Forge of Creation

Is This Progress?

At a recent Meetup I attended, it impressed me how open minded and respectful the group was. We had a fairly intelligient and orderly discussion that included nearly a third of the folks present; which in my experience, is quite a feat of restraint, especially considering the strong wills and strident beliefs that most AAT supporters are bound to have. What was the most impressive was the kindness and respect shown by the careful wording of counter theories and objections, as the points were discussed without rancor.

However, I was also amazed to hear so many folks lamenting that "things are so bad now" as if somehow, all of mankind's great advances in technology, social rights, and information circulation have made things worse, rather than better for the average human being.

Sadly, it is true that the avai­la­bi­lity of infor­ma­tion over­load, lar­gely in the form of sports, news, and rea­lity tele­vi­sion have com­bi­ned with a pro­found capi­ta­lism to make the ave­rage per­son satia­ted, depen­dent, and com­pliant with the current fai­led public poli­cies. We are “lin­ked in” to the abi­lity to con­sume goods and infor­ma­tion on a scale unpa­ra­lle­led in the his­tory of man­kind. This is all being care­fully tai­lo­red, not just for our own needs, but that of the finan­cial and power elite who run cor­po­ra­tions and govern­ments, while the com­mon public goes about their lives with the illu­sion of enligh­te­ned society. Not­withs­tan­ding, injus­tice con­ti­nues in the world. The poor are still poor, wars still rage, peo­ple die from greed and retri­bu­tion, bad choi­ces for energy are still pilla­ging our pla­net, lies are still told, and igno­rance still thrives…so the story goes.

Howe­ver, Man­kind has only recently been gran­ted an unpre­ce­den­ted gift. We have more free­dom than ever not just to choose the amount and type of inputs we allow into our lives, but also to act on those inputs to enhance our life and watch the rest of man­kind do the same.

Con­si­der if you will how over the last 40,000 years of human his­tory, we have all had the same rela­tive brain capa­city as we do now, and we have had one demi­god after another (whether alien, hybrid, or fellow human) sub­jec­ting MOST of man­kind to var­ying degrees of phy­si­cal men­tal, and spi­ri­tual cap­ti­vity. This has been dec­rea­sing over the cen­tu­ries but only in the last 100 years or less is the sub­ju­ga­tion of others con­si­de­red a crime. We have seen outright sla­very out­la­wed in most coun­tries of the world. Tech­no­logy has allo­wed child­birth to become much less life-threatening. Women are as free as men to vote, choose, and lead (except in dec­rea­singly fewer back­ward reli­gious coun­tries). Immu­ni­za­tions and anti­bio­tics have cured thou­sands of disea­ses. Many mino­ri­ties have world­wide and natio­nal advo­cacy. Reli­gious exter­mi­na­tion has been ban­ned and per­pe­tra­tors are con­vic­ted of cri­mes against huma­nity. Chil­dren are pro­tec­ted from abuse now more than ever, some­ti­mes to the exc­lu­sion of paren­tal rights. Revenge, retri­bu­tion, and even due­ling are now con­si­de­red ille­gal. Hate cri­mes are pro­se­cu­ted. Even poli­ti­cal impro­priety cri­mes are inc­rea­singly beco­ming punisha­ble. In short, we have only recently collec­ti­vely become “able” to effec­ti­vely set our­sel­ves against the wrongs of this world. We pro­se­cute cri­mes against other beings (human and other­wise) with inc­rea­sing accu­racy and dec­rea­sing tole­rance. No lon­ger can cri­mi­nals iso­late them­sel­ves and their vic­tims from scrutiny.

Mar­kedly fas­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion has fos­te­red grea­ter awa­re­ness and inc­rea­sed know­ledge for so many more “com­mon” peo­ple than ever, who in turn accept a dec­rea­sing amount of abuse and falshoods from their peers, lea­ders, and offi­cials. The “evil” media must com­pete with the “open source” Inter­net to pro­vide our news and it really seems to me that they are losing by com­pa­ri­son. The expen­sive uni­ver­si­ties are com­pe­ting with the “free” Inter­net to pro­vide trai­ning and know­ledge to the world. Even the reli­gions of the world are under scru­tiny for pro­vi­ding cre­di­ble ans­wers and a safe envi­ron­ment for those who choose to believe.

Gene­rally, we no lon­ger won­der whether the old supers­ti­tions such as wal­king under lad­ders and acci­den­tally brea­king mirrors will cause us to deve­lop some unna­med incu­ra­ble disease or suf­fer a spate of bad luck. Or that “God” will strike us down if we ques­tion the moti­ves or com­pe­tency of our govern­ment or church lea­ders. Less often do we pass jud­ge­ment on our peers for their ideas, howe­ver strange or odd. And no lon­ger do we gather in sca­red mobs outside their doors­teps to tar and feather them for these beliefs. Oh, it can still hap­pen, but only a few late bloo­mers are left that allow such things. I pre­dict that even the most back­ward will find it inc­rea­singly dif­fi­cult to sup­port into­le­rance and sava­gery of any kind.

Know­ledge is indeed power. We do not have to lis­ten to the mis­di­rec­tion and con­fu­sion that streams from the popu­lar media. Thanks (stran­gely) to the govern­ment of the U.S. DARPA pro­gram and many uni­ver­si­ties of the world, we have the Inter­net which allows anyone to tell the world anything whether true or not. This gives us the free­dom to choose for our­sel­ves bet­ween truth and fal­sehood and to com­pare that infor­ma­tion with anyone we choose. Con­se­quently, I believe that the iso­la­tion in which igno­rance and fear depends will even­tually disap­pear. This is why I believe strongly in the con­cept of net neu­tra­lity which sta­tes that no one autho­rity can res­trict or give pre­fe­rence to any types of web sites, even if the capi­ta­lism and por­no­graphy aspect of the inter­net mucks things up here and there. Losing this “free­dom” would be a huge blow to our indi­vi­dual free­doms of thought. It would mean that the media would regain con­trol over our lives.

In sum­mary, con­trary to the popu­lar belief, my opi­nion is that life is gra­dually bet­ter for an inc­rea­sing num­ber of humans. Some­ti­mes it seems like we hear about so many more disas­ters and evil deeds nowa­days, but this results because our abi­lity to com­mu­ni­cate has inc­rea­sed due to the inter­net, and chea­per and bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tions around the world. 70 years ago, news­pa­pers were our only news out­let. Radio, Inter­net, and now cellpho­nes have eclip­sed the prin­ted word and thus dares to cha­llenge the stran­glehold that the rich and power­ful have on us. Free­dom has always been the right to choose our own des­tiny. We should use it.