The Veneration of the Synthetic and the Demonization of Nature
Since the inventions of fire, the wheel, and the spear point, the measure of human progress has invariably been human technological accomplishments. The more technologically capable a society happens to be, the more civilized and advanced it is deemed to be. By this standard, the Roman Empire in the First Century (the time of Christ) was the height of civilization, because it was the most technologically advanced society of its day.
It is obvious that technology is enormously useful and powerful. The tools we create and manufacture empower us tremendously. Indeed, they enable human beings to conquer and dominate nature (to some degree), even to forge empires. Steve Jobs, the famous co-founder of Apple Computer, Inc., once told an anecdote in which he insightfully observed that a human on a bicycle can move faster even than a cheetah, the fastest-moving land animal. Quite obviously, with the aid of technology, the human animal can overcome the limitations that nature imposes on the organism and literally attain superhuman status.
But at what cost?
As technology continues to progress, humanity may actually be regressing. While technology extends human faculties to an unfathomable extent, it also creates dependency, often leading to the attenuation of inherent human abilities. This may be demonstrated quite easily in any study of history or anthropology. For instance, with the invention of writing and printing, the oral tradition, which had been the primary means of conveying information in prehistoric times, took a nosedive. However, the loss of the oral tradition led to a massive decline in human memory. Because one could write things down and print them, one no longer needed to remember vast quantities of information. As such, that human ability, along with various mnemonic skills, has been lost over time.
The development of agrarian societies resulted in a fundamental shift in the human diet — away from a primarily vegetable, protein, and healthy-fat diet to a primarily carbohydrate and sugar diet. As a result, we saw the emergence of a variety of physical ailments in the human population that were largely absent in prehistoric times and, to this day, are still not seen in what we consider “primitive” societies. The shift in diet, away from what nature has provided, towards carcinogenic GMOs and synthetically manufactured fast foods, for example, has had further devastating effects on human health.
The examples are endless. The invention and proliferation of television have led to the widespread attenuation of reading skills, the loss of critical and analytical thinking, and a tendency to accept authority without questioning it. The power of mass media to hypnotically control its audience and the blind acceptance of authority that it promotes have given rise to the widespread phenomenon of marginalizing alternative thinkers by labeling them as “conspiracy theorists.” In fact, this was a label that was popularized by the CIA in the 1960s as a psy-op to discredit speculation about the Kennedy assassination. It has been enormously successful at discrediting and marginalizing many alternative ideas in popular discourse, without allowing for any serious discussion of their merits (or demerits, as the case may be).
The development of urban society has led to the widespread loss of outdoor survival skills, the ability to live off the land, and hunting, fishing, and tracking skills. It is said that Native Americans grew their hair long because it gave them preternatural instincts that were invaluable when living in the wilderness — almost a sixth sense, as it were. The development of maps, compasses, GPS, etc., has led to the loss of innate human directional skills, which, to this day, are demonstrated unerringly by tribal people living in remote locations. And, of course, the rise of mass media and the internet has resulted in a devastating loss of attention span and the ability to focus, to the extent that attention deficit disorder is regarded as an ailment that certain physicians believe needs to be treated with prescription pharmaceuticals!
Meanwhile, even as all this is happening around us, often beyond our capacity to recognize it, there is a school of thought that continues to gain traction — namely, one that claims the future of human civilization lies in the merging of Man and Machine. The proponents of this ideology seem to suggest that human progress will lead to an increasingly synthetic, unnatural existence, until, ultimately, nature is destroyed and man becomes an entirely synthetic organism, completely mechanized and merged with technology.
I believe this thinking arises from a mechanistic view of life — one that understands human existence in purely material and biological terms and argues that the evolution of life is, essentially, a Darwinian process driven by random chance. Following this train of thought, this faction of scientific materialists argues that the next step in evolution is for Man to merge with Machine, presumably because machinery extends human abilities beyond the perceived limitations of biology. It would appear that this mode of thinking despises the organic and the natural, equating advancement with the inorganic and the synthetic. It rejects the spiritual dimension of life, which, for example, may be achieved by meditation. Instead, this school of thought appears to revere the synthetic, viewing it as superior to nature.
This trend of thinking is, in my opinion, ultimately delusional and self-destructive. It leads to a destructive path for both nature and humanity, resulting in a technocracy and surveillance state at odds with and removed from nature and the organic. The inordinate credence given to this school of thought is most apparent these days in the proliferation of cellular technology. It is a fact that ambient EMF (electromagnetic field) radiation, often in the demonstrably hazardous microwave and millimeter wave frequency ranges, has increased a million-fold over the last 100 years of civilization. And yet, there has, to date, been no serious study of the health effects of EMFs.
Instead, we see the widespread rollout of 5G cellular technology, which many experts have deemed hazardous to human health — and, indeed, many enlightened societies have already taken steps to ban it. Furthermore, we are increasingly seeing talk of the microchipping of human beings, which would clearly be supported by the 5G/6G and “internet of things” infrastructure currently in development and rollout, with sensors enabled by 5G and 6G connection speeds.
The question, in my mind, is whether all of this will result in unprecedented levels of surveillance and invasion of privacy in our society. Will the merging of Man and Machine, enabled by 5G/6G, sensors, and microchips, ultimately lead to the utter destruction of human individuality and of what it means to be human? Will we all be turned into a society of microchipped zombies controlled by an overreaching state authority?
Is this a positive direction for human civilization to move towards? Shouldn’t technology advance in a way that supports human development and enhances nature, rather than subjugating and destroying both? Wouldn’t it be preferable if technology facilitated the development of human potential — of human physical, psychic, and spiritual skills and abilities — rather than promoting an over-dependence on external tools and technical implements? Should not human advancement and development be prioritized over blind technological progress, which is, ultimately, dehumanizing and destructive of nature?
One hopes that, sooner or later, those who claim to be the intellectual leaders in our society will come around to exercising their intellect and actually asking these basic questions, rather than arguing for their chosen political agenda without regard for the consequences!
One thought