Humans have proven time and time again that we are our own worst enemy. We have this weird tendency to take any kind of advancement and use it primarily to kill each other. I know that this challenges the narrative that we tell about ourselves, but look at the facts. We kill each other at 7x the average rate of all mammals.
Despite our self-titled qualification of sapiens (the wise ones), we are just about the most savage species on the planet. We don't just kill for food or protection, we kill for ideology, religion, territory, unhinged psychopathy and a slew of other abstract reasons. And, as we continue to develop new technologies, a large amount of energy is put into using them to kill one another. There has to be a certain point where we acknowledge the fact that we are inherently deadly, and for our own survival, we need to either refocus or curb certain advancements for the sake of longevity.
I by no means subscribe to the same extremes of groups like the Amish or Haredi, who view modern technology as the enemy. They believe that technology is a proponent of evil, and avoid it altogether. This shifts the blame, which is entirely counterproductive and limiting in all the wrong ways. What I'm suggesting is that while impressive, like any unprecedented evolutionary outlier, we're flawed. If you think about it, all we are is a trial run of how far primates can evolve before dying out.
A pivotal turning point for violence was when we discovered bronze, which we immediately used to create weapons and conquer any of the plebians using basic tools. The Bronze age became the Iron age, and so on. We used religion to unite people, then vanquished those who didn't believe in our choice diety in holy wars. We began the next extinction level event, dubbed the Anthropocene, way back in 1784 when we invented the steam engine and began the carbonification of our atmosphere. But in typical homo sapien fashion, we kept it going. When we recognized nuclear energy as the pinnacle of raw untapped power, it wasn't until we decided to use it as a weapon that we actually tapped into its potential. We created the nuclear bomb, the deadliest tool of death our world has ever seen. Guns have gone from single shot muskets to fully automatic weapons, some capable of speeds of 1,000,000 rounds per minute, and with last years world defense spending of over $1 trillion, it's only going to get more efficient at ending lives.
The point is, we're damn good at anything we put our minds to, and we have a track record that seems to move in the wrong direction. So, with that said, why are we trusting ourselves with technologies that have limitless potentials like AI, easy-to-purchase assault weapons, and concentrated, all-powerful political power? Will we never learn?
We need to take a step back because advancement does not squarely mean progress. We need to recognize that our cognitive superiority and promiscuous combination of ideas has its benefits and drawbacks. We can't explore these fields until we are ready. We, as a species, are like Icarus, flying too close to the sun for our own good, and we will ultimately find ourselves falling short.
We are too smart to remain ingenues to our own gifts because they do yield some scary drawbacks. We're already too late to stop the next extinction, all we can do is mitigate our demise. This is not a call to action, nor is it the platform. I suggest this as a thought piece, and leave you – the future – with this warning. Historically, we are not a peaceful species, and with the sudden influx of mass shootings, global terrorism, and covert genocide, we've only shown that our propensity for ultimately meaningless violence has grown rather than diminished. Be wary of what we will do with the emerging technologies and industries that are on the near horizon. While enticing and wildly promising, the duality of our nature to both create and destroy will not permit us to keep making the mistakes we've made in the past.
The clock is ticking.
