bhaskar saikia

Human beings are, in many ways, an aberration on Earth. Other intelligent species—dolphins, elephants, even certain birds—possess remarkable abilities, yet none match humans in IQ, complexity, and the capacity for collective action. We have colonised the planet in ways that even the mighty dinosaurs never did. But while their extinction is widely believed to have been caused by an extraterrestrial event, our own doomsday will likely be of our own making—born from our irrational behaviours, driven by our emotions.

The Weakest Emotion: Empathy

What is the weakest human emotion? Some might say fear, others greed, love, or hatred. I believe it is empathy. We are aware of the endless hunger crises, the millions who die each year from malnutrition, and yet we turn away. Instead of directing resources toward ending hunger, curing disease, or eradicating illiteracy, we funnel trillions into weapons, proudly displaying our capacity to kill or be killed. Sympathy may appear from time to time in the form of token gestures, but genuine empathy—the ability to feel another’s suffering as our own—is rare.

The Strongest Emotion: Attachment

If empathy is the weakest, then attachment, I believe, is the strongest—and the most dangerous. It binds us fiercely to our kin, our communities, our religions, and our nations, often at the expense of reason.

Consider a conflict that erupts between two religious groups in one part of a country. Before long, the same violence flares in distant regions between people who have lived together peacefully for generations. Why? Because their attachment to a shared identity overrides logic, compassion, and even self-interest.

This deep-seated attachment fuels dogmas—religious, political, and ideological—that, I fear, will one day spark a third world war. Unlike the first two, it will not be fought over imperialism or clear definitions of “good” and “evil,” but over belief systems themselves. And in this era of nuclear weapons, such a war could annihilate most of humanity and devastate the biosphere.

Life After the End

Imagine the aftermath. Nuclear clouds could shroud the Earth for a century, the half-life of radioactive fallout ensuring a long winter without sunlight. Survivors would be driven underground, evolving over generations to adapt: larger eyes for the dark, thinner limbs, pale skin, and perhaps larger heads as brain structures change to cope with new challenges. Beauty, as we know it, would no longer matter—only survival.

Agriculture would collapse, and research would focus on plant propagation in artificial environments, space travel, and chemically derived liquid nutrition. With no need for conventional digestion, our alimentary systems might begin to atrophy.

Religion might vanish—at least for a time—until humanity’s numbers grew enough for social control to reassert itself, and with it, the dogmas of old.

My vision of the post-war world may read like science fiction, but it is a plausible future if we continue on our present course. I hope humanity—the most intelligent life form on this planet—never allows such a fate to unfold.

After all, survival will not depend on our technological brilliance alone, but on whether we can overcome the very emotions that have shaped our history.