Medicority of the Human kind

Are we alone in the universe? This is one of the questions that have haunted mankind for decades, and even now, we are no closer to the answer.



(Problems watching the clip? Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjBIsp8mS-c)

Stephen Hawking has a interesting viewpoint when it comes to the theory of the universe (preferably called multiverse). In this lecture, I refer to the last minutes of Stephen Hawking's speech about the possibility of other civilizations close to our proximity.

If you want to read on the Medicority principle, or the Drake equation, kindly related to my topic.

Now, as I said I refer to Stephen Hawking's last minutes, where he answers to the TED host's question: "Professor, if you had to guess either way do you now believe that it is more likely that now, we are all alone in the milky way as a civilization at our level of intelligence or higher?"

Now, his answer is what I find quite interesting, and it emphasizes what we now talk about these days. "It is more likely that civilizations don't last very long, and destroy themselves". Some decades ago we had the fear of a nuclear war; today we are still afraid of nuclear bombs in the hand of the wrong nations and terrorists. But what more likely is, that we will destroy ourselves in the way we terrorize the global climate, or a nuclear winter as in Fermi and Frost. How we murder each other, and wager war against special groups of people or religion. We walk around, afraid of exploding hypernovas and deadly asteroids, when the real fear, is to be afraid of ourselves.

The failed climate meeting in Copenhagen is a painful reminder that we are not determined to revolt against our nature, so that we might make a change. We can yell and scream at our leaders as much as we want to, but the leaders of the democracy have been elected by the people and the people is us. We are the unthinkable majority, who won't give up a little luxury so that our children can grow up in a clean earth with a sustainable Earth. Referring to the Brundtland Commission, we should today aim to create a "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Wich we today are not.

Human is stupid and ignorant, there is nothing we can do to change that. But what we can do is to choose in what world we want to live in. The world of today is a consumer orientated, capitalistic regime, focusing only to create profit, and how to "best" allocate the scare resources. But for a society like this we need to live in a society, where its people are divided into three separate groups; the poor, the middle and the rich.
The poor class is the biggest, where people live in harsh and inhuman conditions, and serve as a fodder for the richer part of the population. Without this class, we would not have the cheap workforce we have today, and the capitalistic system would crumble.
The middle class is significantly smaller than the poor class, but larger than the rich class. These people provide the services needed for the rich to live an easy and comfortable life. They are depended on the rich, just as the poor. But these middle class men have the possibility, through hard work, to become a part of the wealthy class. But the poor is pretty much stuck. For you don't want the cheap working force to diminish or revolt, so you give them no option to escape from their miserable life.

Another way for the capitalism to thrive is trough war, and is the only way to create consumable goods without increasing wealth. It gives the producers profit, but the consumer gets a good he consumes, but it doesn't increase his wealth in the same way a new sofa would make his property more "wealthy". I refer this idea to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Will human change? Or will we just one day crumble because of our own ignorance and idiocy! I have made up my mind, and I want to make a better world for us, and not only me. We all have to sacrifice something for the common good, and for the future to have future at all. This is not something anyone can force you to, we all make our own choices, and free will is the greatest principle of all. But how much off that will you sacrifice?