Humanity: A Case Study in Glorified, Repeated Failure

Why Do We Keep Making the Same Mistakes? A Love Story Between Humans and Their Own Stupidity

Photo by Mahmudul Hasan on Unsplash

You’d think after a few thousand years of stepping on the same rake, humanity would have learned to look down once in a while. But here we are, bruised foreheads and all, still wondering why everything feels so broken.

Let’s not sugarcoat this: We are absolute professionals at screwing up in exactly the same way, over and over, while pretending each disaster is some brand-new twist of fate nobody could have predicted.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a little stroll through the Museum of Human Error.

---

Exhibit A: The Politicians We Keep Electing

I’ll start simple. The next time you hear a politician promising transparency, grab your wallet and run. These are the same folks who’ve been lying to your face since before you were born.

Take California. Every election cycle, the voters line up to pick some polished grinning hack who promises to solve homelessness, fire prevention, water shortages, corruption, you name it.

Then the fires come, again.
Then the rolling blackouts, again.
Then the exodus of taxpayers and the endless excuses about “climate change” while the forests remain mismanaged tinderboxes because the state would rather ban plastic straws than clear dead trees.

But the voters? They’ll happily reelect the same incompetent clowns, nodding along as the news anchors blame anything but the people in charge.

Tell me I’m wrong.

---

Exhibit B: The Texas Floods

Just a few days ago, Texas got walloped by catastrophic floods. Predictable, you might say. Because, surprise the Gulf Coast is one of the most flood-prone regions in America.

And yet, every time it happens, it’s treated like some cosmic ambush. Politicians rush to podiums, declare emergencies, and vow “never again.”

Never again.
Until again rolls around, and you can’t drive to the store because the highway’s turned into a swamp.

It’s not like this was a mystery. Engineers, meteorologists, and even half-interested high school kids could tell you the infrastructure in that region is decades behind what’s needed. But addressing it would take foresight, money, and political will: three things rarer than a politician with a functioning moral compass.

---

Exhibit C: The Holocaust

I can’t bring this up without feeling sick to my stomach, but it proves the point more than anything else.

In the 1930s and 40s, the world watched as a man named Hitler methodically tried to wipe my people off the Earth. He did a damn good job of it. Over six million Jews were exterminated, along with millions of others.

And before someone tries to say, “But nobody knew,” let’s get honest: Many knew. Diplomats knew. Journalists knew. Leaders knew. There were cables, dispatches, rumors, evidence. And yes, plenty of people looked away because acknowledging evil means having to stop it.

Sure, maybe humanity hadn’t seen that scale of industrialized murder before. But most of us know right from wrong. Or at least we say we do, until doing the right thing becomes inconvenient, uncomfortable, or politically risky.

So we look away. We make excuses. We wait for someone else to intervene.

---

Why Do We Do This?

I’ll tell you why. Because deep down, most people don’t care as much as they claim to.

Not really.

They care about feeling good. They care about appearing moral. They care about ; shouting into the void on social media. But caring enough to act; to risk something, to sacrifice, to break the cycle: that’s in tragically short supply.

We love to congratulate ourselves for “raising awareness” or “standing in solidarity.” But solidarity without action is just theater.

---

Four Reasons We Keep Getting It Wrong

1. Short-Term Memory Syndrome
   Humans remember just enough to feel guilty, but not enough to prevent the next fiasco. We move on to the next distraction before the bodies are even cold.

2. Emotional Comfort
   We cling to comforting lies because they’re easier to swallow than the harsh truth. If a politician says, “I’ve got this under control,” we believe it

   because the alternative is admitting we’re on our own.

3. Groupthink
   Everyone else is ignoring the problem, so it must be fine. This is how atrocities happen, how wars start, and how decades of dysfunction become “the way things are.”

4. Moral Laziness
   We say we want change, but we don’t want to pay the price. Real change requires time, sacrifice, and sometimes the humility to admit you’ve been played for a fool.

---

Recent Hits from the Human Disaster Playlist

• Afghanistan: Twenty years, trillions of dollars, thousands of lives. We left exactly the same chaos we found, only with shinier weapons and a graveyard of credibility.

• COVID-19: Bureaucrats lied, politicians bungled, and institutions melted down. Half the public still insists everything was fine.

• Ukraine: The world watched Russia mass troops on the border for months. Then feigned shock when the invasion came.

Over and over, we repeat the same pattern. We ignore the obvious, pretend there’s no precedent, then act scandalized when the same predictable tragedy unfolds.

---

Do We Actually Care?

That’s the question nobody wants to answer.

Do we care as much as we say we do?

Or do we just enjoy the performance — the hashtags, the virtue signaling, the moral outrage — as long as it doesn’t cost us anything real?

Because if you care, you learn.
If you care, you prepare.
If you care, you hold people accountable.

Instead, we keep doing the same stupid dance:

• Elect the same scumbag politicians.

• Believe the same media that’s been peddling bovine feces for decades.

• Act shocked when predictable disasters happen.

---

Maybe We Love the Familiar Failure

Because it’s comfortable.
Because it’s easier.
Because new solutions feel risky, and familiar failure feels safe.

So we go along. We nod, we vote, we look away. And we tell ourselves that next time will be different.

It won’t.

---

Your Move

Here’s my challenge to you: Prove me wrong.

Prove that you care enough to pay attention.
Care enough to remember.
Care enough to break the cycle.

Because if you don’t, don’t act surprised when the next catastrophe comes knocking.

And it will.