Survival of our species

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Intro

Brisbane City Night
There really couldn't be anything more important to us than the survival of our own species. It means protecting ourselves and future generations. However we currently have all our eggs in one basket which is a precarious situation – we live on this single world while under the shadow of various apocolyptic threats, both man-made and natural, that could destroy our current civilisation and even wipe us out entirely. Ultimately we are extremely vulnerable. Asteroids, virulent disease, global war with advanced weapons – all are possible and we must protect our future.

We've come a long way and gained irreplaceable culture and knowledge in the last hundred thousand years or so, and it would be the most foolish thing in history to lose it at a time when we have the technology to do something about it. Far more likely than total annihilation of our species is the possibility of being knocked back to the Dark Ages. It is not just about surviving but having good prospects, opportunities and a rich environment to live in, and not messing things up for our descendants. It's quite tricky to have an advanced civilisation with no civilisation at all...

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Sections

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Long-term thinking

All Gizah Pyramids.jpg

Long-term thinking is hugely important because the short-term easy choice often has a negative impact in a longer time-frame. Long-term thinking helps us see the bigger picture. Sometimes to avoid much larger problems further in the future it is necessary to change behaviour and make decisions in the present that might feel tough.

There is the story of the man who had a goose that laid a golden egg every day. Every morning he would check the goose's bedding and find another golden egg there, which he would then take to the market to sell. Eventually he thought to himself, "This goose's insides must be full of gold! Why settle for one single egg when I can open up the goose and take it all!" So he took a long knife to the belly of the goose and cut it open, thinking how clever he was to be getting all this extra gold.

Much of the thinking behind the way we run our society now is of the same calibre as the man in this story. For example, we are happy to deplete fertile farmland so that we can have bread for this year. Long-term thinking means improving our means of producing resources, rather than just snatching up the resources we need for now.

There seems to be many reasons that society tends to have a short-termist attitude:

  • We are naturally impatient and our immediate wants seem most significant. Longer-term issues can seem irrelevant and too far off.
  • We all lead more individualistic lives than in the past which causes a certain amount of self-centredness, so often one's decisions are made to satisfy oneself.
  • We do not all feel totally sure that pessimistic scenarios far in the future will ever happen, or at least will even happen in our lifetime. Life feels too short to consider things too far ahead.
  • The business world tends to be very short-termist, often only thinking about profits in the next two to five years and how it can be achieved. Because in business that is what matters - if you fail in the short term, the business will not survive, and this mentality rubs off on the people too.
  • Politics suffers similarly. If decisions are made by politicians for the long term but are felt to adversely affect people in the present then it may affect re-election prospects, and to most politicians staying in power is more important to them than implementing policies for the long term.

It is very hard to change the behaviour of large groups of people there is huge inertia to overcome.

So what is the big picture, what are we aiming for?

We need effective ways to help us all consider the longer time frame. It needs to be something that is explained to children in ways they can understand. We need illustrations of disastrous short-term thinking and the consequences.

What are the important long-term issues that we need to think about:

  • Preventing the extinction of species, including our own
  • The wider environment as a whole, such as altering the composition of the atmosphere
  • Protecting ourselves from other potential global disasters
  • Help steer modern society towards a more optimal future that gives everyone the opportunity to live more fulfilling lives
  • Building trust and understanding between cultures
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Colonisinf space

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Peace

  • Understanding
  • Tolerance
  • Education
  • Empathy
  • Cross-border collaborations
  • Generosity
  • Forgiveness
  • Education leading to sanity
  • Leading by example
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Preserving knowledge

British museum reading room
Think of all the knowledge we have gained since the stone-age – all our writing systems, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, science, engineering, social systems and so on. It needs to be pretty well looked after, and able to survive huge catastrophes.

If for example there was a large asteroid strike with 95% of the human population wiped out and the environment degraded for decades, the last thing the remaining people need is to be plunged back into another stone age. A large asteroid or comet strike happens rarely, but the consequences are so dire that we must prepare for it. </div>

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Being careful with powerful technology

As technology continues to increase in capability and sophistication, the more damage an individual or small group is able to do, and more damaging the consequences are from an accident or oversight.

More complex technologies need more complex management. The great spectres of the 20th century were nuclear, biological and chemical weapons - all potential weapons of mass destruction. In the 21st century we will likely add genetics, nanotechnology and robotics - all technologies that could give us even finer controlled weaponry or unforeseen accidents.

How do we peacefully benefit from these technologies without increasing the chances of an accident or unstable individuals and fanatical groups using them maliciously?

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Caring for our environment

Dwindling Aral Sea

We are part of our environment and have the capability to change it drastically. We are probably not at risk of extinction due to damaging the biosphere but there are plenty of other species that are. The world becomes a poorer place due to our negligence. <p> Acid rain, ozone depletion, air pollution, unsustainable destruction of rain forests, global warming from carbon dioxide emmisions, increasing environmental destruction due to both urbanisation and agriculture are all examples of large-scale changes we have made directly to the environment that hugely affect wildlife and reduce our own quality of life. Currently we only have one home and on behalf of all life we must look after it.</p>

Digital technology is reducing our environmental impact. We are moving towards a paperless society, which will greatly reduce our hunger for wood and our need to cut down rainforests.

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