On Goals

They say Humanity is superior to all other animals and plants on this Earth.

And for good reason.

Armed with almost nothing else outside our burgeoning intellect, we have risen a long way from the times of our barely bipedal ancestors, who were more likely to end up as carcasses feeding the lions and hyenas of the Serengeti, as they were to bring home the proverbial wild bacon.

After many thousands of generations, our kind even managed to break out of our planet’s gravity well ‘bondage’.

We could say the sky is our only limit.

But you see folks, I beg to differ.

Although our mental capacity may have gone up with each generation, our morality is so far behind that it’s beginning to act as a drag, as a bottom anchor that threatens to sink our fast-moving ship.

Case in point

For every person convinced by our species’ inherent superiority and Godly Calling or Beruf, as Max Weber liked to call our divine spiritual vocation, there is another that acts in such a manner that defies normality and even our sense of superiority.

For how you would call those of us who pretend to be civilized but end up destroying the only proof of greatness: our shared Past.

For you see, people, we are nothing without our History.

Everything we build now was made possible by the superhuman efforts of our Ancestors.

We were able to put a man on the Moon because someone invented the rocket engine and fuel. And that came to pass because another had already discovered the math that allowed the physics permitting it. And so on and so forth.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Not here, nor there. Not anywhere.

So, when the criminally insane Taliban decide to explode the majestic Statues of Buddha that have existed for centuries, or when a bunch of petty thieves bring down a museum wall in the Netherlands to steal a 2,500-year-old Dacian invaluable treasure exhibit, that’s how you know humankind isn’t that superior after all. This is moral suicide. It is madness. It is unpardonable.

Committing suicide is not an act of Godliness. It’s a nihilistic act that denies Creation.

The notion that there are people out there who believe they must destroy or steal or melt artifacts that have defied the passage of time, and who will stop at nothing to achieve their nefarious goals, that sickens me. It matters not whether they do it out of ignorance or contrive to do it dogmatically.

Vandalism is self-murder of the most odious kind. To kill art is to annihilate the Soul.

We cannot afford to be complicit with these ill‑advised or simple‑minded monsters. And if we do nothing, we are as guilty as they are before the reckoning and under the scrutiny of our children’s children.

Case in point

In January 2025, this gold Dacian helmet along with several gold bracelets were stolen from a Dutch museum where they were exhibited on loan from Romania’s National History Museum.

The helmet dates to 500-400 B.C., is made of solid gold, and weighs 1 kg.

The morons who demolished an entire wall to get inside the museum, and who are now being pursued by Interpol, will most likely melt it down so that they may get their lousy payday. The amount of public attention this grand burglary has generated makes any other scenario unlikely.

So, this is how this treasure that spent 2,400 years underground until a torrential rain fortuitously uncovered it at the base of a tree some 98 years ago, will go out from our Heritage into someone’s safe.

After surviving 9,600 changing seasons, thousands of tons of rain and ice and snow, nature’s onslaught, plant growth, including the very tree that did not bloody well exist back when the Persians were fighting the Greeks, and after being found by a bunch of simpleton children who played soccer with, and serving as a feed trough for the family chickens, after all these trials and tribulations, after its miraculous escape from Oblivion, and after spending almost a century as a reminder of a heroic past in a noble museum, that is how the Cotofenesti Treasure ended up in the unworthy hands of interlopers.

We must pray to God they do not melt down this work of art. Fact is a few years back, a bunch of thieves did steal some Monet painting, which they spirited away into their mother’s safekeeping.

The ignorant woman, whose IQ barely warranted its belonging to the human species, decided one day to use the painting for kindling. Because why, because why not! They make them dumb, right. Too bad these folk get to reproduce in spades whereas decent people decide to take themselves out of the gene pool.

So, her offspring steal a Monet, and their mama lights up the fireplace with it.

This is why I am beyond myself with anger when I think of these acts of ignominy.

In my mind, I cannot reconcile that this work of art that survived Time itself and the Abuse of its Children, could end up as a non-descript bar of gold. When the news came out, I died inside a bit. I am still in shock over the callousness of these bastards.

This ignominious story makes me wonder if imprisonment is truly sufficient to deter such acts of cruelty towards our common past.

I am more and more convinced that although we all want to survive on this planet, not all of us should.

I am sorry but if we are to evolve past our moral failings, we must discard the baggage that we carry.

I support the death penalty for all those who destroy historical cultural artifacts.

People who exist purely in the now without a thought to their cultural impact, their historical footprint, and who go out of their way to destroy our legacy should not be allowed to live or reproduce. Their selfishness condemns us all to a poorer future, disconnected from a rich past. And for what? So that they keep warm on a cold day. Or make a mint of money by breaking the law.

This is not a question of survival for the thieves. Never been. Out of the question. These people consider themselves above the Law. Their interests are superior to the Human Condition.

But they are wrong. And it is our collective job to show them just how wrong they are.

It affects us more than it will ever affect them. They will always survive because they are the excrement staining the human condition. And coprolites always endure and become flotsam.

Alas, it is the fate of gold to sink to the bottom of the ocean. And how cruelly true that is.