04/13/2025
05/29/2025
Life is a struggle. All known life has been struggling and continues to struggle to exist. Through natural selection, the best adapted, fit and evolved beings are able to pass on their existence through the next generation. Those who can’t keep up with the world, cease to exist.
Beneficial traits that allowed a being to thrive are passed onto the next generation via genetic material. Life has posed an infinity of methods for that to happen, but more closely understood by us is the genetic fusion of two beings, male and female. Many traits, such as skin color, height, body type are very easily carried over to the next generation. Parents can fathom how their kid will look: “Will the baby have daddy’s eyes and mommy’s hair?”.
However, the fact that we can carry over our genetic footprint should not be taken for granted. For many insects, such as bees, ants and wasps, not all individuals can actually generate new life. In a bee colony, there are three types of bees: worker bees, drones and queen bees. Queen bees will mate once with drones and then lay eggs for the rest of their lives. Worker bees do not have any reproductive system and will never be able to pass on their genes.
Even if a worker bee has a beneficial trait, it could never be passed onto the next generation of bees. It will cease to exist along with this worker bee. It can be said that many of us might also feel like a worker bee. A lot of couples struggle to conceive children, resorting to modern medical procedures to succeed. And, for others, it might just be impossible. The thought that all achievements, stories, memories of a lifetime and the self will be lost without the next generation to safeguard them, can be despairing for anyone.
Individualistic centric humans that we are, focus on the individual and what one can achieve to advance the entire humankind. We have names, surnames and even nicknames, assuring that each of us really is a living self-contained entity. Worker bees do not have names. It can only be speculated whether they also reflect on these issues or not. But if they do, they might see their life as meaningless since as an individual nameless worker bee, nothing can be achieved and all will be lost in the end anyway. Nevertheless, they go on about their work, granting not just the hive but also many other beings, including us, survival.
Worker bees are responsible for pretty much everything in a colony: nursing the young, foraging for pollen and nectar, maintaining the hive structure and temperature and defending the colony. However, if it were not for the drone and queen bee, there wouldn’t be new bees, putting an end to the colony. There is an intrinsic interdependency in the three bee types. It can be hypothesized that they might even constitute a composite life. In this perspective, the colony is the individual self-contained living entity.
We can transfer this perspective to ourselves. For the ones that will not bear children, do not despair. As a worker bee, we all play a part in the struggle for existence that we call life.
07/05/2025
“If anyone kills another human being, he must be put to death.“ (Leviticus 24:17 NIRV).
This Bible verse reflects a part of the justice system instituted in many countries, such as the US, China and Singapore. Capital punishment or death sentence is sanctioned and conducted by the government as punishment for crime committed. The crime that leads to this sentence can vary a lot, being murder one of them.
Analysing the first sentence of the verse above, it is understood that “anyone” is the active party and “human being” is the passive party. For the second sentence, “he”, referring to the first sentence’s “anyone”, is now the passive party, which “must be put to death”. However, there is no active party in this case. Hence, the action must be done by a non-existing being.
Organizations such as governments, unions, corporations, associations are what constitutes a society. Even when the verse above was written, organizations existed in the form of tribal councils, usually formed by village elders. They would conduct trials for crimes committed, similarly to what happens in courts nowadays. All organizations have one thing in common: they are composed of multiple individuals, a collective.
Transitioning from the individual to the collective, actions are diluted between the individuals. This way, no single individual is entirely responsible for an action. It can be thought of as the sea and a water droplet. A single water droplet is nothing compared to the sea. However, a sea is nothing but a collection of water droplets.
The sentence is not conducted by one person but rather by the organization. Even though, for example, an individual judge can decide a sentence, it will be based and backed by the law, the justice system and the government. Therefore, the missing active party which will perform the capital punishment is the organization.
In reality, the organization can’t execute a human being. It does not have a physical body to perform the punishment. An individual human being, which is part of this organization will have to conduct the execution. This means that, a human will ultimately inject the lethal injection, pull the handle to the electric chair or pull the trigger, hence putting an end to another human life. It can be inferred that the executioner is that “anyone” that “kills another human being”.
An executioner might find moral shelter within the collective, arguing that the execution was done by the organization. An executioner might even argue that if he/she didn’t do the job, another person would. This perspective can be expanded to warfare. Instructions coming from the army are passed to the field operation teams. Presidents and generals do not perform these operations, leaving the soldiers to conduct them. Veterans might find moral shelter the same way as executioners do, arguing that they did it for their country, that they were told what to do or that it was for a greater good.
Veterans have a much higher risk of suicide than civilians. There might be multiple reasons for it, but it can be assumed that guilt is one of them. Guilt does not affect the collective the same, as high ranking officials, such as judges, legislators, senators and generals are not as susceptible to mental health issues as veterans or executioners.
Ultimately, we have found a cozy way to have non-existing beings conducting death sentences. This way, that tiny guilt droplet can evaporate as quickly as we lay in bed for another night of peaceful sleep.