The Earth is increasingly a product of human engineering and up until very recently, however, this has occurred without conscious recognition. A myriad of economic, social, political, technological decisions, taken and evaluated as if independent, are in reality tightly coupled both to each other and to underlying dynamic natural Earth systems. It reflects the (frequently unintended and unconscious, but nonetheless real) design of a single species. Disconcerting as it is: the Earth, as it now exists, has become a human artifact. In the geological era of the Anthropocene, our planet is changing at paces never observed before. Pollution, natural resources…
We are all on a lifelong journey to improve ourselves, spiritually, mentally and physically. Unfortunately, the lifelong part of that statement can sound like an awfully long process for many, especially for those born into rough circumstances or with a mental or physical disability. However, through using the developing biotech advances that will become mainstream over the next few decades, it will become possible to quickly and fundamentally remake yourself. Whether you want to become part machine. Whether you want to become superhuman. Or whether you want to become an entirely new species of human. The human body is about…
We have pushed our species (and many others) to the brink of extinction by misguided actions informed by a limited point of view. This epistemological blind-spot created by an exclusively quantities-focused science informed a technologically driven civilization measuring success through inadequate economic indicators like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while externalizing the qualitative damage to human communities, ecosystems and the biosphere from the balance sheets. Humanity is transgressing various planetary boundaries and has destabilized global climate patterns. Awareness is spreading that we are on course for civilizational collapse or might already be in the middle of it. We have created an anthropogenic global climate and ecological emergency.…
Humans are starting to be recognized as an overwhelming forcing factor modulating biosphere dynamics. In this view, the Earth system can be interpreted as entering in a geological era that can be called the Anthropocene, the Technocene or even Capitalocene, depending on the conceptual stance adopted. Human modification of the Earth system has created new dynamics and connections that are causing local ecosystems to behave in new ways, while also having an impact on distant people and places. At the advent of the Anthropocene, life is being pushed to its limits the world over; we are currently living through the…
