Doomed to repetition

In The Serpent and the Rainbow, by Wade Davis, there is a description of the slave revolt against the French rulers in Haiti, in the chapter titled "Tell My Horse." He writes, "by the last years of French rule, it was patently clear to all that the greed of the entire system had set the colony on a path of self-destruction. Only the potential for massive profits could possibly have numbed the whites to the imminent disaster" (p.201). The atrocities committed by the European plantation owners on the black, white and mulatto slaves was as bad as those on the people of Hispanola when Columbus arrived and realized there was gold to be had. I'm sure they can be compared to those wrought on the people in Rwanda, Aboriginals from the Americas, and countless other examples across the globs and across time. With plantations reaching further and further up the hills and down the valleys in Haiti to supply the world with its demand for coffee and sugar, plantation owners could only see the growing stacks of money and the beauty of an endless supply of slaves. I'm only picking on them because I happen to be reading the book right now, but they are not unique...the British Properties in West Vancouver slowly creep up the mountains in search of a better place to put the next mansion with a better view, and wilderness in the backyard. Why is it so hard for us to see our past mistakes? In a time when information is so easily accessible, when so much is documented, why do we fail to remember? Was it too long ago? Too removed from us, personally? Or is it that we don't care? I am sometimes flabbergasted at my own inability to learn life lessons, so I know I do not fall outside the realm of human failings, but I can't help but wonder why. I would like to think that we are evolving as a species, that in time we will (as a whole species) be sustainable. Sustainability is not possible with such massive human rights abuses.