By Eric Le Roy
Content 18+ It strikes me increasingly as ironic that the same people who revel in the onslaught of technology, AI, and the advanced capabilities of genetic engineering are often the same ones who cling to the supposedly inviolable sanctity of the ‘human spirit’, and – even worse in my book – of human ‘dignity’. It’s as if ‘love will find a way’ or Batman or the Lone Ranger will always come surging to the rescue in the end. This seems especially true in the area of climate change, wherein ‘the people’ are exhorted to bond and band together to slough off the smog, dehumidify the Greenhouse swelter, and swat aside the coal dust.
This assumption seems based on the conviction that there is something uniquely ‘human’ about being human. Fifty years ago, I would have thought the same thing. I’d sit on the porch at the edge of Queen Street in Martinsburg, West Virginia when I was little more than a toddler and watch the cars and people go up and down, and even then, at the age of 4 or 5, I’d be thinking, “These motherfuckers are never going to change.” Life was what it was, and at least we had the gas chamber and the electric chair to rely on. That was my line of thinking, callow cherub though I was.
I would have called myself ‘precocious’ if I had known what the word meant, but now I’m glad I didn’t bother to congratulate myself. That’s because the human animal has been undergoing some rather dramatic transformations, and now at least some of us are being forced to confront the unsettling possibility that the definition of ‘human’ (aside from its species notation) means nothing more than the word of a scammer or the warmth of a crack dealer. Instead, we are now in a state of ‘amokness’ or identity rioting, scrambling to define and redefine ourselves. We now are forced – there is no other way – to seriously entertain the question: What does it mean to be human?
Frankly, meandering as I now do in the austerity of the shadows of eternity, I am not too concerned about how to answer this question personally. I know who I am: a perambulating carcass whose squinting eyes are still gazing at the celestial candles of the night above me, wondering if what I see is only the late-arriving light of stars long since burned out, defunct. In other words, is the light a dead myth of our imagination? Just another of our melodramatic illusions? Maybe there isn’t any light anymore, and we are just getting the last messages. Stuff like that. Well, it’s better than watching the talk shows.
So I get to settle back and enjoy the chaos – and chaos it is because, make no mistake about it, the traditional idea of ‘human’ is wavering on the brink, tottering on the precipice of the self-constructing homo sapien – yes that one – the one who has never learned to take its place in the cosmos, refused to deconstruct its big squeaky ego, and arrogantly shouted “No!” to any question of setting limits. The said ‘sapien’ does (in my view, subject to debate) 75% of what it can and 25% of what it should.
That does not strike a balance, but it has never been any different, from what I can see. I am a history buff, and while that does not make my opinion any more than an opinion, at least I have taken time to study what has been happening (repeating itself) all these centuries. What has changed – this is my thesis – is technology and NOT moral character. OK, maybe in most parts of the world we no longer engage in human sacrifice or, having chopped off some traitor’s head, stick it up on a spike over London Bridge, etc., but that’s only for cosmetic effect, in my view, because it represents no real sea change in who we are. We have just cleaned up our act a little, that’s all. In other words, all we need is an urban power outage, and the monkey in us surges from the pits of our psyche and collective unconscious. You can see it on film: repulsive slips of shadow with electronic equipment stacked from bollocks to chin, sprinting down the darkened alleys. War ethics? Hey. Any kind of war, and all those sweet mother’s sons are capable of anything. ANYTHING.
Greed, avarice, lust, ruthlessness, blind hatefulness? Also, kindness, generosity, wit, sensuality, devotion. Love even? – all the same as before. Read the old books, and you’ll see.
On the other hand, technology has never stood still, has changed, is changing, and the changes are coming faster and faster, like a light evening breeze becoming a gale and then a hurricane. So we have shown ourselves to be adamantly, stubbornly the same in our group and tribal ethics, but radically different in our seemingly endless potential for technological inventiveness. And as long as we can keep the two categories separate, we can still have a halfway civil academic discussion.
However, we have now reached a point where we are no longer simply the same old vassals and villains brandishing newfangled power drills and lawn movers; no, now AI and such marvels as genetic engineering have arrived with backup waiting on the edge of the horizon – and what this means has to do with changes in our essence – challenges to who we perceive ourselves to be versus who we are truly becoming – such as never experienced before.
To make an analogy, we as humans do not resemble hieroglyphics (permanently encoded) as much as we are like cuneiform (endlessly malleable). Through AI, various other kinds of technology, and a future where genetic engineering eventually wins the battle against ‘God’s will’ – and we will become ‘entities’ (for lack of a better word) that will render us barely recognisable from who and what we seem to be at the moment. Moreover, unlike in the past, these changes are occurring at nano speed. It’s like the difference between waiting for water to polish a stone smooth over thousands of years, to a nuclear explosion down at the plant.
The nano speed element mitigates against any serious ‘team’ attempt at an environmental rescue mission. Truth be told, modern humans have very low attention spans and bottom-basement impulse control. The modern sapien wants to see instant results. And cleaning up the environment – undoing all the years and years of reckless, willful, deliberate waste and corruption – would be a lengthy proposition, if indeed it’s not too late already. So you can just imagine it: a ‘woke’ clean-up crew taking a break, leaning on their rakes, surveying the feckless situation as the wind picks up and blows the garbage they just piled up for removal back in their faces, and one saying to the other, “Hey Y’all, this aint working. Let’s go have a Vegan burger.”
Even if we could be assured of eventual positive results, few of us would hang around long enough to see them. We’d pretend to pay our dues, sign off with a slogan, and go to fucking something else up. How do I know this? It’s what the homo sapien has always done, the game it has always played, Please tell me what would turn eons of evolution-achieved arrogance and reality-denying frivolity…into circumspect devotion and self-discipline by the millions and millions – day after day – year after year?
I’m waiting.
Didn’t think so.
So unless we produce a planet full of like-’minded’ robots who are all cheering for the Boston Celtics and falling in love with the same AI model, the only way for us to tackle something like global warming is to raise our level of ‘rightness’ – adjust our moral ‘compass’ firmly and correctly, stop fucking about and do the right thing. Some optimists imagine we can, and, as I read many essays from students, bloggers, and the like, I see the same pattern: an anguished description of the current situation, followed by a lot of ‘if’ and ‘must’ and then a rousing closing (like a goal in extra time in football) that proclaims ‘And we will !’ It always ends with us still in with a chance. Rah rah.
But let’s look at the probability of the human race galvanizing itself to a truly concerted effort. Our population is now getting up towards 9 billion. Ok, and taking those numbers into account, how many possess the education, dedication, power, and will to do what is necessary? Don’t kid yourself. Most of the world is uneducated and fighting off various degrees of starvation, disease, governmental corruption, and general hopelessness. Do you think they care about plastic? Moreover, of the so-called elites, how many are self-serving assholes, whether run-of-the-mill hustlers or corporate elites? Most people act out of self-interest, defending their turf and being nice when they feel they can afford to. And that’s the best-case scenario for most average people.
Education, dedication, power, and will. Maybe there are, to give a generous estimate, a million or two who meet all those qualifications. And guess what? Among the advanced thinkers, some are MAGA, some are WOKE. Some Black, some White, some Yellow. Some are otherworldly meditators, pelote, and vegan fanatics. Radical professors and Fashion Whores of all genders and nationalities.. Corporate hardliners. Cutthroat business execs. Professional feminists and race baiters. Bums and vagrants. Drug addicts and cultists. Religious zealots and atheists. Serial killers and mass murderers. Do you think they care about the environment?
On a lesser level, there are old, dim-witted fossils like me, drooling babies, swaying toddlers, adolescents who want Lego and Minecraft, and teenagers into texting and sexting. And these are the nice boys and girls. Across the streets, there are a lot of gang bangers, rapists, porn addicts, fentanyl abusers, scammers and hackers. Can these guys join hands, sing “Imagine All the People” and mount an offensive, chanting “No more plastic! No more plastic!”? Can they get along well enough to pick up the rubbish for one day without killing each other?
Revolutionary impulses start with a bunch of people shouting, but they are successful only when money and power are in support. The French Revolution only grew legs when Louis XVI tried to tax the Second Estate (merchants, industrials, shopkeepers, etc). The Third Estate, which was about 80% of the population, had borne the burden until then, and there was no revolution until the King offended people with clout. A small but well-equipped number was all it took. But solving the problem of global warming cannot be carried out by the armed and passionate few; it requires commitment by the many. So forget it.
We aren’t good enough.
Ah, but technology can solve all things. It can come up with a way of sucking the nasty and noxious stuff out of the air and it can make us molecularly improved in the process by getting in there with a set of genetic pliers and twisting a couple of tiny knobs. We will walk proudly with our AI doubles, laughing and loving, and all that is ugly will be eradicated. Two-thirds of what made us human in the sense we are familiar with will have given way within the next 100 years (or sooner), but what the fuck? We, the homo sapien, will go the way of the typewriter, the phone book, and the telephone on the wall. And, who knows, maybe our replacements will be better.
Oh, to be sure, there will be a small population of us left. In zoos. Or out there in the rubbish dumps, sorting our way through the detritus in hopes of finding whatever the superior robots have discarded. We will speak of revolution before heading to the lower-end bars after we clock out. Victory Gin.
Ladies and gentlemen, the homo sapien is just a hobo passing through the back streets of a small egglike swelling in a distant corner of forever and ever and ever. OK, OK, I’ll gather up my rubbish if you sweep up yours.
Then let’s drink to our health and sing Auld Lang Syne.
