Monday, November 19, 2012

We need a race of superhumans to prevent annihilation

In today's world, it is no longer possible for one human to understand entire gamut of technology available to us. The technology we created has surpassed us. This happened roughly over the last 100 years. That this happened, is not surprising.

Technology is bound to surpass us. We evolve at snail's pace, and essentially are the same creatures that we were 1000s of years ago. We evolved for 3.5 billion years, give or take. Technology however started to evolve, externally, through our minds, since we first had language. And its 'genes', are thoughts and documentation of science - which is far more malleable and leads to a far more guided 'evolution'. It caused technology to very rapidly outpace the biological, Darwinian evolution of our brain. The only thing that differentiates us today from the savage, aggressive, primitive apes that we were at the dawn of humanity, is technology.

Darwinian evolution, which will improve us eventually, cannot simply cope with the pace at which knowledge evolves. As a result, certain qualities - for example impulsive aggressiveness - which helped us once have now become very real threat for our own survival.

I fear if we do not evolve, we will not be able to handle so much power that technology offers us, with the responsibility such power demands. The most likely scenario of humanity's end today is through nuclear detonations - which, as an event in today's world, is press of a button away for some people. I hope that we learn to control our primitive impulses before that happens. The scary thought is that given enough time and no change, laws of probability dictates that it is one day bound to happen.

The only way I see for us (humanity) to survive is if we learn to engineer the genes of the future generations, to improve them by enhancing rational thoughts over aggressive impulses. I hope we can withhold the itch to press that red button till we make that final technological leap.

(The only other alternative outcome I see is machines being eventually given the intelligence to take over - which can lead to a habitable world of intelligent beings, but probably ones not remotely like humans.)

TL;DR: We need to create biologically engineered race of superhumans with the right mind to prevent our annihilation.