The Future of Man

What are Man's prospects? How long will we last, as a species? What happens to species that conclude that they are no longer adapted to the environment in which they must survive?

The recent evidence of the dinosaurs suggests that species that have the time, transform themselves into a new species when they reach the conclusion that they have no future as they are. Looking about for a species we might emulate, I would suggest the whale. He is too large to be threatened by any but man. He uses small life forms as his energy source, meaning that the effort of getting them isn't great and they exist at a far enough remove that little blame can be attached to the whale for killing them. They can maintain themselves in an ideal environment via migration. They have long lives and thus plenty of time to observe natural change and to reflect on its meaning.

How does one begin the transformation? By learning to live in the sea and eating what the sea provides. If one works as a carpenter for the summer, he will acquire callused hands and his skin will be tanned. The decision to adopt the whale form has been made many times in the past. They are all former land mammals.

Our duration, as a species, depends on two issues. The first is how long our environment will remain unchanged and the second is when our task, that for which we were designed if such exists, is complete. If our environment changes in marked degree, for instance a new ice age, we will be dramatically changed along with it. There is no realistic hope of continuing technological civilization after the advent of a new ice age. The cost of retrieving oil, a declining resource in any case would increase, the available arable land would decrease. Many would face starvation and wouldn't accept their fate gracefully. No suitable alternative to oil can be expected to arise since nothing is free. Rising feminism will make progressively more offensive both environmental exploitation and public education. A declining public education will mean that technocrats will be a declining resource.

The second issue, our possible goal as a species depends on the acceptance of the notion that DNA is alive and capable of strategic planning. In that case, it is reasonable to assume that our function as a species is to recycle carbon dioxide by burning oil. That task will be largely achieved in the next century. Given our past performance, oil reserves can be expected to peak in about 2010 and to rapidly decline thereafter. Carbon dioxide, once the dominant gas in the atmosphere, has been reduced as a percentage of the atmosphere to far less than one percent. All vegetation is completely dependent on this gas and therefor we are too. If this is our reason for being, it is apparent that Gaia (intelligent DNA) has accepted the environmental degradation that we have been responsible for in the interests of a longer future for life on this planet.

As is apparent to all, feminism is rising and the weather is changing.

So, what can we look forward to, if this is a valid analysis and no miraculous stay of execution arises?

It will become apparent to all that our future is limited to a few decades. Efforts will be made to overcome the problems, to no avail. Starvation and economic failure will follow. After a violent period of years a few will have adapted to subsistence living. A small percentage of those will try to maintain civilization within walled communities, but the primitives will constantly attack to get their resources, so they won't last. When the next ice age arrives, some will attempt to adapt to ocean living for the warmth. The remainder will be living some variation on the life of the American Indian prior to the arrival of Europeans, from all reports, a very fulfilling life.

I predict that in a few years, all who wish to, will know everything of importance about life on this planet. Since this task has motivated man from the beginning, what will we do when the task is complete? All entertainment is a commentary of some sort on life. All academic pursuits have the goal of understanding life. Many people are preoccupied with making the survival of these thinkers possible. So, what would we find to preoccupy us after that? Without that task, what is the point of civilization? We do try to defeat death, but what is the reason? Are we actually attempting to achieve immortality, or are we using that method to understand life? What would we do with eternal life? Nothing further to learn. Hedonism only goes so far. Then what? Everything would become boring.

The only suggestion to be made thus far is to explore the universe. The technology looks daunting. The absolute limit of the speed of light seems to foreclose that possibility, notwithstanding the successes of technology in our century. And, if we already understand life, what would be the point? Even assuming a technological breakthrough, it wouldn't be a pleasant trip.

So, it would appear at this juncture that man is a species designed to solve a technological problem, recycling carbon dioxide, and that he uses the apparently impossible task of understanding life as a way to escape boredom and a method of locating a solution to his technical problem. We have solved the technical problem, and it was an astonishingly difficult one: imagine a Merlin character confronting a Bonobo ape and explaining the problem thus: we have removed so much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that the life span of life is threatened. Your task is to devise a method of recycling it. It currently resides partly as a liquid deep underground and must be retrieved and converted to its gaseous form. There is so much of it that billions of individuals will be needed to assist in the effort no matter how large the converters may be.

Our solution has been to civilize ourselves and then to create a world wide economy with which to establish the manufacturing base to create the converters: cars, trains, and planes; find the storage locations of the carbon dioxide, pump it to the surface and deliver it to all the machines designed to convert it to its gaseous form. In the process, we have discovered the facts necessary to explain life.

So, what remains to us? We have outlived our usefulness. A few more years of conversion of oil to gas and there will be nothing left to do. As we look about we see that we are the only species that needs something to do. All others are content to live out their lives doing their part in the conversion of stored energy to gas, reproduce and die. Thus, the expectation must be that we are no longer needed and that, in order not to lose the stored DNA record of our existence, we should transform ourselves into a new unconscious species with no need to do anything except reproduce.