The Case for Social Democracy: Part 5

On the Possible Future Paths for Humanity

Let us return to the cosmic perspective. There are several proposed explanations to what astronomers call the Fermi paradox, i.e. why, despite the incomprehensible scale of the universe, we have not yet found evidence for life of any kind, let alone intelligent life, beyond our Earth. One such explanation is that which proposes the concept of the Great Filter. According to this model, there are certain stages in the process of civilizational development that any intelligent species will eventually reach, and which, for potentially the majority of species, will result in some form of cataclysm preventing any further development, i.e. filtering the majority of species out, and only allowing a small subset through. For example, any sufficiently scientifically sophisticated civilization will likely independently discover nuclear power, and thereby nuclear weapons, which, if used on a wide scale, could doom such a civilization to an undignified extinction. Although the risk of nuclear war on Earth has not gone away, it is much less dire than it was during the mid-to-late 20th century, meaning that it is possible that we have passed through the Great Filter of nuclear war. It is also quite possible that climate change and/or fascist authoritarianism will be Great Filters through which we do not pass.

Another explanation for the Fermi paradox is that we are among the first intelligent civilizations to emerge anywhere in the cosmos. This may seem unintuitive given the vast age of the universe, but it also took life on Earth billions of years of evolution to reach the place where it is today. Some have theorized that, at least in the case of DNA-based life forms, the time required to reach the level of genetic sophistication necessary for intelligent civilization is such that we may even be the product of a process potentially much older than the Earth itself, entertaining the concept that the first bacteria that we have paleontological records of actually arrived to this planet from somewhere else in deep space, possibly riding on the back of an asteroid or comet. This opens up the possibility that life on Earth could be genetically related to life elsewhere, which we would then expect to require similar timescales to accomplish the evolutionary milestones that we’ve seen here. So that means that we’re not just setting an example to future generations of humans—we could be setting an example to other species that might find our homeworld deep into the distant future, and who will be left to interpret what they find. Will they see a world that served as home to a great people, or one that only experienced a brief blip of civilization? I suspect the answer will be somewhere in between.

Ultimately, I do not believe that humanity will go extinct. Sure, it’s possible that we will one day find ourselves as hunter-gatherers again, foraging among the ruins of tomorrow, but we are too resilient and adaptable to die out altogether. What may happen, though, is that evolution will eventually lead our distant descendants to develop into some other species that we wouldn’t recognize as homo sapiens, just as we were preceded by homo erectus and homo neanderthalensis. As much as many people across all kinds of faiths and ideologies hope to see the “end of history” within their lifetimes, it’s just not something that can ever realistically happen. Even the universe itself is young today compared to how it will have aged if and when the last star goes out. Some people see the cosmic perspective as promoting the narrative that our lives are meaningless and insignificant, but as touched on in the introduction, human brains didn’t evolve to comprehend concepts like “eternity.” We are not failures just because we probably won’t build anything that will still be here in a billion years. We would only be failures if we don’t do what it takes to ensure that we, and those who come after us, however many of them there may be, have a chance to live well. Some people get distracted with questions about whether the majority of human beings are intrinsically “good” or “evil,” but I find that less pressing than the question of which one we choose to be. So while we may not be able to collectively agree on what it means to be “good” or “evil” just yet, I hope that after reading this, you have a clearer sense of how you want to approach that choice in your everyday life. I hope you will stand up for yourself and those around you when injustice comes along, which it will. And I hope you embrace and commit to humanity, our collective, shared, beautiful, cursed dream.