Disclaimer

In these texts, I attempt to answer the question: “What does humanity want?” I approach this from the perspective that, for the first time in human history, we have the means to ask ourselves this question and set aside a fraction of our resources to act upon an answer. However, I wish to emphasise that the ability to ask this question is neither inherently good nor bad—it simply is—and to be able to ask it represents a new phenomenon on our Planet.

I want to stress that asking it is not a sign of grandeur or having achieved something superior. It is not as though this represents a greater good we should aspire to, nor is it the only possible outcome for humanity, as if dictated by some kind of divine providence. There are countless other paths in which humans might never have arrived at this point. It is not a “manifest destiny”; it is simply the reality we find ourselves in at the moment.

For now I want to preemptively suspend moral judgement in order to assess the question itself and the possibilities it presents. From that moral suspension, we may be able to ask ourselves what we want to do, and with that awareness and consciousness, we can build upon this knowledge—both critically and appreciatively—of the state of the world in which we find ourselves.

That said, it is important to highlight that there are moral considerations attached to the decisions we make regarding what to do with the awareness of the question.

A significant part of the book is dedicated to analysing and investigating the routes that brought us to the point where we can ask this question. Some of these routes involve the destruction of many cultures; the extinction of global eco-cultural diversity; the growth of administrations and institutions that impose restrictive measures on their populations and others around the Globe; wars of conquest; the deaths, killings, and murders of millions of people, genocides; all the spectrum of suffering experienced by human beings, individually and collectively; the imposition of world-views in the ongoing ethnocide, the destruction of ways of life and world-views, languages, and traditions; the overwhelming dominance of a cultural might; abuse of power; the use of technology to subjugate other peoples, among others.

I want to make it unequivocally clear that I am not at all justifying or condoning these events, nor am I grateful for their occurrence because they allow us to ask the question posed in here. On the contrary, I strongly condemn the list above, and I would much prefer they had never happened. I would be happier if humanity did not possess these qualities and did not take these actions in the past. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that these past acts are part of our path to the present, part of our ancestry and legacy, of our shadows. As the saying goes, those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. If the question behind these writings serves any purpose, it is to make us aware of that dark side and to help us decide whether it is acceptable in the present and in a possible future. I have stated my moral position here, but I recognise that it may not be shared by all.

On the other hand, if we indulge in “what if” scenarios of alternative histories, our World might look very different, and this question might not even arise. However, that is not the point. What matters is recognising that the items on the list of shadows are, by most accounts, considered terrible events, and yet they are also part of who we are and how we came to be. The lesson here is to learn how to act with this knowledge and awareness, much like young children learning to redirect and control their anger. We cannot deny our childhood and the ways it has shaped us, but we can learn to behave in a manner we consider appropriate for the times in which we live—with the extra resources, responsibilities, and nuances of adulthood.

Our current era presents a unique opportunity to explore the ways we can take action to avoid repeating the dark past—or, at the very least, to determine whether such an endeavour is possible or merely a pipe dream.

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