A Higher-Minded Argument for Loving Dinosaurs (and History)
19 May 2025Many years ago I had lunch with some coworkers in the breakroom where we would discuss all manner of things. One week’s ‘theme’ ended up being history. I’ll never forget what one of them said.
“Why care about history? What does it, like, do? It’s not useful. It’s just a bunch of trivia.”
That knocked my brain off a cliff. I sat there dumbfounded while others picked up the slack, but their arguments…sucked. Here’s one: “We’ve learned construction from studying Roman concrete and Damascus forging.” “It’s not worth all that historical funding though. Why not put the money directly toward materials science?”
These arguments are similar to theological vs atheist arguments - the research of history is not materially useful (and is not meant to be), so a Materialist argument is completely useless. Religion is not materially useful. Art, music, not materially useful. But unlike all those, history is not spiritually useful either. So what IS its use?
Now we’re getting to the sauran meat of the post. Let’s talk about DINOSAURS!
The 90s were a time of dinosaur obsession. GIANT REPTILES! Like dragons, but REAL! Giant beasts tearing each other to shreds, toys that made religious fundies blush with the suggestion of carnage! Explosive volcanoes, earth-shattering meteors! AWESOME!!
But…
What’s the use? It’s just a bunch of speculative facts about dead stuff. You don’t do anything from learning about dinosaurs except maybe being an underpaid archeologist, which is a snake eating its own tail. Dinosaurs are a closed loop from a Materialist perspective.
Under the lens of Myth, Dinosaurs are as powerful as they were in life. A love of pre-human megafauna is a rich tapestry of Meaning.
Dinosaurs existed before Us. They existed before civilization, humans, and many of them before mammals. Dinosaurs are so mind-bogglingly ancient they scale the human mind away from itself. They kill the ego of the Self and Humanity. Dinosaurs are proof that Human Civilization is not the default state of Earth. We are one cycle of many cycles.
The great destruction events are now taught under the lens of Climate Change doomerism, where they could act as a powerful tool of hope if framed correctly. Even the great Seismosaurus and Tyrannosaurus couldn’t do anything about the climate. They were powerful machines born of nature, but they could not change nature the way humans do. Our climate is changing. If you believe humans are doing it and that makes you sad - you’re stupid! If we can change the climate to something humans can’t live it, we can also change it to a perfected Eden. From the low of knowing that humans are just one predator among many cycles, we can raise our self-image into that which we already are - Crafters. Creators. Tool-Users. Humans are the apex predator of this Grand Cycle and unless we embrace that, we will die.
Dinosaurs embraced that they were strong and are the first lesson in Darwinianism many of us get. Herbivores have scales to defend against the steak-knife-teeth of their enemies. Carnivores become bigger and stronger to eat them, the herbivores respond in size and armor. A hot war of evolution. Yet in the end, both of them die to the humble mammal. Nature does not care if you are Big. Nature only cares if you Survive and Reproduce.
We are told these things by dry-mouthed old men in polos, droning on about selection pressures, and the facts soar right past our ears. They are devoid of scaffolding or interest. Our minds structure the world around Stories. Dinosaurs are a Story. They are the legendary, larger-than-life tales that imprint the nature of reality into our Being. Facts can be learned, but Dinosaurs give that true understanding (or to use Heinlein’s cringey term, grokking).
Prehistory is the most beautiful of abstractions. Think about it - none of us has ever seen a living dinosaur. There is no written record of them, no depiction of them. Dinosaurs exist purely from archeological speculation. They are a story crafted purely of the curiosity and intelligence of men, a synthesis of Reason and Imagination. The crafting of these ancient stories are a testament to the best traits of humanity.
Perhaps the most beautiful thing dinosaurs teach us derives from that last point. All things die, all organic memory eventually fades, and - terrifying to the modern Western mind - the Individual loses meaning.
But the Earth carries memories in its flesh. The Earth will always remember we were here.
Dinosaurs remind us of that.