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The old adage "may you live in interesting times" is for sure appropriate to these times. Call it the "technology age", "information age" or what have you, there can be no doubt that this past 50+ years of living has us experiencing the fastest period of development and change mankind has ever experienced in such a relatively short period. This next 50 years is going to go at warp speed in comparison. Yet, the question can easily come to mind how that impacts the whole of mankind and whether it will be positive change or not.
These times are for me a complete contradiction in many ways. On one hand a few people are advancing and changing the world via technology and science like never before. On the other hand, the majority of the "huddled masses" are being left behind...perhaps not in modernization or consumerism...but for sure in advancement of reason, intelligence and economic participation in these advances. There is such a contradiction between the technology age in development and the senseless wars our governments and religions have dragged us into. It would seem most of the people in our world are either religious fundamentalists, terrorists, or criminals based on their use of or participation in drug use or drug running. In reaction to all these "fundamental" concerns, we have allowed our governments to legislate morality based on archaic, patriarchal religious convictions...and have taken on the mantra of "live and let die" versus live and let live.
Here we have all the money, food, information, cell phones and computers that we could need...enough for every human breathing on the earth today...yet a vast majority of humans live in dire poverty and ignorance. It seems obvious to me that this poverty and ignorance has been programmed into the human psyche to the extent that one almost loses hope at the survival of our species. A very few of us have developed technologies and weapons of mass destruction enough to wipe the earth off the face of the cosmos. We spend billions on medicine and curing diseases, but we spend relatively nothing on cleaning up our environment or the air we breath and water we drink that continues to bring us death and destruction.
It might be a good thing we are killing ourselves off via our ill advised consumptions because our booming populations, especially among the poor, needy and uneducated majorities...are overwhelming the supply side of our productivity. Its not that we CAN'T keep up with demands of our global masses...but the few who CAN provide are not willing to do so because that would mean "living for others" versus living for ourselves.
It is another perplexity that we seem to have so many "do gooders" in our religious and government institutions...yet we don't seem to make a dent on sustaining advancement of the masses in things like self sustained economics, true education and productivity. As I have alluded to, we have enough food and money to go around in the world. What we have here Dr. Watson is a massive problem of "distribution", and if we don't fix this problem relatively soon, our world will definitely experience some setbacks that will cost millions or billions of lives. I think there are many forces among us who think this would be a good thing...getting rid of a few million or billion of "them". It would also seem to me that many governments in the world are purposely perpetuating the disenfranchisement of the majority from competing or thriving with the same benefits as the elite.
I don't know for sure...but I am beginning to see a connection in all of this to "natural selection" via a new technological format. As I have read many futurists over the decades such as Alvin Toffler (Future Shock), Ray Kurzweil (Singularity) and a few others of modern persuasions...I totally see this huge chasm growing globally between the very few who have the minds, money and freedom to reach infinity...and the majority in our world who do not have a chance in hell to participate in the benefits of technology to any great extent. Oh sure...we are getting cellphones to EVERYBODY, rich poor, black and white, Jew Arab and Christian. Yet, these devises and all this information is being manipulated and used in such a way as to keep people's minds in the dark ages of repression and guilt manipulation or controlling their every financial move or transaction. We just don't seem to be able to get our minds out of the emotional stag-mire of mysticism, false hopes and promises of some magic solution that will just magically make everyone whole. Most peoples minds are simply wrapped around fatalistic/futile mind sets that have everyone programmed and controlled...by the "powers that be". And I'm not talking about god or the devil.
Ok...these have been my dark thoughts on status of the human condition. Now, based on my belief in "cause and effect", I throw out here some "Future Shock" predictions that I think will happen in my lifetime...and especially if I live to the age our intelligent futurists of today are telling us we can do via the new bio sciences of our times...
1) The continued escalation of religious and racial intolerance, exercised through governments and their militaries who control hoarding and starving of the undesired poor, will continue to escalate to a point where "weapons of mass destruction" will be used. Unfortunately they may be used by governments against their own citizens as well as against irrational tyrannical governments of a decaying old world order. I'm not saying by whom or when...but so far man has found a way or a reason to use every weapon he has developed. It is not going to stop any time soon...and not before millions or billions of people are wiped out in some parts of the world. I also believe governments are capable of using plagues and disease to surreptitiously kill off undesired populations in the world. Technology and distribution of it can be a two edged sword. Ok...that was a BIG one...
2) Out of the ashes of this destruction, globalization will continue to march forward. Technology advancements will allow an elite few to live totally isolated from these horrific events. Many people will choose to explore and live in "space" versus stay on earth and try and sort out the human condition. Some advantaged people will live to be hundreds of years old...if not forever at some point...due to science's potential when unfettered by human mysticism or lack of finances to sustain life.
3) Money in nationalized currencies as we know it today will no longer exist. We will exchange values for our goods, products and services with digital "crypto" currencies that will be moderated and controlled via a new world order of governance and economic controls. We will still have local, state and even national governments as countries will continue to develop around geographical, ethnic and yes religious/philosophical shared interests. All of these will have to come under some global governance controls either BEFORE we have world war 3, or after all the dust has settled from that future short and devastating war. I don't think global currency will wait until that war...but it very much could help spark it as many governments and masses of populations will not like their positions after the "reset" of economic financial valuations based on real future money systems.
4) One of the "saviors" of mankind would be the arrival of "singularity" that Ray Kurzweil is a key evangelist of...that point in the near future when the human mind can be hooked up to or actually BE a computer. When we humans can think and reason like a computer...and if it also connects us to a rational kindness and sense of inclusion that I think is natural within most species of the animal kingdom somewhere in the brain...that intellectual power will help us solve the issues of distribution in our world. It will help us solve population control, poverty and hunger issues. It will help us more quickly bring educational equality to all people of all races, creeds and backgrounds.
5) This new singularity will then bring potential for a future world government that will truly be "of, by and for the people". ALL people. Reduced language and cultural barriers will allow people to truly communicate with wisdom and understanding each other. With technology bringing the potential for all to have access to information in real time and the potential to vote in real time on every issue we deal with as a society or individual, versus leaving things in the hands of the obviously flawed process of "representative" government...we should begin to experience real autonomy and independence of mind and spirit that can continue to develop us into gods instead of cavemen or sniveling idiots.
When all of this happens, we can truly exchange our swords for plowshares...or better yet...for the latest computers and robots that will run the plows of production. I for one believe we can be happier WITHOUT money, politicos, borders and controllers of behaviors. When every mind is free to know and understand its potential...and find meaning and productivity in a lifespan of perhaps hundreds of years...this is when life experience, arts and sciences can truly take man to the higher potential some of us now strive for. No one goes hungry. Everyone has meaning based on the unleashed power and potential of. their mind and participation in society...a GLOBAL society. We may not ALL get there...but this is MY dream...and I don't think it unrealistic.
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