Science & Spirit CHAPTER 11 - Peace The future is not written in stone, although the possibilities are limited. Our future as a people is guided to a choice, and that choice for the future will result in one of three possibilities. We will find peace, and prosper endlessly. We will find the illusion of peace, and our progress will taper, stagnate, and deteriorate. Or, we will not find peace, and destroy ourselves by our own hand. Peace is the absence of hatred, through understanding. Peace is the ability to recognize that although we have differences, we are all the same. We love, we cry, we fear, we believe, hope, dream, fail, get discouraged, give up, and try again. When you can understand someone as completely as yourself, hate becomes impossible. There is more than one method to achieving peace. The first may be the least plausible. Should we encounter an alien race, human kind will stand united. We find conflict with one another because there is no one else to create conflict with, but upon discovery of an alien race, that will change. Either we will rally together to defend our planet from aggressive invaders, or we will be approached by peaceful visitors who respect our existence, and accept peace via their guidance or an understanding that our predilection of conflict is juvenile practice. The second method to piece would be solidarity in the face of significant destruction. This is seen today on scales as small as neighbors helping each other after a localized disaster, or as large as nations coming to each other’s aid after a large disaster. For true peace to arise following a global catastrophe, the event would leave humanity at near extinction, with the understanding that without cooperation, the human race will not survive. Even then, the peace may be temporary, or in the case of small isolated groups of people around the planet, a tribal effect will keep it individuals loyal only to their own people. The third method to piece is a literal understanding of one another. Imagine a technology which allows you to temporarily merge your consciousness with another person, to join together with another mind, yet able to maintain your individuality. This would be analogous to the effect of joining individual computers together into a more powerful supercomputer, able to complete faster and more complex calculations than they would alone. Those who merge consciousness would also understand each other in a way we cannot today. They would know each other’s pain, joy, reasoning, and hidden desires, and discover that beneath the surface, they are ultimately the same. This is a scary thought to those of us who appreciate our privacy. But perhaps this is an effect of believing in the illusion that we are different from others. For those born into a future with this existing technology, open this would be the standard. Others will see and understand all we have to hide, to be embarrassed or ashamed of. Embracing these faults and flaws will become a vital part of human culture, and will make us stronger, forcing humanity to face the things we already know about ourselves but are afraid to admit. Now imagine that just as a few individuals can merge their consciousness, so can the entire planet. Similar to the internet as it exists as a source of information today, the entire human race of the future we will you be able to join together as a single consciousness, and become a super-organism. Billions of minds equally working together to compromise on divided issues and achieving solutions to the greatest problems which a dozen billion individuals could never even begin to imagine. Our advanced intellectual minds are beginning to evolve toward that future of connectedness even today. But in time, the technology will exist to advance that process beyond what evolution could never accomplish alone. In order for us to be able to achieve such a future, we must first establish social equality. In early ages, class distinctions and inequality were the unavoidable price of civilization, consisting of the same repeating social structure, the ruling class, the elite, and the masses. (Citation needed 1984) The ruling class aims to remain in power, and the elite aim to replace the ruling class, but the masses have always aimed for social equality. There are four methods in which the ruling class falls from power, and generally all are present to a degree. They may be conquered from outside, they may lose their own self confidence and willingness to go over in, they made rule so inefficiently that the masses revolt, or they may allow the elite to grow strong enough to steal power. The ruling class will only hold power for a limited time before falling into the elite, who have most likely you in listed the aid of the masses with promises of liberty and justice. Once in power, the elite becomes the new ruling class and betrays the masses, forgetting promises of equality and keeping the masses under an illusion of powerlessness. No steps are made toward equality, only a transfer of power. From the perspective of the ruling class and elite, human equality has become no longer an ideal to strive for, but a danger to the status quo. However, with such advances as machine production and instant communication, it is no longer a necessity of civilization to live at different social and economic levels. The ruling class who make decisions for a global population cannot comprehend every aspect of their decisions. Worse, a small group of individuals in the power can become easily corruptible. However, using existing technology, the human population as the ability to governor ourselves, and when each of us is included, there will be no fear of corruption. It is only an illusion that the ruling class and elite hold power over the masses. It is the masses that give power to those above them, and fail to remember it was theres at all. The two key solutions to preventing a collapse of society our lifetime is to ensure a fair distribution of wealth and resources, and to reduce resource consumption by relying more heavily on renewable resources, and by reducing population growth. We have been taking steps towards renewable energy, and population growth can be sustained by expansion into space, but it is reducing economic equality that is our biggest priority in the modern day. All societal collapses is over the past five thousand years have involved both a stretching of resources and a division into elites vs masses. It is the restriction of resources to the masses by the elites that drives up level of consumption by both overall, and places a strain on the economy. It is when the elites appear oblivious to a catastrophic trajectory that the masses must unite to demand equality. But the most valuable path to peace is love. To love one another as we do ourselves, and thus no path but peace is desirable. Without love, there is only hate. Without hate, there is only love. Release all your hatred, love all others, and most importantly, love yourself. Passion is both love and hate. When we steal love from another we are hated, hate creates hate and we forget how to love.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 23:56:53 +0000
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