History Will Judge Us -- Natalie Kyriacou via Tom Sullivan

[erronis]

https://digbysblog.net/2026/06/20/history-will-judge-us/

We don't have to live this way



Natalie Kyriacou is a remarkable person with a formidable background and credentials. Some real human emotion displayed in the video. Brava!

Please read the rest of Tom Sullivan's column - a lot of additional great opinions.

Natalie Kyriacou is an Australian powerhouse I'd never heard of until running across a clip of this speech last night. She spoke six weeks ago to a Conversations at the Crossroads event in Melbourne. It's well worth 15 minutes of your Saturday. The transcript is here.

One section that stood out was her observation (not unique to Kyriacou) that human-made systems like economies and governments are not matters of "that's just the way things are." They are the way they are by design. They are not unchangeable laws of nature.

Kyriacou critiques contemporary society with humor and seriousness:

We have split the atom, cracked the genetic code, and hurtled expensive metal objects into space, sometimes with people inside, mostly just to see if we could. We have built cities that scrape the sky, machines that think and a global communications network that allows people to yell at each other at any time of day, from any part of the world.

But when it comes to the question of whether we should keep our own planet habitable, and keep our own people alive, humans remain curiously undecided.

We have turned the simple matter of survival into an endless controversy.

To be clear, these things happen because we allow them to. There is nothing inevitable about the way we run our economies, draft our laws, or govern our societies. These systems have no independent existence; they exist because we will them to. They are human constructs.

These are rules of our own making; rules that we just made up and now follow with devotion.

Unlike the laws of nature, like gravity for example, which applies equally to everyone, human-made systems like economics, law and politics are made up and often structured to the advantage of a small select group of people. This is why gravity applies to everyone, but tax loopholes do not.

And these human constructs normalise the destruction of nature and communities. Human and environmental suffering persist not because we lack alternatives but because we allow them to remain profitable, socially tolerated, and politically viable

But the world doesn't have to work this way. We made it this way. And that means we can make it work differently. Like all human-made systems, they can be rewritten, assuming, of course, we want to.

Looking back in 2014 on the Great Recession, Bill Moyers had a conversation with historian Steve Fraser about the same problem. Fraser noted that Americans have somehow conflated freedom with capitalism, and that leaves us unable to envision an alternative to the mess Kyriacou describes today.

. . .

Her book info is at https://www.nataliekyriacou.com/about-the-book

[efhmc]

1. History will judge "us" is not only not true it is degrading. I and million others did not start, encourage this or pay

(willingly) for this. So please stop saying that we did.

[BeneteauBum]

2. And millions more stand mute as the environment continues to get ravished

History WILL judge us for profiteering over protecting Gaia.

Peace ☮️