We Are as Gods, and what we lost when we stopped being awed
A reflection on Stewart Brand, planetary-scale ambition, and the quiet cost of trading wonder for control.
Notes
Stewart Brand's arc — from the Whole Earth Catalog to de-extinction — is a story about scale. This reading traces where planetary ambition sharpens our tools and where it dulls our capacity for awe.
The through-line: control and wonder are not opposites, but they compete for the same attention. What we automate, we stop noticing.