Delusions flourish that we live in enlightened times and that as a species we have sufficiently advanced beyond the grievous limitations that haunt our past.
Ignorance, illiteracy, pestilence, famine, and the consequences of natural disasters were all at far greater levels at any point in time prior to this moment, with perhaps the exception of the first—ignorance—which is now intentionally inflicted upon the masses who are too complacent, distracted, or lazy to adjust their behavior toward remediation.
This may be because prior to ubiquitous cynicism and sarcasm polluting western societies, serious people of the past acknowledged their ignorance whereas today they take great pride in not remedying it. Instead, they embrace it with arrogance and certitude.
Wars, tribalism, greed, the lust for power, the corruptibility of humans, and the desire to control and dominate others may never cease to be our most significant menaces.
The justification for conquest, dominance, rape, and plunder, in the name of myth, superstition, family legacy, personal ego, or revenge, for monarchs or gods or secular humanism, science, and reason, or borne of those realist terms that might makes right, there is no period of our history not marred with interspecies conflict.