When did you first start worrying for humankind?

Many people have a point in their lives when they genuinely start to wonder "Are we actually going to make it as a species?" Mine involved an otherwise routine bus journey.

Photo via Paul Burroughs

I was, and overall remain, an optimist. Even in these troubling, turbulent times.

Sure, ample people do bad things constantly. But the scientist in me always considers this against the fact that the global population is rapidly approaching 8 billion. And if the majority of 8 billion people were inherently bad, we’d never have made it this far.

The fact that this small number of bad people seem to be running much of global society is a whole other matter. I have a book in the works about this, so stay tuned for that.

But anyway, while admit to being an optimist, given my career and interests, I’d also describe myself as a realist. It’s an odd combo, which usually means my mindset is usually “I hope for, maybe even expect, a positive outcome, but, lacking overwhelming evidence,, I would never guarantee one”.

And for better or worse, this is how I view our species. I expect us to survive. Thrive, even. But am I 100% sure it’ll happen? No.

I used to be far more upbeat, certain that a Star Trek-esque future was our locked-on destiny. But over time, this positivity naivety was diminished. And there’s one particular incident that broke through the comforting delusion of our manifest destiny.

And wasn’t something grand-scale or profound, like climate change, or those in charge of the UK getting bladdered on a regular basis during a global pandemic. No, the brain, my own included, is fundamentally an egocentric organ, so the most impactful experiences will be personal, and specific to you.

For me, the point where I began to genuinely question the survival of human civilisation happened on a bus. A bus that followed a reliable route around central Cardiff. And given that it was how I commuted to my place of work at the time, it was a bus I’d been riding every day, for months.

And it was quite a ‘new’ bus at the time. It was a notorious bendy bus, since withdrawn from use in the Welsh Capital, presumably because they seem to annoy a lot of people, for some reason.

However, this was the early mid-aughts, and the buses were brand spanking new. And, as a result, were regularly being tweaked and updated.

And that’s where the issue arises.

Basically, when I first started using the bus, on the window by the entrance door, there were various signs and symbols stuck on. Like the no smoking sign, and the name of the bus company. SOP, really.

There was also this symbol.

Now, to me this meant ‘no food or drink’. Which, again, standard practice. A lot of publicly accessible vehicles and places don’t allow you to bring your own food or beverages while within them. The potential for mess and spills is considerable, particularly if you’re on a bus that’s constantly in motion and stopping and starting etc.

I’m not sure how rigorously the ‘no food or drink’ policies would or could be enforced, but they make sense at least, on a practical level. So, after the briefest of glances while paying the driver for a ticket, I thought no more about this.

Cut to several weeks later, I’m doing my usual commute, and while waiting to board, my attention wanders, and I realise the signage has been adjusted. Now it looks like this.

I saw this, and chuckled for a moment. Because it amused me to think… what else could that symbol mean? Why was this clarification necessary? To the point where it involved employing the services of a presumed professional who can work in the medium of sticky vinyl on glass?

But the more I pondered, the more I felt bad about my reflexive chuckle. After all, just because the symbols made sense to me, that doesn’t mean the same applies to everyone. Cardiff is a capital city after all, very multicultural, that constantly encourages tourism.

Basically, this default symbol for ‘no food or drink’ may not be as universal as I’d assumed. Maybe in other countries it’s a silhouette of a pizza and water bottle? A burrito and a cup of tea? A roti and Capri sun?

Those combos seemed unlikely, but that’s according to my own viewpoint formed by a very narrow range of experiences. So, ultimately, clarifying the meaning with actual words¹ probably was a good move.

At this point I’d arrived at my destination, so I abandoned this line of reasoning, and never thought about it again.

Until another few weeks later, when I noticed that the bus door signage had been amended even further. Now, it looks like this.

And I couldn’t help but think… what happened that made this update necessary!!??!?

How many people saw the original ‘no eating or drinking’ sign and concluded that this meant they could no longer take in sustenance of any sort?

Who honestly thought that the public transport department of Cardiff Council had such absolute control over the city populace that they could impose an ultimately fatal ban on the consumption of foodstuffs? And that they could do so purely via the medium of small signage on bus windows?

Did the local hospital emergency departments see a sudden surge in patients needing urgent treatment for malnourishment? And did these patients refuse interventions, for fear of angering the all-powerful bus regulators? Or would an IV drip present something of a loophole, given that you technically neither eat nor drink it?

These all sound like ridiculous scenarios, I know this. But even so, why was the further clarification on the sign deemed necessary? Who or what happened to bring it about? Did a passenger get genuinely confused about it? Or did some random higher-up in the bus department deem it necessary in a fit of micromanagement, or from a genuine, if misplaced, concern that people who demonstrably have the wherewithal to ride a bus somehow lacked the insight to understand that the no food and drink rule didn’t apply to all of human society?

There was no good or encouraging reason for this sign adjustment, was my ultimate conclusion. Either certain people were so clueless that they genuinely needed everything spelled out for them, or those with even the most miniscule and niche amount of power and authority believed they were.

Either way, it’s… not great. And this was 20+ years ago. In our modern world, we seem to be adhering more and more to the idea that what people think and feel is all that matters, no matter what the facts and evidence. That they’ve arrived at a conclusion is the main thing. If it’s an objectively, demonstrably wrong conclusion? Well, that’s increasingly of little to no relevance.

And this doesn’t seem like a sustainable setup, when it appears that some people literally think what’s printed on the door of a bus is a matter of life or death.

One can hope for the best, and arguably should. But clearly, such things can’t be guaranteed.

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If you have a similarly mundane experience that led you to fear for the fate of our species, please do let me know in the comments.

And if you are worried about our chances, why not help educate the younger generation, with my latest kids book. It’s evidence-based and everything!

1. In truth, the signage was in both English and Welsh, as per the norms of the capital of Wales. These images here are just crude reconstructions I made myself. I would have taken photos of the bus windows at the time, but I didn’t know I’d ever be mentioning them again. Also, smartphones didn’t exist yet.