Destruction of Man By Man

Chris Gorham
Destruction of Man, By Man
Evolution, in itself, has been the building block of our history. The human race has made a mission for itself to evolve as quickly as possible, making life as easy as possible. Where does this evolution come to an end though? Jean Rostand, a famous French science writer and philosopher once said, “Already at the origin of the species man was equal to what he was destined to become” (4). What does this mean to us in the 21st century? Have we not come too far in our advancement with technology and a sophisticated world order? Rather than believing that we will all suddenly become Neanderthals, I think Jean Rostand’s point was to show that humans can only evolve so far before reaching an end. It is clear through past extinction of species that evolution is not continuous. Species end, and are forgotten about over time. The purpose for humans, like every other species, is to evolve to our greatest potential. This acclaimed potential will eventually bring us to our end. In my opinion, the 21st century is where the human race reaches its full potential, the crescent of our evolution which brings us ultimately to our destruction.

Through the changing times, changing technologies, and changing cultures, evolution has come a long way. Humans have had a natural tendency to evolve starting with agriculture and moving up until the recent industrial revolution. Mark Twain enforces the importance evolution is in our species by saying, “Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endored it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on ''The Survival of the Fittest.'' These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolves it, but evolution.” People of the past like Darwin and others have fulfilled their purposes to aid in the evolution of the human race. They each took the human race to a somewhat higher level. Now the job is up to us, and no one can argue that it isn’t being done. Enhanced technologies plan to make life easier and free from troubles. As internet guru Bill Joy puts it in his essay, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”, “The dream of robotics is, first, that intelligent machines can do our work for us, allowing us lives of leisure, restoring us to Eden” (5). Robots, one kind of future technology to make our lives easier is not so futuristic anymore. Evolution of the human race is taking off and we are holding on tight for the ride.

Compared to the past, the evolution of the past 100 years has come at a more than fast pace almost blindsiding us with new technology every week. As McKibben states it, “We live in a world of exponential growth.” Ray Kurzweil, referred to in “Enough”, picks up on the idea of exponential growth by saying, “It is the nature of exponential growth that events develop extremely slow periods of time, but as one glides through the knee of the curve, events erupt at an increasingly furious pace.” Sometime before 1856 Heinrich Hein said, “Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of Saint John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comp” (2). The exponential growth of the 21st century is leading to modern technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology and bio technology that are filling this prophecy. These technologies will easily be capable of creating a higher, superior species which will be looked upon as beasts when we are finally exceeded. What once was science, fiction is now becoming a reality. McKibben reinforces the seriousness of modern technology by saying, “Techniques such as advanced robotics and nanotechnology simply must be taken seriously, because on their own, and in combination with genetic engineering, they could quickly evaporate human meaning” (1). We are in the “knee of the curve” and we are moving so fast that eventually we won’t know how to manage it all at once.

Aside from the oncoming convergence of mass superior technologies, are we so superior to be certain that these new technologies will not backfire? The answer is no, a simple visit to the movie store to pick up Terminator 3 will tell you that one. Kurzwell says, “The emergence in the early 21st century of a new form of intelligence on Earth that can compete with, and ultimately significantly exceed, human intelligence will be a development of greater import than any of the events that have shaped human history” (1). This horizon of possibilities in other words could be the most destructive force encountered in the history of man. Bill Joy describes the dangers by saying at a Camden Technology Conference, “Advances in molecular electronics could lead to a new generation of powerful computers that could perform a calculation in eight hours that would take present-day computers a millennium. This exceeds our computational power like an atomic bomb exceeds the power of a matchstick” (3). He also went on to say, “"Reason taught us how to develop these tools and if we don’t use our reason to manage them, we do so at our own peril" (3). We cannot control what we do not know. We may think we know about these technologies, but we still do not fully comprehend what technology has done to our society. This lack of knowledge and ignorance towards ethics will fulfill the purpose of 21st century humans, the end of times.

The human race has served its purpose of evolving us to the point where we are now. Evolution has brought on a lot of progress, especially in the last 100 years. To reiterate the idea of Jean Rostand’s statement, evolution is not continuous, but rather will only bring us back to where we started. This implies that we are nearing a point in history where we reach our absolute potential as humans, so much so that we go back to square one. Advanced technology, and its evident dangers satisfy the conditions needed to send the human race into non existence. Humans evolvement has taken us here and now we are at the, as McKibben states, “brief and interesting moment when this growth starts to really matter-when it spikes” (1). We have reached a critical stage and we have passed the point where we can reform our society. Our original notion as humans of the 21st century to improve life in all aspects is actually flawed because it is leading us to our demise. It is unfortunate that it must end with us or our grandchildren or their grandchildren, but the cycle has to start over somewhere. We have reached the water mark of our society, and every business major knows that at the top, there is only down.

1. “Enough”-Bill McKibben
2. http://thinkexist.com/search/searchQuotation.asp?search=apocalypse
3. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/10/39864
4. http://thinkexist.com/quotes/jean_rostand/3.html
5. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html