Grow up!

Everything it seems is born, grows old and then it dies. Interesting then to compare humanity to a human lifetime.

When humanity was wee it learnt a lot of basic stuff. How to walk, how to talk and how to throw a temper tantrum. In its early days humanity must have found the world a pretty big scary place. Not only that, but humanity was quite unique among the animals. It was special. In other words it was a loner who wouldn’t play with any of the other animals. So like many children today humanity invented imaginary friends to cope with life. But humanity was curious and wanted to learn. It wanted to understand the world around it. So, with its childlike mind it started to postulate. And just as kids still do today it filled the world with simple rules and scary monsters.

The teenage years were quite turbulent. Let’s face it. Humanity became a bully. Strong, arrogant and ever so ignorant. And then there is the issue with the imaginary friends. Those were still hanging around in the teenage years. This was already starting to become a big concern. Kids have imaginary friends, but as they start to mature they get real friends. However, humanity was still very much alone.

As humanity finally started to mature and get into early adulthood things looked up. Humanity started to appreciate science and it started to get a real appreciation of the world around it. It discovered its real place in the universe. It discovered that it wasn’t alone at all. The planet is filled with life and some species are far more intelligent than the bully was willing to admit to. Humanity finally could make friends. Canine for example become such a good and devout friend. Avian grew strong links as well. Things were looking up. But then disaster struck. An old concern, that never went away came back with a vengeance.

The persistent collection of imaginary friends led to a serious psychological problem. Humanity was struck down with a split personality disorder. One personality, still filled with curiosity and the need to learn and grow, continues to make advances. But the other personality, scared weak and fragile, is obsessed with countering growth and constantly undermines humanity’s future. This infirm personality exposes humanity to disease by refusing to use a condom. This feeble personality shields abusive tendencies. This idiotic personality eats dirt in a Mexican church because it believes that it has magical healing powers. This timid personality believes that free will is the choice between a belief in imaginary friends or a disbelief that leads to a bad place with a broken thermostat.

And so what does the future hold? There are few signs that humanity will cure its split personality issues any time soon. Therefore, without having matured yet the technological advancements humanity is continuing to make are themselves cause for concern. Yes, there is the nuclear issue, but that’s not really modern technology any more. I would be more concerned about modern electronics and how humanity is starting to use them. It is becoming a common sight to see humanity walking around with small hand-held devices tethered to the head with a thin cable. These devices contain information about many aspects of human life. And humanity is relying more on such devices to interact with the environment around it and process new information. These devices are evolving into external secondary brains. So I fear that humanity just might be evolving into the Ood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ood). Just as the Ood, humanity is using these ’secondary brains’ to tune into the melodies of life shared by millions. For the Ood the music was provided by a third, shared central brain. For humanity that is called iTunes. But will it end there?

Humanity already implants devices to alleviate disabilities. Surely it is not a big leap to start implanting devices to augment humanity’s abilities. After all the ability to see light can also be seen as the inability to see the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum. The ability to speak could be seen as the inability to directly interface with electronic networks. So I wonder if humanity’s ultimate destination is nothing like the Ood but more like the Borg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek)). Creatures that assimilate the knowledge of other cultures but then force those cultures to adopt their lifestyle. Creatures that are using technology and their military power to conquer territories of value and assert their views on others, usually by force. Creatures that have not resolved their place in the Universe or their idea of a creator. Creatures with a misguided drive for perfection at the cost of existence itself. In other words, is the ultimate goal of humanity to become American?