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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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    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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        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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