When Humanity Stopped Giving Back

Extraction is both inside and out

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

The Coin Dozer Tipping Point

As a kid, I was mesmerized by the “coin dozer” game at the county fair. It involved rolling a quarter down a slot toward a miniature bulldozer. The dozer pushed accumulated coins toward an edge. The idea was to position your roll just right so the dozer pushed an avalanche of coins over the edge to become your prize.

Malcolm Gladwell called this a “tipping point,” when an idea, trend, or behavior crosses an threshold, suddenly accelerating greater change.

I’ve long theorized there was a single moment in time — a collective coin dozer tipping point — when humans went from being “makers” to “takers.”

Since that time, we have taken more from the Earth than we give back.

The Ecological Arc: From Givers to Takers

Dr. Kathleen Allen taught me about “Level III” ecosystems, which generate more nutrients than they consume because of the density of interdependence and synergy. In a healthy forest, for example, mycorrhizal networks shuttle nutrients between trees, and pollinators and plants co-evolve in ways that benefit the whole.

Presumably, humans once participated in our ecosystems in this mutually-beneficial way. Though we consumed calories, we also helped cultivate, produce, and disperse nutrients. Our labor was enhancing to the system rather than depleting. Our contribution continued after death, when our bodies slowly decomposed into soil.

One day, a tipping point happened that no one noticed. We started extracting more from our ecosystems than we contributed.

Was it the domestication of fire, perhaps? Learning to smelt iron?

Industrialization certainly changed the equation.

Today, humanity uses about 1.7 Earths’ worth of resources each year. If everyone on Earth lived like we do in the United States, we’d need roughly five planets’ worth of resources per year.

I don’t see this purely as an environmental story. It mirrors something that has happened inside us as well.

The Inherent Self: What We Forgot We Had

All humans have an inherent wisdom. In Internal Family Systems (IFS), it’s called the Self, characterized by eight qualities: calm, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness.

When I studied world religions in college, my main takeaway was that we’re all interdependent. Christians believe we are “one in Christ.” The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh taught about “interbeing…the understanding that nothing exists separately from anything else.” Black Elk saw that all livings things as a sacred hoop “wide as daylight and as starlight.”

If we’re all interdependent, and we all share Self characteristics, it follows that the Self transcends personal psychology. The “8 Cs” describe the nature of the sacred whole, the interconnected fullness expressed through all things.

I suppose this is what people have called God, Yahweh, Brahma, Allah, and countless other names. It’s love.

Covered Over: When Protection Becomes Identity

Our direct experience of this sacred whole is often “covered over” by self-protecting habits and limiting beliefs.

Because of psychological wounds, we don’t regularly tap into our inherent wisdom that gives us a felt sense of sacred interdependence. Instead, we resort to ego-based strategies to keep ourselves safe, strategies that often have painful consequences for ourselves and others.

In IFS language, these strategies are called “Protector Parts.” We learned, often in childhood, how to protect ourselves from being hurt. This might show up as control, domination, emotional distance, people-pleasing, perfectionism, or avoidance. It is the root of toxic masculinity and toxic femininity.

These strategies once helped us survive as children. But when they run our lives as adults, they can cut us off from the very Self that guides us with wisdom and love.

In that sense, our extractive behavior toward the planet is a macro-level expression of a micro-level pattern: we’re a species acting from wounded Protectors rather than from open-hearted Self.

Extraction as Inner Exile

When I look at our current moment through this lens, I see a set of parallels:

When we live from Self—calm, clear, compassionate—we naturally think about giving back. We’re more inclined toward reciprocity, generosity, and long-term thinking.

When Protectors are driving us to be anxious, defensive, and controlling, we’re more likely to extract. We hoard, we dominate, we see others (and ecosystems) as resources to use rather than relationships to tend.

Self recognizes interdependence. Protectors insist on separateness: me vs. you, us vs. them, humanity vs. nature.

Self can tolerate “enough.” Protectors are terrified of scarcity and constantly push for “more.”

From this angle, becoming takers is not just a technological or economic story. It’s also a story about losing regular access to our inherent wisdom, and letting our Protectors, rather than our Self, steer the ship.

Next Week: Fresh Eyes on Familiar Problems

In my own work, especially in philanthropy and with families of wealth, I’ve seen how accessing Self can reveal surprising, counterintuitive paths forward. New solutions show up.

Next week, I’ll share some of what I’ve learned by working close to power and money, and why I now believe that helping people who “have everything” heal may be one of the most effective ways to change the systems we all live in.

For now, I invite you to reflect:

• Where do you notice a “coin dozer” moment in your own life…when something tipped from one reality to the next?

• Is a tipping point in process that you haven’t fully acknowledged yet?

• Can you sense your Self qualities, even briefly, during times of feeling threatened?

• How might Self qualities guide us during this time of social unrest?

Your inherent wisdom not gone. It’s always there for all of us to access. Let’s help each other look for it.