In the future can humans become super humans or as the author says Homo sapiens to Homo Deus ?
Let’s break it down. “Homo Deus” is a Latin term where “Homo” means man or human, and “Deus” translates to God. So, in simple terms, Homo Deus is about humans gaining god-like abilities. It’s not just a fancy term; it reflects a future where humans, with the help of advanced technology and artificial intelligence (AI), can unlock new powers and potential.
Ideologies replacing Religion
In Book Sapiens we have seen Humans developed religion after the agricultural revolution. Nature and Animals became property of humans. Development of Gods reduced the importance of Nature.
In fact religion became a strong force in the life of humans. They began to follow it strictly, even killing each others in case of differences. Every religion has a defined set of beliefs. These beliefs were developed during the mediaeval age when technology was not developed, hence humans used to pray for most of the problems. Today due to development of technology most of our problems are solved. Problems like hunger, diseases and war. Basic food is available in almost all countries.
All countries are equipped with disaster management teams. Earlier people used to die from disease and think it is god’s wish or black magic but now it is either due to unavailability or non accessibility of cure. Due to the invention of Nuclear Bomb no major war was fought after 1945. Disaster of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has set an example for countries to stay away from war. Terrorists can only kill a few people in freak incidents but can’t sustain a sustained war against any country.
As technology solves more and more problems the importance of religion will reduce. Many issues of the 21st century have no answer in religion created in the mediaeval century. Issues like homosexuality, Feminism and Designer babies etc do not find any mention in Religion. Future will belong to those who can rise above beliefs of religion and use technology to influence people.
How people will form groups without religion ?
Ideologies are slowly replacing religion. Ideologies like idealism. Humanism, liberalism, capitalism.
Humanism means growth of humanity. How will humanity prosper ? By following capitalism.
What is capitalism ?
Creation of capital or services which help people get jobs as well as products to use. Profit is reinvested to create more capital.
Today every country wants economic development. Three basic things required for economic development are Raw material, Energy and Knowledge. Raw material and energy may be limited at the moment but knowledge is unlimited with humans. Humans will keep doing research and find out new forms of raw material and energy and development will not stop. Real problem of economic development is ecological destruction and breakdown of social structures .
Government wants to do development to stay in power, corporations want profit and people want better tomorrow, so it is unlikely to apply breaks to plans of economic development. Our plan of economic development will make earth inhospitable in future.
Liberalism
Every individual is unique and his choices must be respected. Truth is what a person thinks, not what is written in religion; the only limitation is that it should not harm anyone.
Homosexuality is right because two individuals think it is right for them. Even in democracy everyone has the right to vote, hence it is assumed everyone has free will to select his/her choices.
But do we really have free will ?
Can we really decide what’s good and bad for us ?
Our free will depends on the environment in which we grow, important events in life and amount of information available to us. Our desires are the result of biochemical reactions inside our brain and these can be easily modified by proper stimulation.
Progress for individuals will lead to major developments in biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence and create two important scenario :
- Render masses useless
- Power to few rich individuals
20th century people were required to work in factories, fight war and to use products manufactured. As technology develops humans are becoming irrelevant in factories and in the military. Nowadays warfare is through drones or cyber attack or bio attack where humans are not required. Fully automatic machines and robots are slowly replacing more humans from jobs.
Humans have feelings and intelligence. The feelings part has not been decoded but the intelligence of humans is decoded and now AI has more of it than humans. Search for immortality and everlasting youth will lead to technological advancement but these technologies will be controlled by few rich corporations who will dictate terms to governments and the general public. Like plastic surgery was invented for treating soldiers who were wounded in the battlefield but now it is used in beauty treatments.
Technologies like nanotechnology, inorganic body parts (like one you see in terminator movies) which will develop to cure but eventually lead to commercialization to enhance human capacity but these will be mostly controlled by few rich individuals which will make them super humans aka Homo Deus.
Data is the next religion
Why do you need religion ?
Mostly to take ethical decisions in life and leave uncontrolled factors in life to higher powers. But what if data can solve your problems of decision making.
As the economy changes from material economy to knowledge economy. As our experiences, feelings and knowledge gets recorded in social websites and searches it will all be used as collective consciousness to guide humans in future.
What data am I talking about ?
Humans are sharing their experiences and feelings through photos, videos and even reactions and comments. Heart Rate and other parameters are recorded in smart watches and health based apps.
Earlier this data was stored in a local computer and only the owner had access to it but now it is stored in a cloud which is available for analysis, this data can be combined, shared and used for analysis to predict and make decisions.
Huge amounts of data is being collected everyday from personal assistant software, social media websites, documents stored in the cloud etc. This data will be used for decision making in future and will become a new religion in which we will trust for all aspects of our life.
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