Safety in Numbers

                   This is unfinished, maybe not worth fixing,  . . . .

All of us live immersed in many layers of backup systems.  It appears that our bodies breathe and our heart pumps automatically regardless of our conscious state.  However, we do not survive very long without conscious attention, our own or someone else's.  Loved ones may depend on us or on someone else acting in our place.  One aspect of responsible living is structuring our own backup systems.  We need adequate shelter to sleep safely.  We keep water and food nearby.  We live within strong social systems mutually obligated to the open-ended welfare of the group.

Normal life today would have been incomprehensibly magical to people in deeply prehistoric times. Biologically we are identical.  Humans mediate interactions with their environment through tools.  We decide whether primate fossils are "human" through the physical evidence of human capability.  Did they walk on two legs?  Could they produce vocal sounds?  Did they use tools?

contemporaneous tools.  Our tools are orders of magnitude more powerful. 

Humans use tools to mediate interaction with their environment. Our present lives

 The largest single difference between human life now and that in deeply prehistoric times is the materials available to make tools.

Much in our modern lives is mediated by


We are surrounded by kin

Many aspects of our lives depend on our normal functioning or on the performance of some backup system.

 people we care about
Many vital aspects of our lives depend on our   attention. 


How can we responsibly minimize the bad consequences if we are plucked from our lives.

We may die or be mentally incapacitated without warning at any moment.

Serious consequences can result unless we pay regular attention to our ongoing commitments, especially finances. 

 and .   our regular attention.