Oncoming Utopia

As you are no doubt aware the title of this weblog is The Hopeful Muser. The last paragraph of my first entry was this:

So, for the beginnings of this blog, this humble little blog, I want to say that I have picked my label, The Hopeful Muser (which was still available, which I find depressing) because I wish to use this place to think, to express thoughts, to learn and I am hopeful about humans and the future. The way I want to muse is by thinking clearly, trying to avoid the pitfalls of mottoes, slogans and labels, to attempt to glean real meaning from words and thoughts. Hopefully someone will be interested.

I have done lots of musing, but I have done less well on being hopeful. This is because I have spent more time on my personal life and feelings as time has gone on. It has been interesting that there is a definite limit on what I am interested in talking about philosophically, and once having come close to exhausting that then what people discuss is simple the minutiae of their own lives. But I am extremely hopeful for humanity, perhaps the most hopeful person I have talked to about where things are going for humanity.

I believe that before the end of my life I will see at least the beginnings of an Utopian age, a period of unparalleled peace, prosperity, beauty and joy for humanity. Assuming that I live to an age that I think I can reasonably expect (90 or 100 years as a conservative estimate) I believe that I will see a time when war is essentially over, when almost anyone in the world can have a reasonable expectation to travel the world and see the great wonders of ancient civilization, when hunger is almost non-existent, where the norm is enlightened understanding, and where violence is seen largely as a treatable mental health problem.

I wish to take these predictions one at a time, but I feel I must start with three other predictions and some consequences of those predictions. And all of these predictions are linked together, in the manner of modern science which deals mostly with systems and environments rather than isolated concepts. The first prediction is that a new technology of relatively cheap energy production that does not have a net production of greenhouse gases will arise during the next twenty years. The second prediction is that the present trends of a decline in the growth of population and the increase in efficiency of food production will continue. The third prediction is that the present social evolutionary competitive advantage of scientific, secular humanism over other cultural paradigms will continue. By this I mean that when people are exposed to multiple cultures the one that will be chosen most often is scientific, secular humanism.

These three predictions will seem to many to be hugely optimistic. However, I think these are merely predictions that humanity will simply continue to act as humanity has done in the past. The first prediction requires that humanity invent something that they have not invented before, but is done by nature all the time (photosynthesis), has multiple theoretical solutions, and can already be done in a manner that is simply not economically viable. Take the process of going from the discovery of the positive nucleus of the atom in 1909, to a functioning atomic bomb in 1945 as an example of scientific process. Compare that to going from non-competitively functioning fuel cells, solar panels, and alternate fuels, to competitively functioning versions of the same in twenty years, with several times as many scientists in the world working on the problems, and the prediction seems quite reasonable.

The second prediction simply requires that women around the world become more educated, have more access to contraception, and that people don't forget how to farm more efficiently. I simply don't see how these factors won't accelerate. I fail to see how the increased knowledge for women that is happening cannot lead to women educating their children and other women. This does not mean that this isn't the most significant factor (as I believe it is) rather that this needs so little justification.

The third prediction, that scientific, secular humanism will out-compete other cultural aspects, such as religious fundamentalism, is based simply upon the evidence of the last hundred years. In all the places that scientific, secular humanism has been around those places have become more scientific, secular and humanistic. There are large sections of the world now in which this is the dominant culture. These areas are the wealthiest, most educated, most peaceful places. These are the places that people in the world want to live in. People in France don't want to move to Algeria or Chad, or The Ivory Coast, people from those nations want to move to France. The only major religions that are adding adherents at the same level as population growth are doing so because their present adherents are having children faster than the world at large. Even the growing religions lose more adherents than they convert. The vast majority of religious people are religious because they were taught that religion as a child, before they could reason. As the world becomes richer, more educated, more intertwined this process will accelerate. What people think of as the rise of religious fundamentalism is actually the violent response to the reduction in power of religious fundamentalism. The number of religious fundamentalists around the world has undergone a massive reduction in the last few decades. Instead of being the dominant paradigm almost everywhere it is now a paranoid condition fighting against the corrupting influence of the West. Democracy has spread like wildfire, and will continue to spread. Think of how many places are unhappy under theocratic or autocratic rule and will tun to democracy and compare it to the number of democracies under which people are clamoring for theocratic or autocratic rule. The benefits of science are undeniable, even those who mistrust and reject scientists use the results of science all the time.

Upon these three fundamental predictions stand my other predictions, the first being that war will be essentially over in my lifetime. I think with improved prosperity, reduced competition for resources, greater education, deeper exposure to other cultures, and greater inter-connectedness war will inevitably decline. War comes from xenophobia, the de-humanizing of others, or from competition over resources. If people know more about others of different cultures, if they have met someone of different beliefs in a non-violent situation, they are enormously less disposed to bomb them. For nearly two thousand years, up until less than a century ago, the place with the most amount of warfare in the world was Europe. The source of both World Wars, the source of the violence of colonialism, Europe has fought within and without itself almost constantly for centuries. Now the concept of war within Europe is ridiculous. With a common currency, essentially no borders, shared laws and economic policy, mutual inter-dependence, and even a shared military, the concept of France and Germany fighting a war makes as much sense as Kentucky and Tennessee going to war. We see the process that has happened in Europe spreading to Asia and the Americas. At the moment the only wars in the world are in Afghanistan and tribal conflicts in Africa. This is, by an enormous margin, the least amount of warfare there has ever been, and the direction of the arrow is clearly in the direction of less war.

My next prediction is that almost anyone in the world will have the capacity to travel the world before I am dead. This clearly relies on my three basic predictions, cheap energy, increased wealth through population and food resources, and a secular, scientific, humanist world society. The cost of travel is basically linked to the cost of energy. Cheap energy means cheap travel. If science can produce any of the following inventions: a hydrogen fuel cell that can run on sea water, solar panels of similar efficiency to gasoline, bacteria that produce fuel from organic matter economically, then energy will be de-localized, cheap, and sustainable. The pressure to produce these technological inventions is immense and will increase greatly as peak production of oil and global warming will increase cost of oil. When science, the good of humanity, and rewards for the greedy all point in the same direction, humanity produces miracles. A solar powered helium zeppelin would be almost free to operate. A hydrogen fuel cell operated passenger ship would be enormously cheap. A locally produced vat of jet fuel at an airport will reduce costs (as much of the cost of oil comes from transporting it) and actually reduce greenhouse gases. Already essentially everyone in first world countries can travel internationally if they are willing to save money by living like a person in a second world country. Already the middle classes of every country in the world can save to travel internationally. My prediction, with sixty years of proposed progress, to me seems conservative.

I think hunger will become almost non-existent. At the moment the Earth produces more food than is needed to feed everyone on the planet. Malthus was wrong, the efficiency of food production has consistently outstripped population growth. On average people on Earth eat more calories a day than they did fifty years ago, despite a explosion of population. The rate at which population is increasing has dramatically declined. The UN has already made a prediction of when the world population will reach a steady state, and it is within my lifetime. Each time over the last twenty years that the UN makes these predictions the final amount of world population becomes smaller and the time that it will happen becomes closer. There are places in the world that would have declining populations but for immigration. The efficiency of food production is about to undergo an explosion with the increase of genetically engineered food products. While the morality of those producing these crops is almost non-existence, the efficiency of the product cannot be doubted. If energy and transportation becomes cheap, population becomes stable and food production improves then hunger declines. Add in the undoubted increase in global concern for the poor and hungry aroud the world and the massive decline of the hungry seems to me a certainty.

I predict that the norm around the world will be enlightened understanding. This means essentially religious tolerance, tolerance of different cultures, tolerance of homosexuality, a basic scientific world view, and low levels of violence. For much of the world this is already true. In most of western Europe, most of first world Asia, and on both coasts of the Americas this is essentially already true. The basic levels of scientific understanding of the populations in these areas rivals the cusp of scientific knowledge of two hundred years ago. An average high school senior in Taiwan knows more about the Universe than Galileo. The great cities of the World are already places in which tolerance for cultures, beliefs and preferences are the norm. There are hundreds of millions of people in the world for whom hearing the Islamic call to prayer, buying items from a Buddhist, and seeing a transvestite in one day would not even register as things to be noticed. Once again, these are the places where people want to live. As money and education spread around the world, this is what happens. In every part of the world, from the USA, to South Africa, to Iran populations are becoming less religious, more educated, and more socially tolerant. This is particularly true among the younger generations. In Iran, where most of the population is under the age of 25, young people are pro-West, pro-Democracy, pro-tolerance, pro-science. It's just a matter of time before Iran, and the rest of the Persian Gulf, becomes much like Europe. Fifty years ago it was illegal to be gay in Britain, in the last few years the Conservative Party has backed an openly gay member of parliament.

I think violence of all kinds will continue to decline. As it is, this moment in time is the least violent in all of history, not only in terms of war, but also of personal violence. While media reporting of violence in the USA is at an all-time high, actual violence is close to an all-time low. Human beings get better at things. They learn, adjust, innovate, rest and apply to make their lives better. Only in 1879 was the first psychological clinic opened in the World. It's only been fifty years since the very first mental health drugs were devloped, and their effectiveness is improving with gathering speed. Research into the health and happiness of people is at an all-time high, and therapies and approaches are being developed all the time. With increased wealth becomes a reduced need for violence. With increased knowledge of how to treat people who are violent becomes reduced violence. With increased understanding of the causes of violence comes better preventative care. Within fifty years I see no reason not to expect that a persons disposition to violence can be predicted with great accuracy through a combination of genetic, chemical and historical factors, and effective preventative therapies, both drug and counseling/skill-based, will be provided. It isn't nice to be violent, it's much nicer to be loved. Ina society that frowns upon violence, and provides happy alternatives, the vast majority of people will choose not to be violent. The process of this transformation is underway an having substantial success.

My great hope is based on the diligence, intelligence and innovation of the scientific community. While often mocked and derided by the masses, this group of people have done the greatest good for people that any group of people have ever achieved. Motivated by curiosity and a delight in the nature of things, this group of people are overwhelmingly peaceful, cooperative and tolerant. Just turn on your televisions to a documentary series and in a short time you will have an example of groups of people from around the world, working together without suspicion or enmity, with enormous effort and astonishing innovation, for the greater good. These people aren't the best paid, or the most famous, or the most loved, but there are more of them than ever before, they are better at their tasks than ever before, and they are producing miracles at a rate that is itself a miracle. This group of people is my reason for hope.

This has, without doubt, been my longest blog post. I think that's a good thing, because it is a short summary of my reasons for hope. I have written similar posts before in here, and continue to tell people I meet why I am hopeful. I could take any of these points and expound upon them in far greater detail. I am probably actually more optimistic than this post has suggested. But what I find is that many people seem very pessimistic about the future. A sense of doom seems to exist among many people. While my life often has times of utter despair these are because of personal situations, and brain chemistry. The more I learn about the world and the people on it, the greater my optimism about the future of the us on this planet.