What is there to say?
How to preserve the world we like a lot amid destabilizing change and sub-cosmic unrest?
I’m not asking what we’d like to see, because first, we don’t really know the consequences of any change in the laws; it’s always an empirical matter: what does the law actually do once it’s in force? Underneath any assessment of how good or bad a law (or anything else) is, lie our values, which also mutate over time.
Secondly, it’s fatuous to debate what we’d like to see, because we won’t be there to see it! Nevertheless, I can assert without fear of successful contradiction that we would prefer to have people, living semi-rational beings inhabiting the future. And also fairly unanimously, if wars continue unabated, the likelihood goes down near zero of any people being there to worry about their children and their parents, happy to see their friends, writing blogs and fiercely but civilly debating things, and doing what they like and what they can tolerate. What tangible, feasible steps can we take that’ll improve the chances of human survival?
Right now there are the 1) threats we impose on ourselves, 2) threats that come with the territory of our dominance on the planet, and 3) those where we would truly be innocent victims.
Threats we’re imposing on ourselves:
War
Environmental degradation
Threats that come from our planetary domination:
Pandemics
Massive migrations
Threats from outside the human community:
Natural disasters
AI
Objects and beings from space
Let’s start from the bottom and work up.
Threats from outside the human community:
The damage and death from wind, flood, and famine, to name a few, is inversely proportional to how well we humans can cooperate.
We have technology to handle small objects heading for Earth. If something the size of Jupiter were coming, we’d be out of luck.
Beings from the great beyond would probably be peaceful, because any warlike groups would either self-destruct or spend so much of its time destroying, rebuilding, destroying and rebuilding again that they’d not get very far into space.
AI is pretty impossible to predict, (even if we ask AI) but this much is clear: if its massive, impersonal capacities are turned toward war, we’re in for a tough time.
Threats that come from our planetary domination:
In several regions people are not getting the basics. Humane mass migrations into already populated land requires global administration and empathy. Rational, fair allocation of land, cooperation, generosity, and birth control might go a long way.
To manage pandemics continued scientific research, global management and cooperation, and empathy might minimize the mortality.
Threats we’re imposing on ourselves:
Migration, pandemics and natural disasters are all intensified by environmental degradation. Solution: realism, cooperation, sweet reasonableness over greed.
War seems to me to be the most imminent threat and is promoted by just about all of the other factors, except possibly objects from space, though war in space will most certainly rain perilous objects on us here on Earth.
So how might society change to improve things?
I think we have to raise being trustworthy up on the To-Do list.
This remarkable planet needs a culture of trust, which means a literature, songs, rituals, games and dolls and everything we can think of that’ll inspire us to be reliable truth-tellers who keep our promises. Training children to be trustworthy is good for the kids, good for the family and good for the world. Given the focus on monetary success, and our many urges to impress, we have formidable barriers to simple honesty. I believe it is entirely honorable to teach it without stiff pomposity, but with a firm grip of how good it is all around.
So I am proposing a long and daunting struggle, very likely longer than our lives, even if you’re one of those kids who reads at 2 ½. Shall we start now, or let it go for a couple more wars?
……………………………………….……AI war………….…………………………
<a href="https://www.dreamstime.com/anatolik1986_info">Anatolii Savitskii</a> | <a href="https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos">Dreamstime.com</a>