Trans-Humanism Can Be a Threat Greater than Religious Extremism

Anyone would think this is a scene from a sci-fi or James Bond film but the scary thing about it is that this gentleman is no actor and he represents a growing fundamentalist movement called trans-humanism set to harness human evolution through technology to ultimately become God. This particular character is very serious about his plan to become God. He says “if you’re going to interfere with me becoming God, we’ll have big trouble. Then we’ll have warfare”.

I think the threat posed by this new religious worship and absolute belief in the almighty power of technology is more serious and far greater than global terrorism, global warming or global financial meltdown. We are dealing with what is after all a religious fanaticism far more dangerous than any militant religious extremist group or ideology.  What makes this extreme faction of the so called  trans-humanism movement such a concern is the very acceptance of the movement – even its radical elements. Such acceptance is won because modern society sees trans-humanism as mere science and that is enough to make it legitimate and unlikely to be questioned.  So much for Homeland Security when we have such a threat well rooted inside our borders brainwashing our very own populations. Their technique is extremely powerful and subtle: to hook the public with luring promises such as human perfection and eternal youth.

Let’s examine where this techno-dogma comes from. The mission of trans-humanism’s is the development of the next stage of human evolution called post-human or neo-human. Writer and globalization expert Carl Teichrib describes the premises of trans-humanism:

“1. DNA: Now that we are unlocking the secrets of DNA, we can alter our genetic makeup to augment desirable traits and block negative characteristics. It’s hoped such a move will bring longevity and eradicate diseases. Other possible outcomes include the production of designer babies in the womb, and even introducing DNA from other species into the human code; thus building a ‘Human Plus’ equipped with advanced physical and cognitive traits. Such a trans-human/hybrid would be ‘transgenic’, in other words a human Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) just like corn or soy.

“2. Computer Interfacing and AI: As the secrets of the brain are discovered, it is anticipated that a time will arrive when the mind is efficiently interfaced with cyber-space. It is believed that in such a scenario the brain, once ‘plugged-in,’ could allow the mind to surf the network, download and upload from the web, receive memory upgrades, and converge with a global mind-to-machine-to mind community—forming a type of cyber-hive. Or, according to some cybernetic purists, to allow one’s consciousness to completely leave the bounds of flesh and enter cyber-space as an electronic entity. After all the brain, it’s argued, is an electrochemical organ. This mind uploading, it’s believed, could culminate in what the Catholic mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called the noosphere: the emergence of a living, global consciousness. The web would thus ‘come alive’.”

The objectives stated above have been used by sci-fi literature and films to warn us about the potential for the future to become a horrible nightmare, but guess what? I am wide awake and by looking at the news I can only realize the plan for this nightmarish future is already under way, and apparently with no one willing or able to stop it. Despite the risks and horrific consequences the misuse of technology can bring such as that  posed by Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) destabilizing the fragile balance of natural ecosystems, I take comfort in the fact that the core believes held by transhumanists are false. We humans are not machines and consciousness is not a computer algorythm.

Those two facts alone make the trans-humanist agenda a childish fantasy which nonetheless can cause great irreversible damage to humans and planet. Thus the activities of these people still need to be closely monitored and controlled. Alongside the supervision by those institutions whose role is to enforce bioethics and safety on the use of technology, we need to counter trans-humanism with a new humanism driven by core timeless human values. It is the removal of values from science that has allowed science to run unchecked, unquestioned and ironically become the greatest threat to civilization and the planet, despite all the benefits it has also brought to humanity. Deep ecology illustrates the true nature of human beings and the life honoring values which were upheld by our indigenous ancestors and that we urgently need to restore.

I am not against progress. Man must not give up on his inherent nature to develop science and technology. It is his right and duty. However after  four centuries of reckless exploitation of planet and people in the name of science and progress, man needs to retake responsibility for his power by re-infusing  science and technology as well as all his activities and his very own perception of reality with the mentioned human values and overall sensibility. We must contain our human progress within the domain the human of human values and ensuring we will not disrupt the fragile order of the natural world who we are not even close to fully understand due to its enormous complexity and the limitations of our scientific knowledge.

Let’s continue honoring our inherently human ambition for growing human knowledge and bringing progress, but let’s ensure we do it in a responsible, safe and ultimate sustainable manner.

 

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Sustainability is a Matter of Human Identity

We would not damage the environment if we realized it is a part of us in the same way we will avoid hurting our hands as they are part of us.  Humans need to expand their identity beyond the levels of individual, social group, and even species. The day we learn we are one with the rest of the Biosphere and learn anything else alive is after all a cousin, we will reconnect with Nature.

What barriers do we need to remove at the psyche’s level to understand the fact that we are still an element of the Natural Ecosystem? One of the most erroneous and deeply held believes is our socio-technical environment being separated and autonomous from the natural world. Despite the comfort, convenience and resources our manmade environments may offer, they all result from our life-sustaining system, Nature.

If we saw the myriad of interactions between our man-made environment and the natural environment such as the air we all breathe and the food we eat, we would realize the notion of separation is nothing but an illusion. But our Western cultural heritage makes us believe we are isolated egos fighting and surviving a world outside of us. Such notion is not just unhealthy but false. We are connected by blood, ethnicity, faith, ideology and other cultural bonds. Those who were at the Occupy movement protests in New York this year experienced something that cannot be reduced to a mere collection of individuals but far more than that: a collective psyche emerging from the interaction of the crowd and its protesting leaders.

Unfortunately despite how popular protests are in the environmental movement, they are still a long way from enabling humans to reconnect with Nature. The fact is that the same connecting factors that connect us in groups are ironically the very same ones that create the fragmentation that separate us from other human beings that belong to opposing groups. We make the old emotional and intellectual error illustrated by the expression ‘you are either with us or against us’. But in Nature and by default, in the outside reality beyond the human drama, it seldom is ‘either or’. Most times it is ‘both’ and ‘many’. Reality is a highly complex, multi-dimensional and interdependent living system where each one of us has something to share and build with every other human and non-human being.

Disciplines such as deep ecology and eco-psychology use the facts above as premises for their work raising (environmental) consciousness.

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What is the Essence of Sustainability?

Have shallow ecology, the fragmentation and inefficiency of market driven sustainability and overall green washing turn you into an skeptic?

I do not blame you. You can however survive such skepticism: going to the essence and the origin of sustainability: DEEP ECOLOGY. I will be writing more on this subject on my next blogs.

Titled ‘Blue Marble’ the photograph above taken from Apollo 17 was one the first shots capturing the whole planet from space. These powerful pictures helped coalesce the modern environmental movement as it conveyed the fragility of Planet Earth. Today ‘Blue Marble’ is one of the symbols of Deep Ecology.

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Can Spirituality and Religion Help Save the Planet?

I am not exactly sure if I can trust religion with the paramount mission of Saving the Planet, but I can definitely see the connection between spirituality and sustainability consciousness, and I can imagine, the opportunity behind it. This is a deep and complex subject to say the least. For now let me keep it light and tell you that if I was religious I would probably align myself with the type of religious thinking shown in this video.

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What Does Global Justice Really Mean?

There is a pressing need to expand the concept of democracy and social justice at the truly global level, that is, to the rest of the planet. Doing so means bringing those principles beyond the human realm.

We need to extend integrity, truth and justice to the rest of the biosphere. We need to expand the Bill of Rights to the non-human world, to our cousin species whose voice we ignore or fail to hear because they cannot talk. We need an Amnesty International to call out the horrible suffering and injustice we humans inflict on other life forms for reasons as frivolous as shear profit.

We must overcome our dangerous but unsuspected human prejudice, the premise we are the apex of creation and subsequently we have the right to cause unaccounted and limitless harm to other life forms risking our very life-sustaining system, just to satisfy our needs, desires and addictions.

There will come a point not far in the future where we will be forced to understand we are just one more element of the natural ecosystem with no special rights or privileges over the rest of our fellow non-human earthlings. A brand new type of humility will need to be born at the individual and collective level if we ever decide to do justice for and live in integrity with ‘everyone else’ in this planet. The unsustainable human prejudice mentioned here has a root cause and a solution. I will be writing more about it in this forum provided the level of interest this specific audience shows.

Cows suffering a confined-animal-feeding-operation in a factory farm in the U.S.

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The Anthropocene

In a very quick, subtle and yet powerful manner the video shows how man has occupied and reshaped every continent on Earth. When I think deep about it, I get a very uneasy feeling, not very different from when I have seen a parasite reaching every area of it’s host body. I want to believe humanity has a higher potential than being a parasite but for now our global effect is mostly parasitic. I have not lost my hope to transition from a parasitic to a symbiotic relationship with the biosphere. It is in such shift that the key to a sustainable and enduring future on Earth lies.

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The question of human nature

For a lot of people the expression human nature is at some level an oxymoron. The science based system in which we have been educated that still dominates our world view has instilled very deep in our psyches that humans are unlike other organisms independent and ultimately separate from the natural world.

Humans disconnected from nature after concluding nature is an external foreign entity. This perception was institutionalized with the famous “Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am)” by Renee Descartes which separated mind from matter, and Galileo’s new rules of science. The conception of the world went from an organic, living universe to that of a machine devoid of any quality including ethical sensibility, values or consciousness creating the mechanistic paradigm that still characterizes orthodox science as well as our industrial existence and relationship to the planet.

Most educated people are indoctrinated in this view of reality which as we know has taken us to endangering the very biospheric system that keeps us alive. Without exaggeration, this attitude defies man’s sanity or connection to reality. Most of these people would argue that man is different from the other organisms. “Animals have instincts; we have intelligence and technology is our nature” they claim. And I do not dispute that view but technology is ultimately a product of nature so we should not have any problems reconnecting at the psychological level technology and nature. Unfortunately for as long as we perpetuate the conditioning that we are autonomous from nature and we isolate ourselves in our man-made environments, we will be not able to reconnect with nature psychologically.

If we cannot establish that psychological connection which involves both rationality or logic and emotion or spirit, we will not be successful in re-establishing the physical connection with the natural world, and it is that physical connection that will assure and complete the transition the holistic life-centered sustainable paradigm. Technology is ironically the root-cause but also the solution to saving our planet. We just need to infuse technology with the consciousness we lost along the way. Unfortunately I cannot find a term in orthodox science that can fully embrace the meaning of ‘consciousness’. That is the problem? Let’s call it challenge!

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Black Friday and other animal behaviors

If I were an alien being I would have a hard time telling which earth species is more advanced per the images below. I would also keep a safety distance.

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Storytelling is part of the solution

We can overcome the sense of powerlessness many of us experience about global challenges like climate change recovering the lost art of storytelling. No matter how distant we may feel from our story- telling ancestors, our psyches are no different from theirs. No matter how modern, sophisticated and self-sufficient we may believe we have become, we cannot deny our primal need to belong in a tribe of individuals where stories provide critical explanations, meaning and purpose in our individual and collective existence. The state of fear, denial and apathy many folks experience about those aspects of life we are told time and again we can’t control keep us in a very convenient state of disempowerment. We run away from reality evading from it with an obsessive compulsive behavior of production, consumption and distraction. We can learn a paramount lesson from our ancestors and re-empower ourselves literally taking those apparently unreachable, intangible matters such as global change or world poverty, into very our hands; getting engaged in tangible actions that are within our reach such as reforestation, assisting poor communities with sustainable development, or even something as mundane as recycling or composting. Every action counts. But we need that continuous positive reinforcement by our respective tribes whether they are our churches, communities, families, or networks. Their reinforcement is essential to sustain our individual will and enthusiasm for sustainable action, and subsequently counter the constant disempowering messages being imprinted in our subconscious by modern media and society. That toxic message is that we are not enough to make a difference in the world. Our youngsters and students have the highest level of immunity to such toxin. So let’s take advantage of that strength to preserve the spirit of the younger generations from disempowerment while we bring adults back from denial and cynism.

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