Ascendancy Awaits

How Technology and Wisdom Will Shape Our Divine Future

Humanity is fantastic, if you look at the evolution of intelligent life on our planet from the most rudimentary primates who learned tools, to our current-day homo sapiens splitting the fundamental block of matter to produce energy that could cleanly supply all of our needs and more it is awesome ( and not in the “yo dude that’s awesome”, but really as something that is extraordinary and awe-inspiring) 

We seem to be the only nature-modifying species of life in this corner of the universe. And I think we are reaching a point where we should start acting like it, Humanity is at a pivotal moment of its existence where the barbarians are at the gates but the risk is not an invasion but annihilation. We are living in an era of global catastrophic risks and for us to be able to overcome these challenges we need to step up our collective game like civilization and as stewards of this planet. 

If not the future might be a bleak and boring pathway towards dystopia or extinction. In contrast, the other alternatives mean elevating humanity towards so much more than we can possibly imagine and going beyond our limits both the ones we are held back by our biology and those that afflict our very capacity to come up with the solutions for our problems today. 

And I would love to live in a future where the boundaries of human potential are not just pushed but obliterated. A realm where the tapestry of our existence is interwoven with threads of technology, ethics, and a dash of cosmic ambition. The coming century promises not just progress, but a veritable renaissance of humanity. How, from the looming crises that afflict humanity and the technological wonders we are creating, do we prepare to ascend?

The Stewardship of Earth

Before we can fully embrace this promise of progress, humanity needs to overcome the most pressing crises currently afflicting us and those that pose an existential risk for humanity (yeah sorry income inequality you’ll be taking a seat for now)  so first we need to address the elephant in the room and even it's easy to forget our roots, our deep, intrinsic connection with this pale blue dot we call home.

Our planet, with its forests, oceans, and the unending hum of life, is more than just our cradle; it's the testament to our journey as a species. Our economies, our civilizations, and even the very survival of our species(and lifestyles)  are inexorably intertwined with the health of our planet. We cannot grow fully as a species from a dead planet, or maybe yeah we can but it will mean the death of most of our species and the few survivors will probably take a very long time to ever recover the rate of progress we currently have if the ever manage, because after the extraction of low hanging resources for our energy needs during the first industrial revolutions would make very difficult a “reboot” if humanity ever falls down in our stages of technological development to a pre-industrial world for some apocalyptic event. 

And more and more thanks to our technological advances, like the rise and embrace of cultured meat, aquaponics, and automated agriculture will no doubt increase our efficiency for high-quality food production, reduce its costs but also reduce the impact our caloric consumption on nature. We should embrace not only protecting our environments with nature reserves reducing our impact and preventing the relentless march of the climate crisis but also regenerating natural environments on this planet using our technology and knowledge to accelerate nature’s restoration. 

Also, more effective manufacturing methods, recycling, and circularity in our supply chains should be part of our mindset even though now we don’t have the tools or the technology for a 100% efficient system it can drive our technological development towards that path. 

Embracing our position as the dominant intelligence on this planet demands not just looking skyward towards our cosmic future,  but also grounding ourselves in the responsibility we have towards Earth. For, what use is this comparative incredible lifestyle we have (compared to 99% of human history) if the very soil that nurtured us withers away? As stewards of this planet, it's our duty to ensure that as we rise in our scales as a civilization, we lift our planet with us, cherishing and protecting it with a passion because without a somewhat living and livable planet, our dreams cannot be achieved and it sounds kinda dumb that this needs to be a topic but the inertia of human existence proves that this point needs to be discussed. 

The Birthing of Another Intelligence

And I think that without a doubt the great catalyst for humanity’s next big leap will of course be AI, while it also represents one of the global catastrophic risks for us and how we handle the development of this new intelligence we are forging on this planet. And though I don’t want to deviate this entire article into AI ethics and safety we have to acknowledge that this is a threat and we have to deal with it. (There will be more of those in the future so chill for now)  

Imagine a world where Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) augments our cognitive capacities, creating symphonies from mere thoughts. Then add to that a society where genetic modifications not only eradicate hereditary ailments but elevate our physical and mental prowess. Sooner rather than later robotics and automation will ensure that no human has to engage in menial labor, freeing us to pursue passions and dreams. Sounds surreal and unobtainable, right? Well, it will be if we don’t get our act straight, we need to plant the seeds that will bloom into this future today.

 

AI is a powerful tool that holds somewhat of a mystery to the intricacies of how it comes up with final results thanks to its complexity, but it is fed by human data, and embedded into that data are our biases, our emotions, our prejudice, and our history and culture. So it is of great importance that we learn and feed our AIs with proper information and try to guide them on how to overcome the inherent failures and defects of human-created data. This is why we need more researchers and ethics teams at the forefront of AI research because if not we will just keep doing business as usual and replicate today’s mistakes with tomorrow’s tools. 

The birth of AGI, while promising, is also laden with ethical quandaries. Are they mere tools, or do they deserve rights? How do we ensure that these digital entities, potentially surpassing human intelligence, align with our values and aspirations? The debates are heated, but they're also a testament to our commitment to shaping a future that's not just technologically advanced but morally sound. Now will we be able to do that? 

 

Responsibility, Wisdom, and Compassion 

Please Watch the video from the timestamp for like 10 seconds. And think of that giant floating face made of floating drones floating above the ground. If you’ve shown that to almost any human in the history of our species, they would have trembled in fear because they were in front of a god who stands before them, and they wouldn’t be totally wrong. It is a flying machine using precious stones and rocks to float in the air and glow with all the colors you can think of, with stored energy that was created in a power plant by either absorbing energy from the sun or from the atoms that make up matter. Then they are controlled by spells written in a “secret” language that tells instructions to machine ghosts on how to control and manipulate these flying machines. Technology is just magic that we’ve grown used to it. 

And yes I am being a bit over dramatic if you look at the technologies we have today from drones to vaccines, from nuclear power to the James Webb Telescope we have gone completely beyond the wildest dreams most humans had ever imagined or could even imagine due to the limitations of their perception of reality at the time. Now, just peer a bit into the future and the promises it holds from biotech opening up the gates for us to wield genes and edit them as if it were the code we use to program our machines and software we will be writing the code of life soon enough with the same ease. This will benefit us and our world in so many ways and eliminate Aging, Parkinson's, Alzheimer and most if not all of the biological ailments that are currently bringing suffering to billions worldwide.

 We have become like gods so I think we better start acting like it. And not like the gods of the past who were revered but undoubtedly were flawed and burdened by the same emotions as their human followers whether like Zeus who was a horny guy and did NOT understand what consent was at all or Yawhe who was very keen on genocide and destruction of cities or other apocalyptic events because of things not going his way (low tolerance to failure I see). We need to take the mantle of the privileged position we have on this planet and be responsible wise and compassionate with ourselves and our world. 

The Cosmic Play 

As we prepare to embrace the next century,  filled with promises and perils the likes of which we probably haven’t faced before as a species, it's clear that our journey is not just about becoming more and better than we have ever been, but about redefining ourselves through and out of our struggles. 

It's about ensuring that our progress forward is marked by wisdom, inclusivity, and a reverence for life both that of us and of the world around us. And that might require us to change a lot of our current institutions and mindsets that we’ve acquired and develop maybe new ones aimed at bigger goals and developed adequately for the hypercomplex world we live in right now instead of carrying on our backs the weight of ideas created centuries ago, not necessarily discarding all of them because there is value and we as a species are standing on the shoulders of giants who came before us but now we have to look forward from this vantage point.

 And maybe that would mean a deeper integration of our technologies into ourselves which would help us accelerate the creation of solutions the trial run of new ideas and technologies in simulated worlds where the stakes aren’t as high as we see in the real world and can simulate the complexity of our reality (up to a certain degree) and see many futures unfurl in front of us and make an informed decision about where we go from here.