That "Star Trek" future? It'll never happen. Humans don't have it in us.
Why do I say so?
Let me start at the beginning of the thought that led me down this path:
Humans want to believe they're ready to meet alien civilizations, and they can't even countenance each other, or domestic species that don't look like them... or have more then 4 appendages, or think they're better than.
Imagine the UFO door opens and a human sized spider emerges to greet the representatives of Earth... who run away screaming, shouting "kill it with fire!"
I think it's better that any alien nations watching our combative uncivilized species, keep on doing it from a safe distance.
Sadly that's what makes humans so dangerous - what we so commonly regard as our greatest strength (our diversity) is also our greates weakness. Now I'm not talking about appearances, the basal diversity of skin color (what we so laughingly call "race") or even language or culture - but diversity in psyche, awareness, conscience, morality even. What I mean is, that there is no consensus, no agreement, no "general view".
We see the proof microcosmically and macrocosmically - whether it's religion, politics, hate, fearmongering or issues of greed - or even on the evils of genocide - humans just never agree on anything, and never, ever stand totally together on anything.
Every bit of information is subjected to a game of "telephone" (or is that "telephobe", as my original typo suggested in a Ferudian way?) no matter how clearly it is disseminated, and invariably gets broken down and twisted into bizarre rabbit holes of conspiracy theories about governments lying about a, b, c (not that they aren't or don't, which makes it even worse) or about science being a "religion" or conspiracy in itself.
Governments and even scientific institutions - and even a majority of humanity may welcome an hypothetical interaction with an alien race for example, even an economic, technological or cultural exchange, but you would still have dissent - and that's a fact you can take to the bank. There would still be a clusterfuck of assorted religious nuts who would be outraged about it, and even label the newcomers or visitors "demons incarnate" just because - well, what other reasons do religious nuts need? I'm quite sure there would be a group of "truthers" and conspiracy nuts flooding YouTube with claims that the aliens would be "CGI" or fakes, just as they have claimed the Earth is flat like a disc, and that the moon landings were faked. No matter how clear the message - or how clear the evidence - there is still no convincing everyone. There would always be an undercurrent of crackpots calling it a 'conspiracy' and working to undermine that peaceful exchange with distrust and even violence.
And that's really getting to the root of the issue right there - the human race is completely fucked, just by its nature.
That "Star Trek" future? It'll never happen.
Humans don't have it in us.
Our people are too indoctrinated and uneducated. We exist in a hive of drones and worker bees, casting aside those regarded as "unworthy" or "past their uses", focused entirely on their own self-gratification. The notion of empathy and caring for others is becoming increasingly foreign - and in case you didn't notice, lately everything "foreign" is being met with increasing hostility. They are automatons directed at identifying and isolating anything that contradicts their programming, and their first impulse is to feel threatened and to stamp it out.
Caring for others? Empathy? It's socialism! Communism!
The masses, the drones - have truly embraced Stockholm Syndrome, and are in love with a system that keeps them subservient, poor and beholden unto it. In full sympathy with the Matrix trilogy scenario, anything that endangers their "worldviews" has to be destroyed in order for them to feel secure, just to preserve their fragile, unnatural status-quo.
Never before in our histories has the dystopian hellscape we're living in been more visible, more exposed, than by the "system" - this prison we've built for ourselves - tightening down the screws as it's boundaries become stretched beyond their limits by a rising consciousness of suppressed free will and the tortured human spirit of rebellion crying out against authoritarianism!
And yet, as this system reaches its limits and may topple, this process - a beginning of the end/or an end of the beginning - lays bare all the characteristics which have led us up to this point.
Many of us long for an end to this dystopian mess we've created, even sometimes with the best of intentions. Many of us long for a gleaming, bright future - like that we depict in pleasant fiction and fantasy, "Star Trek" and its egalitarian society being just the brightest of many stars we eye as an ultimate goal or destination - but perhaps that light may yet turn out to be just a delusion after all.
We can't (or won't) even allow anyone who doesn't wish to partake in the so-called "social contract" to live outside of it, to exist independently of it. We won't even leave those who wish to be just left alone, in peace - they must either be a part of the system, prisoners of it like the rest of us, or be destroyed or consumed by it. Our society doesn't abide loose ends. Even the outcasts of society whom we are groomed to despise, the homeless, the poor and destitute, are discriminated against still further by the removal of public amenities and their replacement with "anti-homeless architecture" in the form of spikes and blades. In recent weeks, we've even seen that horror-villain wrapped in a bubble of flabby sagging orange flesh, criminalize being left destitute by a predatory system that seeks to incarcerate them in concentration camps.
Yes, call me a cynic if you like. Deeply I yearn and hope, but I have greater doubts about it all. You see, I've seen too little of humanity's alleged "promise" of greater things to come, and too much of all it has already delivered. We're really just animals who have learned to manipulate the world around us, after all - and we do so to suit just ourselves. We have elevated the practices of deceit, subterfuge and lying to a sublime art. We dismiss our cruelty and violence with platitudes and practicalities, and argue away our accountability and blame-shift our way through our lives. We invented religion to justify the place in the world we've hijacked and occupied by force and invented the concept of "divine right" to excuse our actions, and soothe and console our consciences with that chicken soup for the soul. We even lie to ourselves, and worse, believe those lies - to the extent that we live and die - and kill, by them.
"Man's higher nature"? The desire for ALL members of human society to live in peace with others and their environment? To work for the betterment of ourselves and all beings? Invariably choosing the higher path? Willingly, deliberately choosing to act out of kindness, compassion or generosity rather than to do harm or to act out of malice, greed or ambition? That comes about in individuals, not the whole species. And even then, it is invariably individuals who have previously travelled the lower path who try to make better choices, because they understand from personal experience the bitterness of that low-hanging fruit.
Guilt and grief... regret.
And yet, to quote Shakespeare, what is done cannot be undone. Forgiveness is just a crutch to lean on when you ask for release from your accountability to those you know you've wronged.
Even so, there are those who try to do better - in spite of themselves and what they are, and yes that's a noble human characteristic to be admired, but even so, it's not a uniform, common characteristic of all of humanity - not all of us 'try'. Not all of us feel the need to - and some even actively oppose the effort, in themselves and in others. These days, it's commonplace to see praise being heaped upon those who seek to do harm to others.
Idolatry in the most negative, horrific sense - the idolization of monsters who dictate the destruction of others, glorify cruelty and the embodiment of what we've come to understand as "evil". We see it unfolding before our very eyes right now in the place we were led to believe was the bastion of democracy and human rights, only to learn that it lies behind countless examples of political instability, "regime changes" and global domination over much of the last century. Fiends in human form. Evil incarnate.
And yet while there are those who idolize all that nightmare fuel, there are those who resist and oppose it - who are filled with horror by it.
The challenge I offer you, dear reader, right here and now, is to decide which of these applies to you. Your answer - the real answer in your deepest, most honest and sincere conscience, whichever answer is yours - cannot but demonstrate the point of this exercise.
That's dualism for you. And that's humanity too. You see, most human religions (like most good human stories) are based on a dualistic view - good versus evil... "God" versus "the Devil", etc. The problem with dualism (and humanity) is, that it's part of our own nature, hence why God (and the Devil) are both created in our image. OUR image, singular. We are all humans, yes, one species - but, as individiuals - we are raised to (or just tend to) believe ourselves to be good, even if we're doing evil things, even when we're doing them to others.
How else can you explain what is happening right now in the USA? Gaza? Do you imagine that the "soldiers" of the IDF shooting children begging for food think of themselves as bad people? Or the ICE agents who brutalized a 58 year old woman selling food from a sidewalk stall? Or the Israeli (or US or UK) politicians enabling the genocide? Or the global media personalities cheering it on from the sidelines, dehumanizing their victims and their suffering, while praising those doing these things, and promoting... well, whatever it is they promote?
It's very clear they all believe they're "good" people. Doing the "right" thing - and to those they believe (or claim) are "bad people". And everyone else is, well, just wrong. And all lines, separations and divides flow from that.
That right there is the root problem with all of humanity. Our nature. The duality of it. It's in our very genes. Unlike other animals on this planet - who could be said to be barely aware, but mostly sentient - and mostly "good" inoffensive creatures just getting on with the business of surviving, eating, reproducing, and even being eaten, we humans are a different kettle of fish altogether. We do much more than that. We kill for pleasure, even when that means killing each other. Hurting other creatures and other people - in ways as nebulous as to include such mundane things as lying, cheating, theft, bullying, assault, enslavement, poisoning the environment, murder, sexual abuses and passing laws to destroy the happiness or lives of others - consumes a great portion of our daily activities. As is, it has to be said, arguing about it. Justifying it. Denying it.
The bottom line is, that we are ALL equally capable of both immense good - or incredible evil. And sometimes, even both.
The sad, tragic part is when we stop long enough to think about it, and realize that there really is another side to it all. How limited our view of reality really is - or at least, for most of us at any given time. I've long thought about the appropriate reaction to that realization, and what that should be. What it ought to be.
Despair.
Despair for humanity.
That's why I believe humanity is a flawed experiment - regardless of what you (or I) believe about our origins - and someone (whether or not that should be capitalized as "Someone") should've cleaned out that petri-dish a long time ago. It's way over fucking due!
War and greed always go hand-in-hand, don't they? It's long been a cliche' that whenever there's a war, someone profits from it - raking it in from selling the bullets, bombs - and the bandages demanded by that war, to the media coverage and ratings that bring it into our homes so we can watch politicians making light of brown skinned children being blown to bits or starved to death in far-off places, or portraying the monsters responsible for all that as heroes or "good guys" - and minimizing everyone else's responsibility for their role as a pixel in the bigger picture.
Regardless of what excuses are invented for it, there's always an ulterior motive for war: power, profit, control, land, wealth, even just a desire to mete out brute violence and cruelty - or complete annihilation... and these things together all form the foundation of our entire history, cultures and mindsets as far back as we can look in Time. We cannot just divorce ourselves from everything we did to get to where we stand, when what we're standing on is the product of all those things.
This brings us back to the aliens. The ones we hope are out there, believe are out there, and are practically a statistic certainty. The ones we've invented so many pleasant (and even unpleasant) fictions about for millennia, as our understanding of our place in the universe developed, grew - and now while we've reached a place where we realize just how small and insignificant we really are - and are now probably more confused than ever.
Back to us, as sentient, thinking beings - at least, in general terms (I've met people who have completely abdicated the ability and practice of actual thought in favor of just doing what they're told).
Within us, beauty and goodness is far too often countered and nullified by seething rage and brutal darkness. And yet that is what we are, we cannot be completely one, without the other. One of these will always prevail, and that varies between individuals among us as a whole - which will always, always divide us.
Fractured. Broken. Dysfunctional.
That is our nature. That is our burden.
We are our own worst enemy.
While we (or at least, some of us) might understand this major flaw in our own nature as sentient beings AS a flaw, that doesn't mean that it is true for other beings from other worlds - who would differ from us not only biologically, but also in other fundamental ways, socially, culturally, and psychologically.
It's unlikely, I think, that they would ever come calling to us - unless they understand this very well, and are so advanced that we pose no threat to them whatsoever - and in that case, what would it benefit them to do so?
They may very well recognize us for the dangerous predatory species that we truly are. Even from great distances. That could well be why they watch us in silence. Perhaps they are hoping we never achieve faster-than-light-travel, or whatever it is that they use - so that we may never find or reach them. Or that we may (quite possibly) annihilate ourselves in one of a multitude of spectacularly stupid and wasteful petty squabbles over land, resources or which flimsy beliefs or fantasies are right or true, before we ever reach them.
And to be frank, that's really the more likely scenario. It would be the most just and satisfying one.
And, I think, the one I prefer best.
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