If the human race was to survive forever, the retrogressive
nature of beliefs might indeed be required! Here goes the (warped?) logic.
A hundred or so years back, human life expectancy was hardly
40 years. Now, with advancements in technology and medical science, we are now
pushing eighty years in developed countries. However, despite the ravages of
nature and diseases, the human race in the pre-technological era was never
threatened to extinction by any one enemy. It is true that millions died due to
diseases now known to be preventable or treatable. But no single force, not
even pandemics, had the potential to wipe out the entire race. On the other
hand, advancements in science and technology have thrown up challenges that
have the potential to destroy the human race and even life on earth. Take the
nuclear bomb, for example. Nuclear technology is a direct consequence of the
great strides we made in theoretical physics during the early part of the
twentieth century. The breakthrough in discovering how to liberate the energy
from the conversion of mass is truly revolutionary, and it has probably a
hundred good uses too. Many thousands have derived benefits from nuclear power
and medical isotopes. At the same time, the world has been perilously close to
nuclear holocaust during the Cold War. In fact, the risk was so high that many
consider it to be a miracle that it never happened. The risk of a global
nuclear holocaust is so forbidding that if we, as a race, were given a choice
and knew the probabilities beforehand, we might have given up discovering
nuclear energy itself. Now that nuclear physics is fait accompli, any such
discussion is only theoretical or pedantic.
We can extend these thoughts though. What if humans continue
to accumulate knowledge and scientific breakthroughs at an ever increasing
pace? It is only a matter of time before we discover newer forms of energy or
more modern ways to release energies many higher orders of magnitude than which
we have discovered yet. All those breakthroughs could be turned into deadly
weapons – weapons that can annihilate everything in this planetary system in a
few seconds. Currently, a nuclear weapon can only be manufactured by advanced
nations with a lot of money. What if technological breakthroughs occur that
allow even a high school science team to tap into such energy sources? How will
governments control the spread of such knowledge? Apparently, if one could
manufacture a weapon that could melt the planet in a backyard lab, life on
earth could be threatened by a terrorist, mad scientist, or a disgruntled
commoner. Or the end of the world could happen because of an experiment that
went wrong.
An energy weapon is just an example. There are others. A
race threatening technology could just as well be the product of other
scientific pursuits like genetic engineering, microbe redesigning, or
artificial intelligence. A technological singularity could arise any moment and
result in total loss of control over the way science is built, refined and
utilized by human beings. A new form of intelligence or beings could evolve
that replace humans as the dominant species on earth. Such an eventuality is
inevitable unless the version of the future where destruction by a weapon
system plays out instead. In both versions, the human race becomes mostly
extinct or irrelevant. We could argue
that scientific progress and technological advancement are more important that
even the survival of humans as a species. If we subscribe to the reason that
sacrificing the interests of our species is essential for the betterment of
science, then are we not worshipping science in a manner that would make even
the fiercest religions envious?!
What is the alternative? All ultra-conservative religions have
a visceral dislike for science. Science and modern education are an anathema to
religion, and the reverse is also true. So the alternative would be a religion
that strikes at the very roots of science. A religion with ideological
constructs so infective that most of the worlds’ society accepts that faith.
The principles of that religion would prohibit higher education and any
scientific pursuit. Societies would slowly slide into the dark ages as we
gradually unlearn scientific prowess. Diseases, forces of nature and poverty
would consume many. Maybe, after an initial period of catastrophic decadence,
we would stabilize as an agricultural society with little interests in
automation and technology. Art might still survive and flourish. Battles would
continue to be fought, primarily for expanding the super-religion. Conflicts
would be bloody, brutal and hand to hand, but never having the potential to
kill the planet. Life expectancy would
drop worldwide. We would accept all those negatives as sacrifices an individual
have to make for the benefit of religion and belief (read, race).
Human race
would survive, probably indefinitely, till the sun goes out.
