Last 96 years of humankind?

Luis Brunati – Especial para Argenpress 13 de noviembre de  2013
Ilustración Dan Piraro – Ecoportal.net

Traducción: Eleonora Baffigi

Last 96 years of humankind? Shortly before his death, the prestigious Australian scientist Frank Frenner, holder of more than a dozen international awards as a researcher in microbiology and medicine, announced:
“ in a hundred years the human species will be extinct”
Even when this statement were correct, the “homo sapiens” would not have the record of being the first hominid to be extinct, but he would be the first who reached that goal as a result of his activity on earth.
About 60.000 years versus the 200.00 years or more than the time the Neanderthals survived .
The Neanderthals disappeared 28.000 years ago, for reasons unrelated to their activity on earth.
If the aggression against our planet persists, according to Frenner’s statement, on January the 1st 2014 the Sapiens Sapiens will enter into the year 96 of their count down.
But less than a half of this time will be a comfortable one ,considering that the climatic problems, the pollution of the land, the air and the water, the energetic crisis, the social problems and the overpopulation will make our life very hard beyond 2050, that’s to say within 36 years.The Paradox
It seems that society has begun to praise ecology. Some notions that were only for a handful of specialists, have a very concrete meaning nowadays for large segments of our society.

Today, concepts such as enviromentalism, ecology, sustainability, biodegradable, and many others, are part of the current language. This fact could be understood as a social awareness of the question.
However, it is very easy to see that these concepts are being better exploited to promote sales and to accelerate consumerism rather than to stop it.Today, the ecologic argument serves to increase the sale of cars, air conditioners, washing machines, bulbs, or wathever, to get a good t.v. rating, that’s to say to promote consume.
In other words, except for a few honorable exceptions, even among those who share an ecologic vision, it seems that there is a prevalence of this utilitarian attitude over a really consistent position toward consume.
The massive adherence of citizens to the economic indexes of growth as a parameter to assess the success or failure in governance or to decide their vote , is a proof of this.
This code comprehends the whole ideological spectrum, including the leftist politicians and economists , supposedly more oriented towards the protection of the environment.
We could say that we are more and more aware of the seriousness of the problem, but we can’t assume it as ours.New Threatens:Nick Bostrom, a Swedish scientist, Director of an interdisciplinary group of the Institute of the Human Future, at the Oxford University, has recently joined the idea about the possibility that we are going through the last century of mankind.In a report recently released by this Institution, Bostrom points out that the risks considered of extreme danger, as the natural disasters, the impact of an asteroid, the earthquakes, the danger of a nuclear or bacteriological war, are of low severity compared with the risks of the genetic manipulation.
“We’re at the level of infants in moral responsibility, but with the technological capability of adults,” he says, dismantling and rebuilding the genetic structures”.
“ It is very unlikely they would want to do something harmful l”, but the risk of provoking a chain of unforeseen ecological side-effects, is enormous, since human beings are introducing – at breakneck pace- changes that expertly evolving Nature, takes hundred or thousand years to make.The way how the artificial intelligence will interact with the external world is another threaten for the Oxford experts. This cyber intelligence can be a powerful tool for industry, technology, agriculture, or the economy management, but it has inside the highest risk that human kind has ever lived before. “This is the first century in human history, in which the greatest threaten comes from humanity”, points out the astrophysicist and astronomer Martin Rees. “With every new technologies there are upsides but also risks” he adds. “Is a question of scale, we live in a much more interconnected world: more news and rumors are spread at speed of light. Therefore the consequences of an error or terror are greater than in the past.“It is not science fiction, or religious doctrine, or a late night conversation in a pub: there is no plausible moral case not to take it seriously”The lost conceptualityThe social sense is misguided. The struggle for the 8 hours day working, commenced in the XIX Century, was supported by society and working classes who claimed to share the benefits derived from mechanization, industrialization and all those benefits created by human minds.
In other words, the special capabilities of our species were considered as a collective good.The sapiens sapiens had been capable of creating machines to till the land, machines for heavy or painful works , and the human conscience had been able to feel intimately his right to the socialization of these goods.
Bringing this conceptual scheme to the present, the companies engaged in genetic manipulation, should be at least extremely supervised and they should pay hugh amounts for the right of making tiny genetic alterations.
Quite on the contrary, they collect royalties from the sale of patented seeds .
As the Italian philosopher Franco Berardi states in his book “ Generation post Alfa”: the idea of relating richness to possession, to the accumulation of assets , and to the financial issues are characteristics of economy, the “unhappy science”. This kind of thought leads to transform life into lack and happiness into the need of consuming and buying: a path where there is no hopes.The spectacle of insecurity
Insecurity is definitely a real problem in big cities, however, the ideological utilization that tends to be done of it in western world, is striking and audacious. The development of technology and the increasing use of security cameras that help tracking a lot of illegal and criminal acts, has put certain form of violence at the sight of every one , while at the same time, other forms of violence are completely omitted.
The individual violence against the upper classes, tends to raise awareness, generates membership and solidarity with the victims, these benefits are not enjoyed by the war violence, the violence of poverty and the insecurity experienced by the excluded.This particular way of analysis of insecurity is focused on a repressive sense.
It tends to generate the conditions to justify and to defend class privileges without restrictions whatever it takes.
Versus those poor who only own money, it is necessary to prioritize –coherently with an enviromental scope, a wave of people wealthy in time.
Time to enjoy life, nature and human relations. Time to talk , to learn, to interact.
Time for art and time for making love.The song of the grasshopperIt is likely that some behaviours of young people, criticized for their apparent irresponsibility, idleness or laziness,are not only a justifiable rebellion against consumerism, over production or alleged moral behaviours, but also a manifestation of health, an opportunity to change. Even though we believe that we have been the most respectful parents in the education of our children, the message of overvaluation of work ethics has been introduced to the core in western society and has been imposed on the planet.
The ethimology of the word “trabajo”( in Spanish), in latin travalium, comes from tripalium an old torturing method.
It would be time to review, recognize and to apologize for the excess of work, material goods accumulation and condemnation of bohemia. The crucifiction of the grasshopper for it’s irresponsibility of only singing, ends being a cruel metaphor for the moral high aspirations.
The mistery of PascuaIt is said that the true mistery of Pascua, doesn´t consist in knowing how the Moais (stone statues) arrived to a deserted island, but in knowing how it’s population couldn’t foresee that their accelerated growth entailed self-destruction.
Are we in time to stop this rampant race to abyss?
In the 70’s the wellknown mythologist Joseph Campbell stated in “The power of Myth” that the next paradigm of human being would be of universal nature.
Certainly, the preservation of our planet is that paradigm, and their addressees are no longer the hypothetical inhabitants of the future: are ourselves and what is more touching : our children and grandchildren.
While there´s life, we are in time to propose an ethical revolution capable of recovering the social value of happiness as a driver of changes through a movement claiming desire.
A movement of those rich in time : time to enjoy life, time to travel, to talk, to interact, to share with others, to make love.
The extension of our sensitivity in the body of another .
I feel happy because the other one feels happy, and I suffer because of his pains , sorrows and anguishes.