Coming soon...
Sufficiently rational beings would find it advantageous to contract together to become more altruistic, for the purposes of mutual aid - in the optimum limit, resulting in world utilitarianism, or something like it. (Selective compassion such as species-limited concern, though it exists, is not a tenable path for this rational transition, because the very selectivity does not stand up to rational scrutiny.) The overriding reasons why this has not yet happened are that firstly, people are insufficiently rational, and more importantly, people's capacity to modify their own mental states, dispositions, and motivations, is highly limited. With both these constraints removed, the self-negation of selfishness seems not merely attractive (for example, in terms of "free love" - possesiveness is an aspect of selfishness) but actually inevitable.
Of course, all this assumes that such constraints will one day be removed, which is a highly speculative assumption.
It appears that multinational corporations would act to prevent the democratising of production threatened by advanced molecular nanotechnology, because it would take away their cash cows, their goose that lays the golden egg. Consumers could live off literally free software (this is not metaphorical!), and thus workers could no longer be exploited merely by the ever-present spectre of unemployment and its associated social exclusion and poverty (material and psychological).
Yet surely the shareholders have more to gain - even in a narrowly material sense of "gain" - by a world Post-Darwinian Transition? At least, if those were the only two choices - which they clearly are not. How would all the actors involved act to maximise their particular value-priorities?
The "religious" or "spiritual" side of people has for too long been neglected by the radical left, at least, in terms of explicit discourse - one can perhaps see it resurfacing in street festivals, for example. We need more (yes, more!) fire and brimstone! - while not leaving behind rationality. More ritual, more emotive art, more oases of peace and joy, more music to inspire the mind and fire the soul.
A prophesy suggests mystical inspiration and even baselessness, but that is not the sense in which I use it here. It is, I think, a suitably grand word for the prediction of such an awe-inspiringly momentous transition.
The original author of this site is (or rather, will be)
Robin GreenLast updated: 2000/May/23. Page created: 2000/May/21.