Hierarchy of needs?

It seems inevitable that the times when I think of a topic that interests me are the times when I am about to go to bed. Perhaps it is my brain's one last hoorah before calling it quits for the night and dissolving into fantasy, or maybe it is simply my brain deciding to spite my body, and force it back awake. Regardless, as I went to bed last night I found myself pondering the idea of human development, and whether hedonism or pragmatism is actually evidence of greater human development. What I mean to ask is, is survival or pleasure supposed to indicate that we are more or less developed?

I think my greatest worry is that the following post might dissolve into existential nothingness, so I'm going to have to work my hardest to maintain some semblance of cohesion to my thoughts.

Anyway, take for example environmental protection. As a nation becomes economically wealthier, it tends to increase its care for the environment. It also becomes more socially liberal. I'm sure there is a name for that razor, I just don't know it. This is, as according to the hierarchy of needs, because the basic survival needs of the nation are met. It is at this point-in theory-when the pragmatic needs of survival are met, that the more hedonistic pursuits of environmentalism are given thought. In this situation, it would seem that hedonism is evidence of a more developed society. Yet environmental management is survival as well, but in a longer-term perspective.

Of course this discussion would have to wind up talking about social connections, friendships, relationships, etc. But the most specific example would of course be sex. From a survival perspective, sex is about procreation-the survival of the species. What is it that drives a species to want to survive? I feel that each subsequent generation prevents the previous generation from dying alone, and gives it a sense of purpose. Forgetting mass extinction, were every other human in the world to die, what would the last stages of life be like for the last person on Earth? There is much more to why we have children, but no room for it here.

On the other side of the argument, there is sex for recreation-for pleasure. Whereas we as human beings derive pleasure from raising children, from bringing up the next generation and seeing just a small piece of immortality bestowed upon us, we also derive physical pleasure from the act, and from a whole host of other physical activities. I was once told that the idea of deriving satisfaction or fulfillment from sex because of the ability to father a child as being "orders of magnitude higher of reasoning" than just enjoying it. But my argument against that is that to have sex purely for procreation is Darwinian. Is the idea of deriving pleasure (for whatever reason, again there isn't room here to argue why) from sex then supposed to be considered a sign of greater human development? Truth be told, it's at the bottom of Maslow's good old chart. The idea of a society of in vitro babies seems like advanced science. But then the sole purpose of life becomes procreation. In that case, sex is indeed a fundamental need, and deriving pleasure from things that don't contribute to survival-art for example-is the true measure of human development.

I hesitate to ask this question to an engineer, as engineers are inherently pragmatists. What is the practical solution? (Well usually. Over-engineering is not uncommon). But the idea of advancing society contributes both greater pleasure and greater survival; Arguments for whether the average level of happiness in the world can change throughout history be damned. Anyway, I once mentioned in passing that a world that had no use for engineers would be wonderful because it would mean that all our problems would be solved. A couple of my peers in the room promptly sought to argue against me, with the obvious "life would feel meaningless" argument. Is the search for meaning what keeps us going?

Maybe the most pragmatic thing to do is accept hedonism as a part of life. But I still feel it is something of which we should be conscious. But just being conscious of something doesn't mean one has the ability to control it. I apologize for how scattered this entry was. It was very difficult to articulate my thoughts on this topic when it probably just goes back to that nagging question without an answer. You know, the one that connects life and meaning? So then I guess the answer to that question could be yin and yang; We fight to survive so that we can have more pleasure. My temporary answer to that question is thus the meaning of life is pleasure and survival-to have fun and keep living.