The Next Giant Leap

Human nature is commonly described in dualities: binary opposites that interact together as dichotomies of circumstance, character or choice. Rich versus poor. Success versus failure. Strong versus week. Good versus evil. Us versus them.

Such dualities define both ancient and modern frameworks of theology, law, nationalism, decorum, ideology – even technology, itself made possible by the application of binary numbers, 0 and 1, processed through transistors on a massive scale. When applied to the realities of our nature, each of these dualities have abstract merit in our world past, present and future. Yet none of them truly identify the core dichotomy of the human condition. Our world is not bound by good versus evil, or right versus wrong, or strong versus weak. It’s bound by supply versus need.

On any scale, especially national, need and scarcity – in either perception or reality, can be attributable to the cause of most any conflict, social fracturing, environmental pillaging, or lust for greed, power or oppression. I studied war crimes in university. To this day, it still haunts my dreams. What we have done to one another, what horrors we can justify, what choices we can accept and what abominations we can call weapons make any other logical reason incapable of defining the forces directing and binding collective human action. The horrors of such actions aren’t reflective of how far we will go, they’re reflective of how far we won’t go – limits that evaporate and emerge expanded, pushed time again by the merciless realities of scarcity-driven need.

While its presence is undoubtable and at times unyielding, we as a people too frequently make the mistake of attributing to malice that which can be attributed to need because it’s easier – a simple designation of “evil” that avoids us having to look inward to what drives our adversaries in any given context. Outside of the subjective application of moral relativism or revisionist history, it’s much harder to see “them” as human and their needs as logical, to them – even if we are the target of their antagonism as we perceive it. It’s harder still to realize that most people, even in times of strife, are not acting out of wickedness or cruelty but are rather doing what they think they need to do in the context of what they perceive their needs to be – even if their actions manifest respectively as such. It’s simply our uncompromising reality as pawns of a zero-sum game.

Need is the driving adversary of the human condition; the core malady that has continually held us back as a species since the dawn of time, and has kept us fighting amongst each other instead of enabling us to realize that we can reach our true potential, and a new plateau, should we enact the means to make the concept of need irrelevant. Today, we now possess those means, and we can choose to wield them for that end – to defeat our ancient adversary with finality, and build a better world upon its ruin.

And to make that choice is what would I ask of you now.

It may not be easy, yet it’s incumbent on us to shake off the apathy and despondence our time has given us cause to adopt, and to embrace the better parts of ourselves the world’s cruelties have taught us to suppress. It’s incumbent on us to consider reinvesting in ourselves and our future with tools that can even the odds in our favor. To invest in the potential of each other, to understand their perspectives and forgive their prejudices, and seek to find common ground strong enough for us to once again start building. We may not be able to solidify all ground to find commonality, but we can solidify enough ground to build platforms on which we can extend our hands and, maybe one day, a bridge.

At the end of the day, deep within ourselves, who we are, what we care for, what we value, is that not the choice of life? Is that not what we want for ourselves, for our children, and for theirs? For thousands of years, people just like us gave everything they had for our future. Our time is the culmination of a billion sacrifices – every soldier on every battlefield, every martyr, every king, tyrant, slave, warrior, artisan, philosopher, lord or peasant. The sum of all their toils, all the sacrifices of their hopes and lost dreams are all boiled down to this moment, here, and now, and the choices we make with the time we have been given.

Simply stated, I can’t think of anything worse than failing them. To not carry the torch they have lit and carried for us to the victory they never could reach, the victory that we uniquely can. To me there is nothing more important, and I’m tired of being encouraged to ignore that. I’m tired of glorified ignorance to the reality of our world and our potential to change it. I refuse to continue granting meaning and value to society’s dog and pony shows: celebrity news, celebrated complacency and fleeting materialism – the choreographed wrestling matches of today’s bribed political dynamic – all washed down with diet cola and light beer.

We have one life to live, one life to interact with the framework of existence, and we find ourselves at the zenith of our capability to evolve the foundations of our biological constraints. To choose to take this leap, to reach a higher tier, and to live knowing that this was when our species made it. Where we passed the test life gave us and earned the right to continue our evolution not just within our world, but far beyond it.

That is the choice of our time – one that faces every one of us. And as one of us, I made a promise to devote my very best efforts to propose an actually effective way to choose for that end. Something that could be given away to anyone who wished to adopt – and evolve – these ideas, and begin discussing how we can work together to see them made real.

Nobody asked me, paid me or qualified me to make this promise. I did this on my own, and I made this promise, to myself, and to you, to see this task fulfilled because I chose to. I made this promise because I don’t answer to the cynics and the apologists of the status quo – I answer to you.

I answer to you because we are all in this together, and I sincerely and honestly believe in our shared capabilities, in the potential that we can have if we can set aside our contrived differences and work together to build what can become of the best of ourselves.

It’s the only thing that can save us. It’s the only thing that should save us.

And should we choose to make that leap, then our feet will land in uncharted terrain on a brilliant frontier. As technology expands and satisfies ever-more needs through indefinite resource production, conflicts will reduce, economies will grow, as will relationships and trade agreements. Development and modernization will begin in regions that were once war-torn, and the echoes of human conflict will begin to fade into memory, just like all other plights of our nature that technical means have allowed us to banish into the past. From there, as technology greater connects us and brings us closer together, exploration beyond Earth will become more and more sophisticated and we will find what there is to discover in the vastness beyond our planet.

We will reach not just the next tier of civilization, but also an essential realization: that we are not just members of individual countries, as this isn’t the label that should define us. We are all human beings; we are all people – that is the label that should define us. That is because we all share this rock in space together. And whether we live on it together, or die on it together, one way or the other, ultimately, it will be so together.

It is my greatest hope that we can be able to realize that one day. We place boundless faith in gods we cannot see to form our fate and future. Perhaps we could strive instead to see the day where we might place faith in each other.

So I will start by placing my faith in you.