Cruelty, Humanity's Burden for Time Immemorial.

Cruelty is not a cardinal sin, but it deserves to be one. We are cruel to those weaker than us, those without a voice, those we don't consider worth thinking about. As a species, I think we're biologically tuned for it. It's become so ingrained that most wouldn't even blink at what they do.

Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and an unending trail of suffering inflicted by humans on everything else. We claim to have evolved into modern sensibilities, but cruelty persists. The methods may have changed; the outcome remains the same.

In both small and large acts, cruelty continues to inflict immense suffering on people, animals, and our planet. And when we venture into space, we'll take it with us. We can't figure out how to leave it behind. We can't figure out what makes us this way.

It's hard to acknowledge this, let alone write it down. I feel unsteady and disturbed doing it. Thinking about the thousands of years of what we have endured and inflicted is difficult to come to terms with. And I don't want to come to terms with it.

Some examples off the top of my head:

1. Slavery. Hundreds of years of inhuman treatment. People treated worse than farm animals, kept in cages, denied medical care, thrown into pits when no longer useful.

2. Torture. Horrifying devices and methods invented to inflict maximum pain. Like the bamboo plant method—don't google this if you value your sanity.

3. War. Countless conflicts across thousands of years, with pillaging, rape, and barbaric acts committed on the losing side. People whose only crime was disagreeing with a stronger opponent.

4. Genocide. Religious wars and the doctrine of "they're different" used to single out people and commit brutal acts in the name of some fucking god.

5. Healthcare denial. Withholding proper medical care because of money, resources, or governments that simply don't give enough of a fuck. Abandoning people when they're old and unable to contribute.

6. Workplace cruelty. Denying time off to attend funerals, care for family, or simply treating employees as bought-and-paid-for slaves.

7. Misogyny. Sexual and mental harassment of women in everyday life. Treating them as objects to fuck and claim as achievements, unable to comprehend them as living, breathing, feeling humans.

8. Human trafficking. Serial killers, gangs, crime syndicates selling people as commodities, peddling drugs that destroy humanity.

9. Police brutality. Those we look to as defenders committing acts with institutional power behind them, covering them up to escape judgment.

I could keep going. There's so much more. And this just covers what we've done to humans—animals and nature have suffered even more at our hands.

When, and if, we reach a stage where we can finally end this, how do we reconcile the thousands of years and uncounted billions who suffered to get us here? Will there ever be justice for them? What will it look like?

We are the inheritors of crimes that can never be paid for. No matter how much we whitewash our history, those crimes will forever stain everything we touch. Everything that comes after has been paid for in blood, suffering, and the curses of people forgotten. We can never transcend this. We can't leave our past behind as anything but a mess.

All we can do is try to stop as much cruelty as possible.