What Do We Want to Be When We Grow Up?
As our most fortunate members improve even beyond our natural human limits while some still starve in the streets, we can reflect on individual human experiences as the most stratified and most disparate that they have ever been. Sooner rather than later, we should decide how we want to carry the present panorama of our shared experience into the future.
When I brought up the topic of self-guided human evolution as a soon-to-be relevant topic concern, especially for well-off individuals, a friend of mine paused. In a brief silence, his demeanor shifted slowly from dismissive to disgusted. He went on to explain how the related topic of technology as a barrier had recently confronted him at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit. As a child of Chinese immigrants, he grew up hearing the praises of technology as a great equalizer. Now, as a 38-year-old technology professional, he was taken slightly aback by the realization that no longer could the basic tools for breaking ground in tech be acquired through the local thrift store or the public library.
Times have changed. And while realistically there always have been — and likely will be for a long time to come — unequal barriers to success, right now, these barriers — supported by the practices of modern American and global society — continue to grow. Unfettered, some groups will start pulling away from the pack, not just financially, but experientially as well. We live in an age where artificial bionic devices are starting to outcompete our natural abilities. Replacement lenses allow you to see up to three times farther, and artificial limbs outperform traditional ones. To prevent known genetic diseases and anomalies, you can screen for your offspring before they are even conceived. And, biology isn’t the only frontier where technology is dramatically pushing the basic human experience to previously unreachable heights.
From Elon Musk’s mission to colonize Mars by 2030 to Google’s self-driving cars hitting the road and displacing millions of workers, the future is coming — in all of its glory and in all of its horror. At the same time, the past has not left. Less than half the world has access to the internet, over 1 million Americans lack indoor plumbing, and people still pass away daily from preventable disease, dehydration and malnutrition. Stratification is commonplace and ever more extreme each day. In San Francisco, it’s possible to see boys on shiny, minimalist, motorized transportation devices pass by dirty, old men sleeping in the street with less than 5 dollars to their name.
Where are we going?
To be cliche, the future holds endless possibilities. As a species, we will chose a path to venture down. Pre-emptive though this may be, we ought to start strongly considering which paths we most prefer. With the privatization of space travel and the further stratification of wealth, dystopian scenarios from science fiction become ever more tangible. At one extreme of unlikeliness is that humans establish a sustainable Martian colony while the overpopulation and environmental degradation on Earth creates widespread famine and decay. Alternatively yet also extremely, we may see humankind come together globally and put our world-wide issues in front of any issues of national or personal pride. Will we work toward defining a box — a boundary, within which, human experience must be able to fall, and simultaneously, be prevented from spilling out its top?
The core philosophical issue is perhaps no more complicated than, “How should we treat our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters?” And yet, when asked on a universal level for all mankind, the question becomes mired in policy and politics, culture and creed. Personally, I have little preference as to exactly where we go. Simply, I want to go together, with as many people as possible. To grow up as a family.
