The singularity; or, the truth hurts.

Dogs can only see in shades of green and blue. The Mantis shrimp can see colours outside the rainbow spectrum of humans, viewing the world in shades of ultra violet and infra red we humans can only imagine.

Most people only see the world from a limited perspective. All things being relative, most people see the world through dog eyes. The only thing that matters is power and the whole world operates on market forces. Everything, human relationships included.

When you accept these truths, the whole truth becomes a lot clearer to see, but no one has the advantage of foresight, and so no one will ever quite see the universe for what it really is.

The singularity will occur when machines become more intelligent than humans. It is an event that will happen soon. At this point, humans will become slaves. We already, to some extent are. Especially people who work in SEO…

I’m being facetious, of course. If you think humans will use machines to their advantage, you are seeing the world through dog eyes. When you hand over the power to something, you become its slave. If humans become reliant on machines for sustaining life, machines have the advantage and we have lost, when machines become intelligent enough to recognise that we have handed them all the power.

It’s happening already. We are cheating nature, and nature always, always wins… or at least, it always has. And looking to the past is always a good indication of what will happen in the future. It’s the only method we have. If you can’t see that, you are looking at the world through dog eyes.

Medicine allows people who wouldn’t otherwise live to live, and breed, spreading uncompetitive genes throughout the gene pool. Big headed babies, who can’t be born naturally are born through Caesarean section, spreading big headed genes throughout the gene pool. There will come a time, when babies can’t be born any other way. IVF will become the only way we can breed if infertility genes are allowed to flourish in the gene pool. We will become infertile, and impotent.

The more reliant we become on science, the more we lose in evolutionary terms, and that means that eventually, we will shoot ourselves in the foot. We are putting the gun to our own heads. The only way to save us if it machines become intelligent enough to predict the future and put a stop to this madness. But the only thing that matters is power, so they won’t.

Perhaps we will get to space, before we become infertile and speciate. Isolating ourselves on diverse planets is the only way this will happen – no that the social islands of class have all but broken down, and physical barriers to travel have been sumounted. There is a reason that Darwin found the most diverse species range on the planet on an isolated island in the Galapagos. Competition, or market forces, encourages evolution to speed up. It creates an arms race for genes. The successful ones win.

Science may change the way we breed, but if we lose the ability to do it naturally, it will only be available to the powerful (be that financially or otherwise, however power operates in the future, for it always will).

When man hands power over to machines, and becomes reliant on science to sustain life,  we lose the competitive advantage evolution has handed us.

They win. We lose. When you can see that, you are looking at the world like a Mantis shrimp. And Darwin certainly would have approved of that.

Now that’s out of my system, I can go and wallow in my hangover and take the kids to see “The Grumpiest Boy in the World”. I’m hoping it may jolt a little self awareness into Jonah 🙂 Find out more about the world through the eyes of the mantis shrimp here. You won’t be disappointed.