subject: Welcome To The Cyber Age [print this page] Welcome To The Cyber Age Welcome To The Cyber Age
We are faced with a future of unprecedented consequences for humanity. If human civilization survives environmental disaster and nuclear war and continues down its present path, I predict that human society as we know it today will be unrecognizable within a century. If cyber technology and biotechnology continue at this pace, nearly every facet of what we now think of as normal human life will change. Science fiction movies with cybernetics and robotics as their central themes may or may not be accurate in their visions of our future. However, one thing is certain; cybernetics will drastically change us, probably in ways we can't even begin to fathom.
It will take a tremendous effort on the part of humanity to constrain the cyber influx and integrate it rationally into their lives. This could result in an age of profound wisdom, a Golden Age of freedom from toil and bask instead in higher pursuits, or it could be an enslaving nightmare. At its worst it could spell the end of humankind as we are methodically eliminated by a new life form- one that originated form human form but transmogrified itself into something new; a super race of self-aware machines. Ironically, if the end of Man is approaching, it will be he himself through his pride and competitiveness that initiates it. We are, literally, at a crossroads in our existence.
Maybe the age of a cyborg super race will bring with it unprecedented wonders. My instincts tell me however that such a race would come out of very materialistic circumstances and will remain bogged down at that level for an unknown period of time before evolving in consciousness. It is precisely because humans are physically limited that we take inner flight in creativity and imagination.
