"Pantheum vetustate corruptum cum omni cultu restituerunt"
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Our Long Childhood
"Perhaps there is a kind of silver lining to these global...problems, because they are forcing us, willy-nilly, no matter how reluctant we may be, into a new kind of thinking - in which some matters the well-being of the human species takes precedence over national and corporate interests. We are a resourceful species when push comes to shove. We know what to do. Out of the...crises of our time should come, unless we are much more foolish than I think we are, a binding up of the nations and the generations, and even the end of our long childhood."
-Carl Sagan
The moment I read this, in Carl's Billions & Billions, I knew I had a new addition to my list of favourite quotations. There are two reasons that I am interested in the issues that make up this blog, and Carl's quote captures both of them. I am concerned about the magnitude and urgency of the problems we face as a species, but I feel like my generation has the potential to turn those challenges into a new "finest hour" for humanity, and I share Carl's optimism that the 21st century may be the last century of our long childhood.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the challenges we will have to overcome in the next 100 years. I have begun a series of posts on the problems we will face converting our economy into one better suited for the next age, and I have talked about the necessity of making policy with long-term goals in mind. It is the latter that I am going to focus on in this post.
I have discussed specific environmental and economic goals that I believe we should base long-term policy around in other posts, and I have also discussed philosophical and moral goals in some fashion. In this post, I am going to back out a bit, and try to formulate a set of goals that I believe humanity can achieve in the 21st century. These goals will be as all-encompassing as possible, and they represent the things I think humanity must achieve if we are to truly grow up as a species.
1. Develop a workable Theory of Everything
This goal may be a bit misleading, as it is possible a true "Theory of Everything" does not exist or is scientifically unverifiable. However, I believe that our understanding of physics, including the relationship between relativity and quantum mechanics, is incomplete, and before we can truly claim to be a mature species, we must understand the "purest science" more fully.
2. Travel to, and permanently inhabit, another planet
I have discussed in the past the biological and moral imperative our species possesses with regard to the colonization of other worlds. The moon landing was the greatest single achievement in human history, but in the 40 years since, we have accomplished very little. Of course there have been significant successes, including Hubble, the Shuttle, the ISS and the Mars rovers, but they pale in comparison to the giant leaps we took as a species from October 4th, 1957 to August 27th, 1977, between the launch of Sputnik and the launch of Voyager 2.
We need to recapture the spirit of those times, and turn our minds, and our dollars, to the stars once again. Mars seems the most likely candidate, and the technology exists to go there, and live there, today. All it would take is money and political will. It is also possible that we could go to Venus first, as it is our closest neighbour, and the upper atmosphere of Venus presents the most earth-like conditions anywhere in the solar system. If we could design some sort of cloud city, the colonization of Venus is within reach as well.
3. Establish a global political framework capable of addressing global-scale issues
I have talked extensively about this issue as well. I am not advocating world government, as I believe that the majority of issues are better solved at a lower level of government than that, just as I believe that the federal government in Canada should only manage those issues that cannot be managed more effectively at the provincial or local level.
What I do believe we need is an effective international body capable of dealing with issues of global scale. National governments have proven to be awful at addressing these issues, just as you might expect. I also believe that continued economic integration, and the continued growth of non-zero sumness, will eventually become limited by the lack of political integration across the world.
They system I envision, as discussed in previous posts, is something roughly halfway between the UN and the EU, although in many ways very different from either. Its main responsibilities would be stewarding the global economy/international trade, protecting the global environment, running a global space program, and coordinating peacekeeping/arms proliferation/diplomatic activities in the way the UN Security Council attempts to do today.
4. Establish universal basic education for all children
This one is a no-brainer. No species can claim to be a mature one when millions of its children are not educated. Education is a fairly easy service to provide, and has countless spillover benefits, not the least of which is further leveling of the global economic playing field. Also extremely important is the effect that the education of women has on decreasing population growth rates, and the importance of comprehensive secular education in leading youth away from fundamentalism and extremism.
5. Understand the process by which life came to be on Earth
Every culture in the history of the world has wondered about this question. Who are we? Why are we here, and how did it happen? How unlikely was our existence and what does that tell us about life elsewhere in the universe?
Part of this question is cosmological - investigating how the universe came to be the way it is. Further understanding of that question is covered under goal #1. Another part is evolutionary, how we got from microbes to humans. That bit is fairly well understood today. The last part is perhaps the most mysterious - how a dead Earth came to life about 4.5 billion years ago. If we can answer that question, we will take one more giant leap towards adulthood, whether or not we choose not to use our knowledge to create new life.
6. Create a "learning computer"
This is another goal that might be slightly misstated, as there is not an agreement about what constitutes "artificial intelligence" and by some definitions, we already have "learning computers". What I believe we need to accomplish is to advance computer science and robotics to a level where the vast majority of human effort can be turned towards higher pursuits. If we can solve tough problems in computing, like accurate language translation, voice-to-text, automated call centres that actually work, and mostly robotic manufacturing, we will have accomplished something important.
Progress in this area will be key to any interplanetary colonization effort as well. Take Mars as an example. Initially, it will be very expensive to transport people to Mars and keep them alive there. That means that the large industrial projects that will be the first step to building a new home will have to be mostly automated. Among other things, the construction of subterranean living habitats, the mining of key minerals, and the construction and operation of factories generating massive amounts of chlorofluorocarbons or perfluorocarbons will have to be primarily done by robots. This will require better robots than we have today.
Other advances in computing could also be key. Computers have transformed our society, and the leap from today's computers to say, quantum computers could be equally revolutionary.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
This goal is a tough one to define, because no one really knows what the word "sustainability" means. I have previously stated that I believe the primary long-term goal of environmental policy is to restore 50% of each of Earth's biomes to a pre-human state, but I think that that goal is very long-term and unnecessary to reach what I would call "adulthood". Instead, I think that the primary goals that we have to reach in the next century have to do with what I will call "peak rates". These goals include:
- Achieve a peak in land use before 2100 and preferably much sooner (this means that the total land used by humans will begin to decline towards the aforementioned 50%)
- Achieve a peak in non-renewable energy use by 2050. Diminishing supplies will probably force our hand here, but the top priorities here are to drastically reduce the use of coal (probably by substituting natural gas in the short-term) and get our heads around viable nuclear fusion.
- Achieve a peak in the rate of species extinctions ASAP. This is a critical problem and we are running out of time.
- Achieve a peak in global carbon emissions and the rate of global temperature increase by 2100 or sooner.
- Achieve a plateau in the population growth rate by 2100.
- There are probably others that I can't think of, but these are the key ones.
8. Eradicate extreme poverty
Another no-brainer. All the other great achievements in this post cannot be for only a portion of humanity. We are all in this together, and a key step to levelling the global playing field is to make sure that no one is so poor they cannot survive.
9. Gain the ability to become a Type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale
This last one is fairly arbitrary, and mostly an enabler for the other goals, but I believe the ability to harness the power of an entire Earth, roughly 1.74x10^17 watts, will be neccessary to reach these other goals. If efficiency gains are such that I am proven wrong, so much the better, but without the ability, most likely using fusion, I can't see a way to reach all of our other goals.
Humanity today is akin to an unruly teenager. We know some things, and we can use that knowledge in some productive ways, but we don't yet know enough and we are not yet wise enough to understand ourselves and our responsibilities.
The day is not far away, but it will take more work before humanity can grow up.
-Carl Sagan
The moment I read this, in Carl's Billions & Billions, I knew I had a new addition to my list of favourite quotations. There are two reasons that I am interested in the issues that make up this blog, and Carl's quote captures both of them. I am concerned about the magnitude and urgency of the problems we face as a species, but I feel like my generation has the potential to turn those challenges into a new "finest hour" for humanity, and I share Carl's optimism that the 21st century may be the last century of our long childhood.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the challenges we will have to overcome in the next 100 years. I have begun a series of posts on the problems we will face converting our economy into one better suited for the next age, and I have talked about the necessity of making policy with long-term goals in mind. It is the latter that I am going to focus on in this post.
I have discussed specific environmental and economic goals that I believe we should base long-term policy around in other posts, and I have also discussed philosophical and moral goals in some fashion. In this post, I am going to back out a bit, and try to formulate a set of goals that I believe humanity can achieve in the 21st century. These goals will be as all-encompassing as possible, and they represent the things I think humanity must achieve if we are to truly grow up as a species.
1. Develop a workable Theory of Everything
This goal may be a bit misleading, as it is possible a true "Theory of Everything" does not exist or is scientifically unverifiable. However, I believe that our understanding of physics, including the relationship between relativity and quantum mechanics, is incomplete, and before we can truly claim to be a mature species, we must understand the "purest science" more fully.
2. Travel to, and permanently inhabit, another planet
I have discussed in the past the biological and moral imperative our species possesses with regard to the colonization of other worlds. The moon landing was the greatest single achievement in human history, but in the 40 years since, we have accomplished very little. Of course there have been significant successes, including Hubble, the Shuttle, the ISS and the Mars rovers, but they pale in comparison to the giant leaps we took as a species from October 4th, 1957 to August 27th, 1977, between the launch of Sputnik and the launch of Voyager 2.
We need to recapture the spirit of those times, and turn our minds, and our dollars, to the stars once again. Mars seems the most likely candidate, and the technology exists to go there, and live there, today. All it would take is money and political will. It is also possible that we could go to Venus first, as it is our closest neighbour, and the upper atmosphere of Venus presents the most earth-like conditions anywhere in the solar system. If we could design some sort of cloud city, the colonization of Venus is within reach as well.
3. Establish a global political framework capable of addressing global-scale issues
I have talked extensively about this issue as well. I am not advocating world government, as I believe that the majority of issues are better solved at a lower level of government than that, just as I believe that the federal government in Canada should only manage those issues that cannot be managed more effectively at the provincial or local level.
What I do believe we need is an effective international body capable of dealing with issues of global scale. National governments have proven to be awful at addressing these issues, just as you might expect. I also believe that continued economic integration, and the continued growth of non-zero sumness, will eventually become limited by the lack of political integration across the world.
They system I envision, as discussed in previous posts, is something roughly halfway between the UN and the EU, although in many ways very different from either. Its main responsibilities would be stewarding the global economy/international trade, protecting the global environment, running a global space program, and coordinating peacekeeping/arms proliferation/diplomatic activities in the way the UN Security Council attempts to do today.
4. Establish universal basic education for all children
This one is a no-brainer. No species can claim to be a mature one when millions of its children are not educated. Education is a fairly easy service to provide, and has countless spillover benefits, not the least of which is further leveling of the global economic playing field. Also extremely important is the effect that the education of women has on decreasing population growth rates, and the importance of comprehensive secular education in leading youth away from fundamentalism and extremism.
5. Understand the process by which life came to be on Earth
Every culture in the history of the world has wondered about this question. Who are we? Why are we here, and how did it happen? How unlikely was our existence and what does that tell us about life elsewhere in the universe?
Part of this question is cosmological - investigating how the universe came to be the way it is. Further understanding of that question is covered under goal #1. Another part is evolutionary, how we got from microbes to humans. That bit is fairly well understood today. The last part is perhaps the most mysterious - how a dead Earth came to life about 4.5 billion years ago. If we can answer that question, we will take one more giant leap towards adulthood, whether or not we choose not to use our knowledge to create new life.
6. Create a "learning computer"
This is another goal that might be slightly misstated, as there is not an agreement about what constitutes "artificial intelligence" and by some definitions, we already have "learning computers". What I believe we need to accomplish is to advance computer science and robotics to a level where the vast majority of human effort can be turned towards higher pursuits. If we can solve tough problems in computing, like accurate language translation, voice-to-text, automated call centres that actually work, and mostly robotic manufacturing, we will have accomplished something important.
Progress in this area will be key to any interplanetary colonization effort as well. Take Mars as an example. Initially, it will be very expensive to transport people to Mars and keep them alive there. That means that the large industrial projects that will be the first step to building a new home will have to be mostly automated. Among other things, the construction of subterranean living habitats, the mining of key minerals, and the construction and operation of factories generating massive amounts of chlorofluorocarbons or perfluorocarbons will have to be primarily done by robots. This will require better robots than we have today.
Other advances in computing could also be key. Computers have transformed our society, and the leap from today's computers to say, quantum computers could be equally revolutionary.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
This goal is a tough one to define, because no one really knows what the word "sustainability" means. I have previously stated that I believe the primary long-term goal of environmental policy is to restore 50% of each of Earth's biomes to a pre-human state, but I think that that goal is very long-term and unnecessary to reach what I would call "adulthood". Instead, I think that the primary goals that we have to reach in the next century have to do with what I will call "peak rates". These goals include:
- Achieve a peak in land use before 2100 and preferably much sooner (this means that the total land used by humans will begin to decline towards the aforementioned 50%)
- Achieve a peak in non-renewable energy use by 2050. Diminishing supplies will probably force our hand here, but the top priorities here are to drastically reduce the use of coal (probably by substituting natural gas in the short-term) and get our heads around viable nuclear fusion.
- Achieve a peak in the rate of species extinctions ASAP. This is a critical problem and we are running out of time.
- Achieve a peak in global carbon emissions and the rate of global temperature increase by 2100 or sooner.
- Achieve a plateau in the population growth rate by 2100.
- There are probably others that I can't think of, but these are the key ones.
8. Eradicate extreme poverty
Another no-brainer. All the other great achievements in this post cannot be for only a portion of humanity. We are all in this together, and a key step to levelling the global playing field is to make sure that no one is so poor they cannot survive.
9. Gain the ability to become a Type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale
This last one is fairly arbitrary, and mostly an enabler for the other goals, but I believe the ability to harness the power of an entire Earth, roughly 1.74x10^17 watts, will be neccessary to reach these other goals. If efficiency gains are such that I am proven wrong, so much the better, but without the ability, most likely using fusion, I can't see a way to reach all of our other goals.
Humanity today is akin to an unruly teenager. We know some things, and we can use that knowledge in some productive ways, but we don't yet know enough and we are not yet wise enough to understand ourselves and our responsibilities.
The day is not far away, but it will take more work before humanity can grow up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)