The problem of mankind indestructibility in
disastrously unpredictable environment
Concerning development of human race indestructibility roadmap
Kononov Alexandr Anatolievich, PhD
(Engineering), senior researcher, Institute of Systems Analysis, Russian Academy
of Sciences, member of Russian Philosophical Society of RAS, kononov@isa.ru
Many discoveries in astronomy and
earth sciences, made within the past decades, turned to be the ones of new
threats and risks to the existence of humankind on the Earth and in Space.
Lending itself readily is a conclusion of that our civilization is existing and
evolving in a disastrously unstable environment, which is capable of destroying
it any time, and only a fortunate coincidence (luck) allowed our civilization
to develop up to the current level. But this “luck” will hardly be everlasting.
Dangers of human race destruction
Following
below are a list of main groups of threats of global catastrophes and several
examples of the threats.
Natural:
Disasters resulting from geological
processes.
Supervolcanos, magnetic pole shift, earth faults and the processes running in
deeper strata of the Earth
Disasters resulting from potential
instability of Sun.
Superpowerful solar flares and bursts, potential instability of reactions
providing for solar luminocity and temperature supporting life on the Earth
Disasters resulting from Space effects
(asteroids, comets; a possibility of a malicious intrusion of an alien
civilization cannot be ruled out either)
Engendered by civilization
Self-destruction. Resulting from the use of weapons of mass
destruction.
Environment destruction. As a result of man-made disasters.
Self-extermination. The choice of an erroneous way of
civilization evolution, say, the one limiting the pace of building up
civilization’s technological strength. Given civilization existence in a
disastrously unstable environment such a decision may turn to be a sentence of
civilization’s self-extermination – it will simply have no time to prepare for the
upcoming catastrophes. Many other theories, bearing upon the choice of
directions of civilization evolution, also can, given a lop-sided non-systemic
application thereof, inflict a heavy damage and prevent civilization from
appropriately resolving the tasks, which would have enabled it to manage the potential
disasters. Even the idea of civilization’s indestructibility, presented herein,
carries a risk of justifying super-exploitation (sacrificing the living
generations) for the sake of solving the tasks of civilization’s indestructibility.
Hence, importance of the second part of this ideology – raising the culture of keeping
the family and individual memory. Remarkably, this culture may act as a defense
from a variety of other risks of dehumanization and moral degradation of
civilization.
Provoking nature instability. For instance, initiating
greenhouse effect and climatic changes.
Threats of civilization destruction
endangered by new technologies and civilization evolution (civilization
dynamics). These
are threats which humankind must learn to handle as new technologies emerge and
space developed (space expansion). For example, the emergence of information
society gave rise to a whole industry handling security problems (cyber
security) arising when using computer and telecoms technologies. The necessity
of diverting huge resources for solving security problems associated with new
technologies is an inevitable prerequisite of progress. It must be understood
and taken for granted that solving the problems of security of each new
technological or civilizational breakthrough (e.g., creation of
extraterrestrial space colonies) may come to be many times as costly as the price
of their materialization. But this is the only way of ensuring security of
progress, including that of space expansion.
Threat of life destruction on a space scale
These are largely hypothetical
threats, but the known cases of collisions and explosions of galaxies are
indicative of that they may but be ignored. These are:
The presence of a huge number of
threats to the survival of civilization makes civilization’s indestructibility
to be the main task, and sooner, with regard to the scale and importance, the
central supertask. The other global civilizational supertasks and tasks such as
extension of human life, rescuing mankind from diseases, hunger, stark social
inequality (misery, poverty), crime, terrorism largely become senseless and
lose their moral potential, if the central supertask – civilization’s indestructibility
– is not being handled. Ignoring this supertask implies a demonstrable
indifference to the fate of civilization, to the destiny of future generations,
thereby depriving the living generations of an ethical foundation because of immorality
and cruelty (to the future generations, thus doomed to death) of such a choice.
So, what potential ways of solving
this central supertask of civilization are available?
Generally speaking, the current practice
of responding to the threats suggests looking for ways of guarding against each
one of them. But the quantity and scale of threats to civilization destruction
as well as fundamental impossibility of defending from them in any other way
but only by breaking the dependence of civilization fate on the places where
these threats exist, render a conclusion that a relatively reliable (in
relation to other possible solutions, say, by creating protective shells or arks)
solution of the task of civilization’s indestructibility can be provided only
by way of space expansion. Yet, keeping in mind that there are no absolutely
safe places in all of the Universe and, probably, across the Creation, the task
of civilization salvation comes to a
strive for a maximum distribution of civilization, maintaining unity, across a
possibly maximum number of spaces along with possession of considerable
evacuation potential in each one of them.
So civilization space expansion
ought to imply surmounting civilization’s dependence on the habitats, which may
be destroyed. And the first task along the line implies surmounting mankind’s
dependence on the living conditions on the Earth and on the Earth fate. It may
be solved by a purposive colonization of the solar system. That is by establishing
technologically autonomous colonies on all planets or their moons, where this
is possible, and by creating autonomous interplanetary stations, prepared for
full technological independence from the Earth.
This must be accompanied by a
gradual shift of manufacturing operations, critical for the fate of
civilization and hazardous for the Earth environment, beyond the limits of our
planet and distribution thereof across the solar system. The planet of Earth
shall be gradually assigned the role of environmentally sound recreational zone
designed for vacations and life after retirement
Solution of this task, i.e.
establishment of colonies technologically independent upon the Earth and shifting
critical operations beyond the Earth boundaries, can apparently take about
1,000 years. Though the history of the 20th century showed that
humankind is capable of producing so many technological surprises within a mere
100 years! Note that this was done in spite of the fact that its smooth
development, during the 100 years, was impeded by 2 world wars, disastrous in
terms of their scale, numerous civil wars and bloody conflicts. Technological
breakthroughs, given peaceful and goal-oriented activities, will probably make
it possible to handle the tasks of severing civilization’s dependence on the
fate of the Earth, solar system, etc. at a much higher pace than can be
imagined now.
Try to define individual phases of
potential space expansion, implying a marked upsurge in civilization’s indestructibility.
Upon surmounting the humanity’s fate
dependence upon the fate of the Earth, next along the line shall come the task
of getting over the dependence of civilization’s fate on the fate of solar
system. This task will have to be coped with by colonizing spaces at a safe distance
from our solar system. The expected time of accomplishment (given no
incredible, from modern perspective, technological breakthroughs) spans scores
thousands of years.
Then come the tasks of severing
civilization’s fate dependence upon the fate of individual intragalaxy spaces
and on the fate of Milky Way and Metagalaxy. The possibility of solving these tasks will, apparently, be determined
only by a potential emergence of new technologies unpredictable today.
Same applies to solving the next
tasks, say, doing away with civilization’s fate dependence upon the fate of the
Universe. It seems now that solution of this kind of tasks will be possible
through the control of all critical processes running in the Universe, or
through discovering technologies enabling transportation to other
universes (if any of these exist), or by
way of acquiring technologies for creation of new universes suitable as new
backup (evacuation) living spaces of civilization.
An absolute guarantee of
civilization’s safety and indestructibility can be produced only by the control
of the Creation, be it is achievable and feasible in principle. But it is
precisely this option that any civilization in Cosmos must strive at so as to
be absolutely sure of its indestructibility.
Assume that Humanity is not the only
civilization setting the supertask of indestructibility. What will happen given
a meeting with other civilizations setting similar tasks?
It would be safe in assuming, at
this point of reasoning, natural occurrence of an objective law, which may be
referred to as Ethical Filter Law.
Ethical Filter Law[1]: it is only civilizations with a
rather high ethical potential, barring them from self-annihilation given
availability of technologies capable of turning into the means of mass
destruction during intra-civilization conflicts, which can evolve up to the
level of civilization capable of space expansion on interplanetary and
intergalaxy scale.
In other words, civilizations with
high technologies at hand but failing to learn to behave are either destroyed,
as any inadequately developed civilizations, by natural disasters which they
are incapable of managing because of the lack of appropriate capabilities,
which they had no time to develop probably not least because of wasting efforts
and allocated time on self-annihilation (wars).
Given two and more space
civilizations, which strive towards indestructibility and which managed to get
through the ethical filter, probably the most productive way of their
co-existence can become a gradual unification thereof for solving the tasks of indestructibility
of all civilizations, which managed to get through the ethical filter.
We may leave room for the existence of totalitarian civilizations capable of bypassing the above filter for they did not face a problem of self-annihilation because of their primordial unity. But, as is seen from historical experience of humankind, totalitarian civilizations (regimes) are more prone to undermining their own, nominally human potential due to the repressive mechanisms keeping them afloat, and are not capable of generating effective incentives for a progressive development, primarily technological one. That is, they are unviable in principle.
The potential specific principles of
interaction with such totalitarian space civilizations must therefore be
developed upon the emergence of this type of problems, if it becomes clear that
they really can arise. Meanwhile we may treat the possibility of meeting such
civilizations, which may turn to be hostile towards humankind, as any other
space threat, whose repulsion will be dependent upon availability of sufficient
civilization capacities required for handling this kind of tasks.
Qualities of indestructible civilization
Apparently it is the civilization
keen to augment its potential for meeting threats and risks of its destruction
that has more chances for becoming indestructible.
The indestructible civilization has
policies stimulating responsibility of the current generations before the next
ones. And vice versa, civilizations deeming it senseless to show a deep concern
of their future and of the fate of upcoming generations are doomed either to a gradual
self-extermination or to destruction upon the very first apocalypse.
Following below are only answers and
conclusions, questions ipso facto:
Ø An indestructible civilization must
strive to severing dependence of its fate on the fate of the place of its
original and current habitation, i.e. to space expansion.
Ø An indestructible civilization must
strive to increasing its own population and to a higher quality of life and
skills of each individual. Apparently, given colonization of new cosmic outreaches,
the bigger the population and capabilities or, conditionally speaking,
civilization’s human potential, the bigger its capacities for handling the
problems of progress, space expansion, ensuring its permanent prosperity and
security.
Ø An indestructible civilization must
strive to unity. All efforts towards civilization development and space
expansion will be of no avail, should civilization disintegrate to an extent
rendering it incapable of solving the evacuation tasks of rescuing those who
happen to be in the area of disastrous manifestations of space elements.
Ø An indestructible civilization must
strive to raising ethical standards of its development, for this will permit
it: not to destroy itself upon getting hold of the ever new technologies (which
can be used as the means of mass destruction) and maintain civilization unity,
which will in its turn provide opportunities for handling mass transcosmic
evacuation tasks, the tasks of transgeneration responsibility and other indestructibility
problems.
One can ascertain the
existence of objective threats to human civilization by turning, for example,
to the materials on “Creation Dossier” site. Similarly, there are objectively
existing civilization capabilities, which will enable it to counter possible
catastrophes. Apparently, these capabilities must be controlled. That is, the
tasks of their build up must be set, the factors augmenting these capacities be
accounted for and promoted. There is need for scientific concepts and theories
underpinning problems of civilization indestructibility potential control.
It is suggested to use the following
concepts as the initial steps towards development of a scientific frame of
reference relative to civilization indestructibility problems:
- civilization indestructibility
potential;
- civilization competitiveness;
- competitiveness of social
components making up civilization.
Civilization indestructibility capacities are defined as the qualities, achievements and
characteristics of civilization enabling it, given the emergence of
circumstances threatening its degradation or destruction, to counteract these developments
and prevent civilization death or degradation.
There is a great deal of objective developments
(threats, risks) which may, given a certain course of events, lead to
civilization collapse, i.e. come to be stronger or, as is routinely said,
higher than it. Yet, civilization is known to have certain capacities,
qualities, capabilities which may enable it to counteract these circumstances.
That is objectively, there are some relations (ratio) of potential forces. Let
us refer to these relations as competition. Then it would be safe in
saying that there is an objective competition between the developments, capable
of destroying the civilization, and civilization’s capacities to counteract
these circumstances and surmount them. It is precisely the civilization’s
capacities to counteract potential circumstances (threats, risks), which may
destroy or weaken it, that we shall refer to as civilization competitiveness.
Apparently, civilization
competitiveness, just as any capabilities, may be developed by, say, building
up competitive advantages (indestructibility capacities).
Now turn to the concepts of
competitiveness of social components making up civilization.
Civilization is primarily its
carriers. Humanity is, in the first place, people and social structures they
are part of. The reality is that our civilization is made up of nations (state
nations and ethnic nations). As is seen from history, civilization progress and
well-being are largely dependent upon the progress and well-being of individual
nations, on prosperity of societies, families and individuals.
Prospering nations push civilization
forward. Living conditions of prosperous nations create conditions for their
representatives to handle the tasks promoting civilization’s progress. At the
same time, individual nations also face problems and circumstances, which may force
these nations, along with the entire civilization, to regress, the
circumstances leading individual nation to destruction.
It is therefore very important to
understand that as there is, quite objectively, competition of civilization and
circumstances, which may destroy it, so, as objectively, there is competition
of each nation with the circumstances, which may weaken the nation and lead it
to a state where it, instead of being one of the forces strengthening and
promoting competitiveness of civilization at large, comes to be a factor
weakening the civilization. The nation’s competitiveness in securing its
permanent prosperity must therefore become a national idea of each nation, the
adherence to which will enable it to incorporate in its life some objective
criteria to be used in making any vital decisions by way of assessing their
impact on competitiveness potential and competitive advantages of the nation
securing its permanent prosperity.
Of course, as far as nation’s
competitiveness is concerned, the point is of competitiveness of similar topics
considered for civilization as a whole, i.e. of competitiveness with risks,
threats, circumstances which may lead nations to catastrophes but by no means
to competition with other nations, for this kind of competition is a way to
destruction or weakening of the competing nations and civilization as a whole.
In the final count, the correctly perceived idea of nations’ competitiveness
must bring them to unification thereof for securing indestructibility of the
entire human civilization. We are witnessing examples of a positive movement
along the line in both collective space exploration on board the international
space station and in the development of the European Union made up of countries
which had been fighting with each other for centuries. In the majority of
advanced countries, security, prosperity and permanence of nation’s prosperity
have already become a national idea. In October last year, the nation’s
competitiveness was declared a national idea in
Then, in considering social
structure of civilization, it would be right to speak of family and individuals.
No doubt, the family largely determines both the development and daily state
and capacities of the individual. It would be only right, therefore, to speak
of competitiveness of families and individuals, again using the term
“competitiveness” in the meaning as it is defined above, i.e. not of
competition between individual families and persons, which can in principle
undermine ethical and other capacities of the nation and civilization, but only
of competition with potential challenges, threats, risks, developments,
problems.
Of course, the state and
competitiveness of individual are dependent not only on the family but also on
other social structures, which they may be involved with. What is more, with
respect to some structures of this kind there is a traditional perception of
their competitiveness implying competition precisely between this kind of
structures, notably, competition between firms or any other for-profit
organizations, competition between parties, etc. One cannot but admit that
competitive struggle between such entities is one of the driving forces of
technological, economic, social change of modern civilization. At the same
time, introduction of an alternative perception of the terms “competition” and
“competitiveness” as competition with challenges, developments, risks, threats,
problems (which is envisaged under the frame of reference of theoretical
civilization indestructibility) will probably promote a gradual formation of ethically
more harmonious axiological base (values) underlying relationships of this type
(commercial, political and the like) of organizations not accompanied by lower
dynamics of civilization’s technological and economic change. That is the point
is of that competition, in its traditional meaning, is civilization’s economic
and technological driving force, but putting it mildly, does not promote
development and strengthening of civilization’s ethical potential. And the
point is of whether an alternative perception of competition, put forward by
the theory of civilization indestructibility, can remove or mitigate the
drawback of the traditional perception of the term “competition”, by improving
the ethical component and introducing a refining ambiguity in the semantics of
“competition” concept, simultaneously preserving the vital mechanisms of
securing civilization development dynamics implied by this traditional
perception?
Ray Bradbery described a “butterfly
effect” in one of his stories. The hero of the story, while on excursion to the
past, had crushed a butterfly, hence, the world he came back to turned to be
much worse. Let alone the negative impact on humanity’s progress and
competitiveness of the premature death of its representatives who could make
contributions to its development and prosperity. This effect is quite correctly
expressed by John Donne’s words “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls
for thee”. Any person deceased could well become precisely the one, who could
save, for instance, cure, pull out of a critical situation, invent or create
something which could, even indirectly, help the person who could, thanks to
the help, gain an opportunity to save anybody or each one of us. But having
died, he would no longer be capable of doing so. The death of each reduces the
human potential of civilization – the major potential of its indestructibility.
Human potential constitutes a basis
of competitiveness of both any nation and civilization as a whole. Also, one
can put it differently: competitiveness of each is a foundation of
competitiveness of civilization. Of that the greatest problems exist precisely
in this area is evidenced, for example, by the fact that about 1 million people
commit suicide every year in the world – the odds turned to be against them.
Many more people die because of, mildly speaking, ethical imperfection of human
relations – murders (including those in the course of military operations), violence, famine, non-delivery
of adequate medical care and other assistance. In this connection, a new
rethinking of the terms “competition” and “competitiveness” in the light of the
concepts of humanity indestructibility theory (HUT), built in these terms, can
provide hope for improvement of the current situation.
What else can theoretical
development of the problems of civilization indestructibility produce? Note
just two directions:
The importance of a set of objective
indicators and criteria for decision making, taking into account the vital
necessity of building up the potential of indestructibility and competitive
advantages of civilization can be judged by at least from an example such as closing
the Moon exploration programmes in the 1970’s. The bulk of the huge resources
invested in the projects was, in the final count, just buried because neither
the
The idea of the necessity of
developing the culture of keeping family and individual memory of each person
living on the Earth, being an integral component of HUT and a major defence
mechanism against potentially incorrect, hence destructive application of the
key concepts of humanity indestructibility theory is an example of systems
solutions contributing to a higher competitiveness of civilization and its
social components.
Modern digital technologies make it
possible to keep memory of each person. Should there emerge and develop a
culture of keeping and passing digital information (memory) of one’s self,
one’s relations and friends over from generation to generation, then the best
features of each can be remembered forever. Each one would be in a position to
preserve one’s ideas and thoughts for good, keep the memory of the very
interesting and important instants in one’s life, of the one he/she knew and
loved, and who was dear to him/her. Thus, each one would be in a position to
remain a fraction of human civilization memory for good. Nobody will leave this
world vanishing into thin air, each will always be remembered.
It seems the culture of keeping
family and individual memory may improve humanity’s competitiveness by
providing for:
Ø Higher responsibility:
l
of
the living generations before the upcoming ones;
l
of
state leaders for the decisions made;
l people before one another;
Ø Better human relations:
l
between
representatives of different generations in the family;
l
higher
status of each person – each one will always be a part of human civilization
memory;
Ø Defence mechanism:
l
from
political speculations like: “life for the sake of future generations”;
l from cruelty of authorities;
l
from
cruelty in interpersonal relations ;
Ø Mechanism of refining human nature
and building up civilization’s ethical potential;
Ø Creation of a core, nucleus, root
securing unity of civilization in its space expansion, when moving across the
immense space;
In summarizing the arguments
produced in evidence of the necessity of developing theoretical solution of the
task of civilization indestructibility, it may be noted that the quantity of
sub-tasks subject to solution for solving the main task can turn to be huge,
and virtually each one of these places demand on construction of its paradigms,
its theoretical elaboration. Therefore, at the first phase of developing the
theory of civilization indestructibility it makes sense to speak of the general
theoretical principles, of general theory of indestructibility, and only
thereafter, as deeper solutions of individual, special and partial tasks are
found, start building special theories linked to the requirements of
development of individual capacities (technological, ethical, evacuation, etc.)
and solution of the tasks of a higher competitiveness (in terms of indestructibility
theory) of individual social components.
What must the statement of the problems of civilization indestructibility
and space expansion give to the living generations of people?
Ø Alleviation of the risks of war –
nothing undermines civilization indestructibility capacities as heavily as
wars. MIC resources must be redirected to handling the tasks of and creating
capacities for space expansion and Cosmos colonization.
Ø Justification of importance of
higher living standards of people – for only the high living standards enable
the possibly maximum number of people to master the sophisticated technologies,
realize their talents on their basis, and contribute to the development of ever
new and sophisticated technologies. The authorities will increasingly
understand that the nations’ competitiveness is largely dependent upon living
standards of people, and that social programmes are not wasting money but
rather laying a foundation and an important prerequisite of a permanent
prosperity and competitiveness of nations.
Ø Attaching new sense to human life. A
more responsible attitude of people to their own and others’ lives, higher
ethical standards of human relations, hence, lowering crime rate and terrorist
activities.
Ø A major ideological justification
for conflict resolution, unification of nations and civilization as a whole.
Ø New living spaces.
Ø New sources of raw materials.
Ø New employment sectors and jobs.
Ø New markets.
REFERENCES
1. Lefevre V.A. Space Subject.
2. Nazaretyan A.P. Civilizational
Crises in the Context of Universal History. 2-nd ed.
3. Hvan M.P. A Violent Universe: from
the Big Bang up to Accelerated Expansion, from Quarks to Superstrings.
4. Narlikar Jayant "Violent
Phenomena in the Universe",
[1] This law is known in a somewhat benign definition, not
associated with the problems of civilization space expansion and
competitiveness, as a law of techno-humanitarian balance [Nazaretyan A.P.,
2004, p. 112]: “the greater the power of productive and combat technologies,
the greater the need for more sophisticated tools of cultural regulation for
preserving the society”.