21st century; Old challenges, New expectations

Now that this century’s defining moments are taking shape we are realising that humanity is going towards an era not only inexperienced before but before everything else a social transformation that will eliminate all known boundaries until now considered or defined impenetrable and divine. Humanity will continue to try to improve their life and enjoy more while they can. This is as old as humanity itself; “a single supreme value – minimising suffering and maximising happiness – and therefore all ethical debates are factual arguments concerning the most efficient way to maximise happiness”. However, the approach to reaching that aim is undergoing a transformation. In many places already some individuals are pushing boundaries of comprehension on life, existence and divinity. With time and given that the success rate will improve these individuals will grow into groups, while some others who still are not aware, or too stubborn to accept it, will find themselves in the middle of a bubble of their own; under-performing, under-utilised, segregated and less worthy. There will be a way out for them too, or to put it plainly, there will still be those that will argue about divine and worldly issues just as we know them today; religion, race, politics of the day, various conflicts about territories based on some battle or conflict from hundreds of years ago, and so on, and so on. These people will be no different from those that will also prefer to spend their time in some virtual surrounding, or similar ideas. Yet, what is so sacred about such life, and why the rest of the world should stop about some “…useless bums who pass their days devouring artificial experiences in La La Land?”.

Humanity is on a course that sooner rather than later, in historical terms, will overcome the challenges of supply for the basic needs; food, shelter and warmth. It is also expected that during this period science will have appropriate solution for most of illnesses. In fact, already the dangerous epidemics SARS and Ebola that the word faced recently were tackled and defeated successfully. This is by no means an attempt to consider worthless the lives of those thousands of unfortunate ones that fell victim to these epidemics in Africa and Asia. However, we also must accept the fact that worldwide response was far more effective than just few decades before. With current scientific development in all areas for a moment we should stop and try to imagine how the world will look like few decades from now. With further artificial Intelligence (AI) progress human presence will be less required. I am one of those that considers human life sacred, although my comprehension of sacredness has evolved. Artificial intelligence may not see the day when it will replace humans entirely, but it will not be prevented to provide us humans with more time and possibilities to enjoy more of worldly and spiritual experiences; basically to have more spare time and make our daily lives easier. If there is a possibility why we should not save ourselves from some mundane day-today tasks, and in some cases dangerous ones too. With time, we would allow sophisticated machines to undertake some highly precise tasks, of those where tiny fractions of time and scale make the difference between life and death.

There shouldn’t be limitations harnessing intellectual ability and achievement just because someone somewhere considers some part of human life as granted by some divine entity. If we accept that rule than we fall into the trap of not considering all humans equal, on the contrary we grant powers to one individual over the other based on who comes from where in terms of geographical location, race, culture, religion, etc.

Scientific development has brought the world closer than ever before to eradicate subjective differences between individuals based on race, ethnicity, religion, and so on. With this rate of science progress we are soon reaching the level to be able to genetically design humans, therefore eradicate all known differences and prejudgments. Imagine for a moment a person going to their doctor, or a commercial clinic with excellent shop front, with an intention to having a baby. Doctor, or the sales person, on the other side presents her or very possibly him, a catalog to choose from the options they have on offer, starting from gender and all the way to outside appearance. Already in China cosmetic surgery is very popular and with a continued growth trend. Typical customers come with wishes of changing their original features to a more European, mixed race, ones. With this interventions it transforms an as original as it can get Han Chinese to a mixed Euro-Chinese background. Forget about lecturing on ethics and sacredness of human life! Who am I to tell someone else what is right or wrong, including what is divine or not? This is an absolute individual right not to be compromised about. At the same time, let us be honest for a moment; who wouldn’t like to look a bit like that? Or, if it’s too late to do it on ourselves, who wouldn’t like their children having such features? Fast forward few developments and we reach a stage when these sort of features can be built-in genetically during pregnancy, which will save all the costs and trouble of surgical interventions later on. While we are at it, why not through some extras in? As the time goes on and experiments keep developing this genetic customisation would move into more specific features; more artsy, sporty, specific appearance, free from various illnesses and complication, with certain physical abilities, and so on.

Currently, it is obvious that societies worldwide still consider this sort of human intervention, human design, unacceptable with the argument of divinity always at hand, however, it seems to me that this type of intervention is being rejected mainly because of fear from failure. Once science reaches a confident level of success, it will be this individual right of choice that will overcome all other sacredness and divinity and shift it into mainstream. Indifferently  from all difficulties that will arise including some unexpected events that may slow science progress, experiments will continue and in few decades from now they will become more reliable in their success rate. This does not mean that it will reach perfect stage, but it doesn’t have to. As long as it adds to the happiness and it reduces suffering, it will be acceptable. Therefore for those that see future expectation as an attempt to invent life from a divine perspective they will probably be disappointed. People will still die and science will not be able to bring people from the dead, therefore, there will still be reasons for the afterlife  It seems that future will provide for all!