We’re not technologically capable — yet — of literally destroying the world. What we are capable of, however, is rendering its surface utterly inimical to human life. From that rather self-centered perspective alone, then, we should be careful about what we develop, deploy and refine.
It doesn’t matter if we use atomics or fusion weapons. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the form of biotech or nanos. It doesn’t matter if it’s robots or particle cannons. The sick thrust to produce bigger, better and more effective killing technologies has cost us a more or less literal paradise on Earth. We have the power to transform our world into a peaceful place of health, well-being and happiness … and yet we stubbornly continue to choose not to.
For the money we have wasted waging war against one nation that did us no harm whatsoever we could have provided universal health coverage to all Americans and revitalized the education system. We could have and damned well should have been a beacon of hope and prosperity for the rest of the world — and instead we’ve become sad, clownish and self-satirizing.
We’re the most powerful nation in the history of our species and we’re pissing away our grandchildren’s inheritance — in the name of what?
That’s the part that rankles most about all the religious swarms. None of them seems to want to consider the possibility they might be wrong, that they might be killing hundreds or thousands of others in the name of something which simply doesn’t exist.
To behave in the way many of the religious do requires not simply arrogance, but total disregard for the humanity of others and total unconcern for anyone but one’s self. Religions which claim to promote altruism and self-sacrifice ultimately prove to be about selfishness and solipsism.
Religion short-circuits intelligence. Every time.
There is no do-over. There is no undo button. If we fuck ourselves off the Earth, we’re done. That’s it.
Part 4 of 5, continuing where we left off.
