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Humanity is in the early stages of the most significant evolution in its history: learning to think as a species.
This is the linking of human minds, values, information and solutions at lightspeed and in real time around the planet, via the internet and social media, says science writer Julian Cribb.
Global thought is opening the way to solve some of humanity's greatest threats – including climate change, famine, global poisoning, weapons of mass destruction, environmental collapse, resource scarcity and overpopulation, says Mr Cribb, who is the author of 'Surviving the 21st Century' (Springer 2017), a new book describing the ten mega-threats and what can be done about them.
"Thanks to the internet and social media, people are for the first time communicating across the barriers of language, race, nationality, religion, region and gender. While the internet contains much rubbish and malignance, it also contains huge amounts of goodwill, trustworthy science-based advice, practical solutions to problems – and people joining hands in good causes."
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:57AM (14 children)
What has thinking as a species gotten us so far? Fake moon landings, flat earth and chemtrails.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:20AM (11 children)
Hmm how about germ theory? Or electricity? Or the polio vaccine? Or the automobile? Or naval navigation? Or the discovery of magnetism? Or the progression of metal working from iron to steel? Or Nuclear power? Or Steam power? Or Internal combustion? Or radar? Or the telegraph? Or the incandescent lamp? Or nylon? Or plastic? Or gun powder? I'm sure there's lots of love for gun powder in your corner of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:27AM
May be rediscovered in 1,500 years or so after this current civilization destroys itself.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday March 29 2017, @05:41AM
Reg:: All right, but apart from the moon landings, flat earth, chemtrails, germ theory, electricity, the polio vaccine, automobile, naval navigation, the discovery of magnetism, the progression of metal working from iron to steel, nuclear power, steam power, internal combustion, the radar, the telegraph, the incandescent lamp, nylon, plastic, gun powder... what has thinking as a species ever gotten us?
PFJ Member: Brought Facebook?
Reg: Oh, Facebook? SHUT UP!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Soylentbob on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:17AM (6 children)
How were these things achieved by "thinking as a species"? They were inventions by collaboration of smaller, specialized groups, competing over advantages in certain fields.
Thinking as a species is a necessity for the challenges that could wipe out the species, like global warming, nuclear war or giant meteor. In these cases there wouldn't be room for competition. If such an incident renders the planet inhabitable, there is no winner left. (Maybe some cockroaches, and later on new species, but they are currently only bystanders, not players, therefore they don't count in this context. I don't know how realistic the scenario is that Earth becomes too inhabitable for *any* species to survive through any of the afore-mentioned scenarios.)
Of course, even if we as a species start to cooperate like a single organism, this organism would still have different "body-parts", alike a brain, hands, feet, and a butt, even if everyone will consider himself part of the brain.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:22AM (5 children)
Once people go to space and become self sustainable. The actions of self destructive people on the mother planet will be of lesser importance (too them).
(Score: 1) by Soylentbob on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:19AM (3 children)
I agree. Although, just for the purpose of dissent: when a species is split for long enough, each group will become a new species :-) (If the other group is still close enough for interaction on a regular base, we still have common interests on a larger scale. If there was a chance to predict / mitigate / evade a gamma-ray burst / black hole, we would still have reason to work together as a species.)
People are not nice by nature, and won't become so. It takes work to be a nice person. Although I think it's totally worth it when you are lucky enough to encounter enough other persons who try as well.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:23AM (1 child)
And when the common interests fail the colony says Boston Tea Party! ;-)
(Score: 1) by Soylentbob on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:29AM
Oh noes! But, but, but cooperation leads to Common Wealth [wikipedia.org]!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:23PM
Humans can't even get along with other humans who have a slightly different holy book. You think humans are going to get along with other humans who have become a different species? That's a laugh. There's a reason first contact hasn't been made yet.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:53PM
I think it will also be once people go to space and become self sustainable, but for a completely different reason:
If e.g. the Chinese build a moon base, then all the Chinese school children will learn (and school children in most other countries probably as well) how extremely expensive, complicated, and delicate it is to construct a regenerative life support system and keep it running as if your life depends on it.
think about it: there will be two extant regenerative life support systems: the tiny one attached to the chinese moon base, which clearly determines how long the base can remain occupied and how long the mission can last, AND ...
the big one that we ALL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US lives in, that we're in the process of scraping off the quality control sticker "suitable for long-term human habitation".
Buckminster Fuller and Sagan (Carl, not Françoise) have been dead for so long that I suspect their weirder ideas are slipping from the public memory and discourse.
So I really believe that a moon base, no matter how expensive, will provide an interesting discussion topic for "thinking as a species".
Plus for most earthlings an actual moon base is way more cool than the exhortations of Pope Francis ;-).
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:30AM
I think you're missing both the point of the article and the point of my joke.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:03PM
Hmm how about germ theory? Or electricity? Or the polio vaccine?.... etc etc
All wrong. These great inventions were not the product of "thinking as a species", these were the products of a small number of great minds. The polio vaccine you mention was invented by Jonas Salk, not by humanity in general. Nylon was invented in a lab by a few scientists. Calculus was invented by Isaac Newton, working alone (and simultaneously invented by Leibniz IIRC, again working alone).
"Thinking as a species", aka "groupthink", is what brought us things like Naziism and the Holocaust and most wars throughout history.
A few really smart humans working alone or in small groups produces wondrous things. Large groups of regular people working together produce abject horror.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:57AM (1 child)
Well, having faked the moon landings footage doesn't mean everything else we do is bad necessarily. (note I don't care whether we went there or not, I care that you don't believe the moon surface so undulate that shadow converge yet so perfectly horizontal in the movies - unless they now show different stuff on "restored" footage never shown before the issue arose).
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:33AM
The hard part of getting to the moon is leaving the Earth's gravity. The expensive part of getting to the moon is the booster that gets you out of Earth's gravity. So NASA spent billions of dollars designing, building and launching Saturn V rockets just to fake the relatively cheap and simple landing.... People SAW the rocket launches. They were real. It's pretty safe to assume that the relatively simple and cheap stuff was real too.