Humanities Coming Long Life and Prosperity

Humanity is going to survive. Already we are undergoing rapid technological change, becoming more modular, flexible and adaptable. In a very real sense almost every human alive today is in the process of becoming transhuman.

This is an issue I’ve thought about a long time – the future, the future of humanity, of life and intelligence. It would be fair to say it has been an obsession at times. Depending on the level of attachment I've had to particular outcome, that obsession has taken its toll on my ego, resulting in times of joy, optimism and delight, as well as grief, sorrow and crippling paranoia. I’ve delved deep into both science and mysticism, inner and outer space, looking for answers, clues to where life is heading. Some would say that life is heading nowhere in particular, that it is nothing more than a product of blind evolution and random mutation meandering its way through time. But yet, there is evolution. Although perhaps on the microscopic scale random mutation reigns supreme, over time there is a clear movement from simplicity to complexity. From homogeneity to diversity. From entropy to extropy. Now life has filled every niche, even niches that no scientist could ever have thought possible less than a decade ago. There is life in the bottom of the ocean, in high pressure boiling water, and miles deep below the Antarctic ice shelf. Humanity with our intelligence has steadily moved from cave dwelling hunter gatherers, barely surviving from one generation to the next, into a global species capable of surviving everywhere, even in the cold vacuum of outer space.

There is a vector then to this march of evolution through time. And it hasn’t come without its fair share of bruises. Solar Storms, tectonic shifts, cometary and meteor impacts, global atmospheric poisoning, super-volcanoes, ice ages and global warming – resulting in at least 5 major extinctions in earth’s history.

And now we have our modern era. One that for most people is filled with fear and gloom, and what some scientists are now saying is earths sixth great extinction. Throughout history humanity has had its own fair share of bruises - starvation, disease, famine, wars, plagues, cultural clashes, and mother nature. Yet we have survived every manner of both environmental assault and human folly. And now in our present era we are experiencing the most rapid change our planet has ever seen, due almost entirely to a feedback loop in which we are directly amplifying and being amplified by. Depending on who you talk to, and more importantly how you interpret the overwhelming amount of incoming data, we are either heading for extinction or transcending into something altogether new and spectacular – a quantum evolutionary leap equivalent or exceeding in magnitude all evolutionary leaps before it.

At this point almost every intelligent person has weighed in on the subject. Technologist like Bill Joy thinks that our chances of survival are slim. The astophysicist Martin Rees and the technologist-inventor Ray Kurzweil are putting our odds at around 50/50. And the Singularitarians are saying that unless a super intelligence can be created soon, are odds of making it are less than 1%. So who’s right? One thing is for certain, the means of our destruction are multiplying and falling into ever greater numbers of hands. As Mark Pesce says, we are rapidly approaching the day when, for all intents and purposes, every child will have tactical nuclear weapons.

Yet, despite these alleged facts and expert pontificated probabilities, I’m placing my bets on the survival and prosperity of intelligent life. And it won’t be just survival that is life’s inheritance, but abundant, glorious, diverse and ultimately supremely happy life expanding rapidly out into the universe towards infinity.

How did I come to this conclusion? First and foremost life has always made it, and the historical evidence continues to mount. But more importantly - despite every major new piece of data that says we shouldn't be here, we shouldn't have survived, our existence is testament that we did! The fact that anything exists at all is pretty miraculous. And according to inflationary theory, our universe teeters on the edge of zero-point vacuum fluctuations that could wipe us all out in an instant. Yet we are still here! But something more than just scientific evidence moved me to this conclusion. Not long ago, for a few precious moments I slipped the bonds of my ego long enough to see that life is doing just fine, despite my own ego’s particular problems or worries to the contrary. All my life, I have in some manner placed my ego at the center of what is important, what constitutes what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, what will improve our odds of survival and/or diminish it. Like most people, I deeply feared death in some manner or other. Yet, as I look around at all that is happening, my ego, and probably yours too is under assault from constant accelerating change, information anxiety, unpredictability and increasing uncertainty as to whether we as individuals will survive. Because I placed my worldview within the context of my ego, I increasingly came to the conclusion that life will not make it. When it is more accurate to say that any one individual life, including mine is faced with greater uncertainty. In turn I placed my ego in line with humanity and life as a whole, mistakingly placing the odds of my survival in line with that of the whole species. Having transcended my ego long enough to see this, I no longer despair at what has always been true anyway, that my ego will not survive even if my physical form remains intact. The changes are too drastic for my ego to remain intact. Each day our ego's go through almost imperceptible little mini-deaths and rebirths. Every so often, a traumatic even results in a larger death and rebirth of our worldview. Hopefully this rebirth results in a more positive and life affirming mindset. As the world goes through more change, our ego has to evolve, and transcend itself more and more if it hopes to stay in the game, amidst increasing novelty and unpredictability.

In every sense the world politic has never been more unstable than it is now. Those in power are feeling this change even more than we are. While we experienced the ups and downs of economic cycles, those at the top lived under relative stability. But now the degree of change is so rapid, that even their cocoon of stability is under direct assault. Their long used habits of maintaining the status quo are failing, and they are having to constantly re-think new ways of maintaining control. As a friend reminded me recently quoting Star Wars, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers". This fact is scaring the hell out of them, and so they are rapidly making attempts to bring the entire resources of the globe under their direct control. The evidence is all around us. The question is will they succeed? No. They may come close, but things are moving way too fast now. Change is so great that all their models of control are obsoleted before they can ever become policy. In the time it takes them to think up a new method of control, life and change have evolved past their model. Unfortunately these people are really desperate. Think of them as drug addicts who have become long accustomed to having absolute power, or at least sufficient power to maintain their way of life. They are now loosing that power to the decentralized forces of the network. More and more power is falling into the hands of more and more people, at ever cheaper costs. Al Qaeda may be a convenient boogeyman for them, but it is also symbolic of this decentralization that is scaring them so much.

Bruce Sterling has speculated that this decentralization of power is going to make for one very crazy ride, where thugs of every variety will be committing atrocities all over the globe. A complete breakdown of nation states into tribal feuding thugs, duking it out for control of markets and territories, while the rest of us are caught in the middle. I have no doubt this is one likely possibility. Unfortunately, this acceleration of technological savvy and networked intelligence will continue to increase, and those thugs in turn will find it increasingly difficult to maintain any kind of control.

Meanwhile, the chances of accidental or intentional release of a nasty bug that wipes out a large percentage of humanity is becoming more likely. The question is how will humanity respond to all of this? If there is one thing people hate it is despotism. Every chance people are given a chance they always choose democracy. Despite ever increasing stupidity of the US government in attempting to lock down the internet, the world is wising up to this. I have no idea how any of this will shape up or shake out. My guess is there is going to be a lot of death and destruction. I would not be surprised at all if 80% or more of humanity is wiped out ever the next 20 years. Some have even said that is in fact the agenda of those in power. That may be so, but their biggest mistake will be thinking they will control this new world in the wake of so much death and destruction. Although 80% of humanity might be dead, the remaining 20% are going to be extremely motivated. And even though the technologies of control will be unprecedented, so too will the power of technology be in the streets. The collective power of the network made possible by ever smarter social software will allow collective action like the world has never seen. The balance of power is already shifting in this direction at rapid pace, and desperate attempts to tip that balance back will be temporary at best.

So after every major catastrophe, despotism, global war, nuclear attacks, biological virus, there will be survivors. Because if life has learned anything is that it wants to survive. And humanity being the intelligent edge of this evolutionary life force will use all of its drive to survive. Through the massive collective action of individuals powered by decentralized networks, people will build new communities and move forward past all of these horrible atrocities. We/They will look back at all the mistakes that were made that led to such devastation and vow never to repeat them. We/They will be deeply grateful to all of us alive today who lived right now doing our best to sort it all out, and who were alive as humanity and all of life enters the coming bottleneck. Life and in turn humanity will go on to prosper, evolve into transhumanity, post-humanity taking the best of everything and shedding the worst as it moves out into the cosmos. Our ego's have no choice.