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Michael Smith Jr.

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We need to begin laying the moral, ethical, cultural, and social foundations for our future TODAY

For millenia now, humanity has been changing, expanding, and relatively thriving. Our world and the people and the nations that inhabit it have gone through countless social, technological, and cultural revolutions. These revolutions have ultimately taken the human race at least a step closer to where we are today and where we will be in the future. It's now time to look at our future with an exponentially more vast of a knowledge that our predecessors had and make a decision. This decision will almost certainly affect whether or not humanity will survive the inevitable trials of the coming future. Today is the day we have to decide to change. We have to start changing how we look at life, how we handle others, how we look at the bigger picture, and, most importantly, how well will we be able to put aside archaic or stubborn beliefs for the improvement of the human race as a whole.

As we move further into the new fields of biotechnology, astrophysics, quantum physics, mathematics, and genetics, it's becoming ever more apparent that we're inevitably going to become a highly advanced species as our evolutionary success intended. But this success will ultimately come at a cost. Eventually, we're going to have to realize the certain technologies like cloning and synthetic biology are necessary. Clones and genetically-engineered organisms will become great tools in the future. Now, there is a lot of controversy over these fields for two great reasons: One, some say we shouldn't play God. Two, some say that these technologies will be manipulated for less-than-good intents. First off, we'll eventually have to manually evolve ourselves physically and socially to exist as a space-faring people. We will have to play God to survive. Second, technology has always had a good and a bad side, but we can limit the evil exploitations now if we come together and set up the ethics and morals of the future. Ultimately, we'll have to ALL unite under ONE human code and ONE human banner.

Topics: culture ethics future human expansion morality peace unity war
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  • Shane Schuller

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    Aug 18 2012: ONE human code under ONE banner seems nigh to impossible. It's took thousands of years to bring humanity in close communication, only to discover how divided we are - we clash that today. It's a human thing to express ego and contention. However I would agree if you said leave out the banner. Names, labels and groups have an intolerable way of destroying that which it does not understand.

    One human code? Perhaps possible but it would mean we all agree on the definition of MORAL. Define Moral? Who's right and who's wrong? It's not as black and white as we imagine. Their are major cultural differences, educational differences, wisdom conflicts that contribute to negation which makes it difficult to achieve common understanding. The other factor being loyally.

    Moral has everything to do with SUPPORT, what we support. How does our support for something, we feel good about, affect others? How loyal are we as supporters? Are we prepared to drop that group if they go against our personal moral codes? I think not, because many in support of groups do so apathetically by giving their power to a leader. At least this is common. A solution would be to drop all banners and labels then practice discernment on an individual bases.

    Regarding your thoughts on scientific concern. Humanity progresses by mistakes and trials, how else would we be able to observe and verify what to do and not to do next. All we can do is be moderators and not impervious decision makers because we have to progress through trial and error. The beauty of life is taking initial risks and if needed then calculated risks based on passed experiences.

    As for space-faring people, we can see by our history, perhaps Columbus, what we are capable of. We should just remember not to wipe out the "space Indians".

  • Noah Crossfield

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    Jul 22 2012: Mr Smith, why do you believe that synthetic biology and cloning are necessary? I'm not exactly sure on what your feelings are on this subject. In your opening post, you stated that clones will be a "great tool," but later you stated clones should be treated exactly like a regular human. I'm not exactly sure what your stance is, but those two statements seem contradictory. It seems like most of the benefits of cloning would be in the form of health benefits (regrowing an organ or something of similar nature), but it seems that practicing this sort of organ development would be a violation of the clone's equal rights. Im not exactly sure what your saying.
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    Robert Winner 50+

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    Jul 22 2012: Morals and ethics are not bound by time and changes in culturals. MORALS; relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior. ETHIC: The discipline of dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation. CULTURE: Shared beliefs and values of group: the beliefs, customs, practices, and social behavior of a particular nation or people. Well there you have it Social Foundation falls under Culture.

    By simply defining words we have taken a four problem question and reduced it to one area of concern, Culture.

    Part two of your plan, "we all have to unite under one human code and one human banner." CODE: A systematically arranged and comprehensive collection of laws.

    We just arrived at the real problem in this suggestion. How do you convience all of the nations and groups that they need to convert from their customs, rites, practices, and religions and dedicate themselves to the universal way. Heck we can not even get the Muslims to allow the Jews to live let alone share a culture.

    Within the US we have a great number of cultures and within these cultures a great number of groups and even the groups have diverse interests, rites, customs, etc ....

    I got paragraph one. Perhaps you should have stopped there. I could have supported some portions of that argument.

    All the best. Bob.
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    pat gilbert 50+

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    Jul 21 2012: You cannot fix a problem before it is a problem, that's nuts. The only solution is education of the individual after all we want to be educated gods don't we?

    • Michael Smith Jr.

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      Jul 21 2012: While you can't fix a problem before it's a problem, you can be proactive about things. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying we should start laying the foundations for our future now. These foundations, like any for our civilization, will lie in how we see the world and life. These foundations will be made up of values, morals, ethics, etc. I'm all for education, and that, in one way, is what I'm calling for. We need to educate people and give them an understanding of the things that might/will one day become normal parts of their lives or their children's or their descendents'. Understanding, along with cooperation, will bring about the values and beliefs of the humanity of the future. We shouldn't wait til something actually becomes a problem. We should either do our best to prevent it and think of a way to handle it when does.
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        pat gilbert 50+

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        Jul 21 2012: That is tantamount to the French building the Maginot Line, it wastes resources.

  • Russell Elzinga

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    Jul 20 2012: a wise man once said, Democracy is great until u talk to the average voter... in other words, no one person, group, country or planet can decide and define a base line for a moral, ethical, cultural or social foundation. U ask if we can't start now with all the amazing advances in human thought and creation. No. With every change in science, u establish a new problem, and a new prospective base line. Ethics retard the experiment, our experiences and our minds. We accomplish greater things in the negative then in the positive. War advances medicine, competition advance technology. money creates competition, and the mind searches the soul for answers that the body can't handle... We have been at war w/the ethics of medicine for centuries. Do clone, why yes for everything we do is at the hands of God, right? Well, maybe, or maybe not, who r u to say, or me, or someone from Senegal. Who among us is so perfect to say what is moral for the rest of us. If your ethics destroy a civilization, how moral is that? Again the answer to your question must be in the negative... Only a God could do it, and he is just watching... he thought it was your problem and he is not interfering, not now, not next week, never!
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    R H 20+

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    Jul 20 2012: Oh, you were doing so well in the first paragraph and the beginning of the second! Then you fell into the trap of that ridiculous 'God and progress' arguement, and followed that with 'one world' morality! Ahhhh! Let me be so bold as to respond: 1) 'God' wants us to be great, omnipotent, and masters of the universe - that's why we're 'made in His image' (for those who hold such beliefs) 2) Human greatness lies in our diversity, our multi-faceted views and diverse opinions, our ability to solve problems from the different viewpoints of all - from the greatest to the least. The day we all follow 'one code' is the day we perish, like lemmings into the sea.

    • Michael Smith Jr.

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      Jul 20 2012: You misunderstood, and it's probably my fault. I was a little disappointed when I realized that there was a character limit, and I probably should have made this more concise and to the point. Let me clarify. First, thank you for putting 1 out there for some people, but as one who leans more on the freethinking side of things, what someone says is God plan for us might be different than your interpretation. Second, I have no doubt humanity's greatness lies in its variety and our ability to use different viewpoints to our advantage. What will never be to our advantage, though, is letting the views of a few hold back the many. We've done it before and we need to do it again if we want to survive. We have to realize that certain things need to be done.

      Now, what I'm NOT saying here is that we have to get rid of/merge all religions/cultures/etc. I'm NOT saying we all have to have the EXACT SAME values, morals, ethics, etc. What I am saying is that we need to start laying out the values of the future now. For example, we need to make it clear today that clones are humans with human rights. They are not just mere slaves or organ farms. If we hammer that into our society today, it'll be less likely for someone to exploit clones in the future. I embrace our diversity wholeheartedly, but I also realize we'll have to be able to put aside some of our differences and some of our more archaic restrictions if we are to survive and grow.

      One more thing-just to clarify another thing-If we are to ever become the interstellar, intergalactic, space-faring, etc. species we dream about today, we won't be able to do so if we stay as divided as we do today. About 200 nations are in the world and are populated by over 7 billion people. Most of these nations have their own separate agenda, but only a few of the people have the human agenda on their mind in their endeavors. While, I'm not saying we'll never war against each other, I am saying we'll eventually have to unite as a species.
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        R H 20+

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        Jul 21 2012: There we go. Thank you for responding so eloquently. My exhuberance sometimes surpasses my ability to present such an wholistic viewpoint. We are very much alike, my friend, and like you, I see that as we begin this greatest transformation of the human species since we first left Africa as hompsapiens, we will need to evolve our concept of selves to match the abilities we've developed. As our technologies reach perfection, we need to reach perfect harmony as members of the human family.
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    Krisztián Pintér 200+

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    TED Translator
    Jul 20 2012: i see what you did there, mr weyland
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    Frans Kellner 100+

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    TED Translator
    Jul 20 2012: Start to hear this woman out about morals and ethics for the future.

    http://vimeo.com/45691238#
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