly be so pessimistic to realistically envision a horrific apocalypse to come. Even the worst, grossly exaggerated predictions are manageable with some effort and ingenuity. But that's exactly what people oppose the most, solutions. We want the world to end. We prefer to see ourselves as evil. But why?

The cause of our pain is the lack of pain itself. In earlier times, you had to put up an effort, or you very quickly faced death. Working endless hours, enduring discomfort, cold, hunger and illness were prerequisites of every day's existence. If you slipped, you should've been very lucky to get help. It was a terrible way of living, but getting motivated wasn't an issue.

In our time, one can slack. With very minimal effort, one can live in comfort and relative safety, enough to remove any immediate urge of taking action, instead of watching tv or whatever the 21st century alternative to that. Sounds pleasant at a glance, but there's an inherent problem with it. Human beings can only operate if there's struggle. Lack of struggle leads to apathy and eventually self destructive tendencies. With goals, hardships are obstacles to overcome. Without goals, hardships are the bane of existence, an enemy impossible to win against. They are infinitely numerous, solve any, and others pop into its place.

But what can we do if we don't have to struggle for survival? Surely we don't want to self inflict the kind of motivation we managed to do away with, after so much effort. There is, fortunately, an answer and it is: personal goals. As we eradicate the goals defined by nature, now we are all set to choose our own destiny!

That is the most optimistic message. Not only can we choose goals to our liking, we can work on goals that are noble and uplifting. We can fight for them with very little risk. Billions of people working on bettering the world, even if the majority picks worthless or erroneous ends, is bound to bring about a future brighter than we can imagine.

Where is Godzilla ⇡

With any luck, Godzilla is not coming. Catastrophic events are rare, and we only need a century or so to build up our defenses against all of them. We already defused quite a number of them, which is wonderful.

But at any rate, disasters are not something we should wait for. Disasters are not Godzillas, they will not restore balance or put us back on any right track. These are blind destructive forces of clueless nature. What they bring is pure chaos, loss of value and life, loss of cooperation and civilization. All they do is set us back, depending on the severity, sometimes insignificantly, up to a decade or a century. We don't want to go back a decade or a century. It is utterly false and kind of stupid to think that our ancestors a decade or a century ago were more aligned with nature, more "in balance" with anything at all. They were just less capable. We are the ones caring about balance and other species the most. We are the ones that invented animal rights or the idea of preservation. All it needs to destroy these sentiments is to go back a century. Nobody on this globe benefits from going back a century.

But even if the direct effects are milder, the setbacks often come in the most unexpected ways. It is unfortunate but natural for people to demand safety and control in times of trouble. As innocent as it sounds, safety and control are the antitheses of freedom and individualism, and thus civilization. Not to mention the opportunity for the power hungry to grab some extra power, which they very reluctantly give up afterwards. It is much easier not to give governments power than to take away any. With any crisis, governments grow and life shrinks.

But the true danger is waiting itself. The very thought that we are lost and we need to correct course so much that large scale destruction is a desirable alternative, is the horror we need to fear. There are two main reasons why. First, maintaining civilization is a continued effort, or rather it should be. Would we ever stop doing so, things deteriorate quickly. Second, mishaps do happen every now and then, and the outcome of the situation largely depends on your reaction.

Entropy is a bitch, pardon my French. Things tend to revert to their natural state, and apparently nature favors ore to metals, rubble to buildings. We tend to favor the exact opposite, which means we need to engage in a never ending struggle to rebuild our tools. But why would you repair something you hate, especially when the end is near? We have built enormous structures that can stand on their own for quite a while without maintenance, like a big aircraft that can pretend to be all right for some time after its fuel has run out. It is even reasonable, if you really think Godzilla is just around the corner. It can hurt us later dearly if not, though. Large structures can turn pretty dangerous unmaintained, and pretty costly to fix after they fell into disarray.

If you wait for something for a long time, you tend to get perhaps a little delusional, and start to see things that are not there. In particular, you might see the awaited event in everything. This is it! Godzilla is here, that's the end, that's the great event we've been waiting for, the great flood, god's intervention. Instead of rushing to the walls to defend the city, you just throw your hands in the air, go home, close the doors, and wait. It does not take long for the city to be levelled, structures to crumble, civilization to fall, all without the help of Godzilla. All done by ourselves, to ourselves.