Numanity!
June 1st, 2005
Where the hell are we all going? What’s to become of this goofball species known to themselves as “humans” in the near and far future? It’s certainly possible we’ll render ourselves extinct, or at least destroy civilization, through the usual combination of environmental damage, war, resource depletion, and so forth…but despite my oftimes dismal view of humanity as a whole, I don’t see the possibility of us extincting ourselves to be that great. Sure, the future will no doubt see a drastic change in human numbers and human biological forms, but I believe that intelligent life on earth has reached the point where total extinction is possible but highly unlikely: even if an oldskool nuclear war were to break out and eliminate most human civilizations overnight, there’d still be survivors scrabbling amid the ruins, and tons of left-behind technology to analyse, re-engineer, and use to start over at some time in the future. Intelligent life on earth will around for a while, yet, but “humanity” will not. Why? Because we’re already in the process of becoming something else. Evolution teaches us that there are no such things as ultimately stable species–every species can, at the drop of a gene, begin to morph into a wholly new species better suited to its situation. To think that our species will remain the same forever is moronic. To wonder what we’ll become in the future is fun.
MSNBC.com recently ran an intriguing feature entitled “Human Evolution at the Crossroads” detailing five possible avenues of development open to our species in the future. All of these speculative avenues were dreamed up by credible evolutionary biologists or, in some cases, health professionals…but all are not created equal. Briefly, these five possible avenues are:
- “Unihumans”: a monlithic species in which all racial differences have been eliminated thanks to bioengineering and interbreeding of people from all continents.
- “Suvivalistians”: rugged, hardcore, tough-as-nails humans (practically a rebirth of Neanderthals) produced via the species’ transition through a major catastrophe (asteroid strike, war, etc.).
- “NUMANS!”: genetically-designed, physically “perfect” superhumans immune to virtually all disease and biological difficulties.
- “Cyborgs”: the familiar cyberpunk melding of human and technology.
- “Astrans”: humans engineered for interplanetary and interstellar travel/colonization/exploitation.
So, Pegritz, you ask. You’re virtually obsessed with human evolution (particularly technological), and you’re a total sci-fi geek as well…plus, you’ve read just about every decent sci-fi novel ever written concerning human evolution–so which of those MSNBC scenarios do you think the most likely to come about?”
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