— hey earth.
— moon? what is it?
— do you remember those little fellas?
— humans?
— yeah, they were funny weren’t they?
— they were funny, yes.
— what ever happened to those guys?
— i uh, i don’t know, moon. (i happened, that’s what.) heh heh heh
— did you say something?
— nope, i didn’t say anything.
Humans are no longer the same creatures they once were.
Late in the 21st century we began through the world council to legislate the future of our species. It was now possible to update the genetic make up of the human species with each new generation. The first piece of legislation stated simply that humanity could not be allowed to lower the average empathy quotient. It was, and is still believed, that reducing the empathy quotient of our species would be the single most dangerous thing we could do. It is, after all, the keystone of our sense of universal ethics. It is what allows us to understand and weigh the motives of others and what allows us the ability to feel compassion and charity. Without empathy it would only be a matter of time before war broke out. A species of human that feels no empathy but has increased levels of strength and intelligence or extended life could be a terrible scourge upon the universe.
Several years after the initial vote was made on the empathy quotient, a vote was taken to raise the empathy quotient. Earth’s religious right protested the legislation. Many believed that God set our basic sense of empathy deliberately in order to test or challenge us and that to tamper with this particular aspect of human nature was to trample upon the sovereignty of God. In the end, no evidence surfaced showing that increased empathy could cause harm and quite a bit of evidence suggested drastic improvement would ensue throughout civilization. As to the god question, people by and large accepted the idea that if there was a God that God gave us the tools to tamper with our own nature. We had been tampering with that nature for a long time, since well before the empathy question came about. In any case, the empathy quotient was increased with the next generation and several more times over following ones.
Ironically, because of this global increase in empathy, the world at large found it increasingly difficult to justify forcing the few, small groups of people who still wished to return to traditional levels of empathy to produce more emphatic offspring. Thus a small group of people was allowed to remain unaltered.
As the majority became even more empathetic two problems began to arise. Individuals started to find it difficult to separate their own opinions, perspectives, and feelings from those of others and also found it just as difficult to hold someone accountable for wrong doing as they found it to difficult to wrong someone. Thus, the opinions of that tiny minority that still had some inclination toward selfishness started to gain influence. As long as the self-interested few framed their ideas as being harmless, the masses felt inclined to follow them. Those with a strong sense of self-interest were able to accumulate far more wealth than others and, if they wished to, could get away with causing great harm. And great harm some did indeed.
Fortunately, the initial legislation that stated that the average empathy quotient could never be reduced maintained its integrity. Those who would use others for personal gain remain few in number. However, those individuals that are capable of great abuse remain a terrific and hidden threat, not only to the human, or rather meta human, majority, but to all living things, and perhaps to all things.
And yet, there still remains the small chance that at some point they will be able to perceive and protect others from the treat of whatever creatures may exist who are more dangerous and selfish than themselves.
Many years from now humanity will face a law suit. Humanity will be charged with polluting the galaxy with organic life.
Once humans make the permanent move into space they will choose to inoculate almost every celestial body that they come across with the chemical building blocks of life. Over thousands of years humanity watches life grow and evolve. Each time life develops in surprisingly different ways in even the most hostile environments as long as it has the few necessary components.
Of course, life forms that are far older than humans know the detriment that overpopulation can have on a galaxy. Humanity is kindly asked to cease and desist, but to no avail. Ancient organic and synthetic life forms banish humanity to the dark space until the time of the hearing.
During this interim, some of humanity’s biology experiments learn to create matter and energy without producing harmful byproducts. This negates the charges of threatening galactic harmony that humanity faces, which is a major embarrassment for the court.
Grudgingly, humanity, that infantile race, is allowed to return.
Eugenics has some tricky ethical problems. Nobody wants a holocaust. Nobody wants genocide. On the other hand nobody wants psychopathic killers or genetically transmitted diseases either. We also don’t feel right about telling people whether or not they should breed or how they should breed. So how can we improve humanities children without infringing on the rights or freedoms of specific parents or specific children?
In a sense humanity’s genes and the next generation of humans belong to humanity as a whole not to any particular people. Now some might say that these things all already belong to the next generation and not the current generations of humanity. The problem with this is that all potential humans if they deserve a say deserve an equal say in whether they get to be conceived or not, both those with weaker genes and those with stronger genes. If we have the power to tip the balance in favor of the stronger gene pool shouldn’t we do so?
Things seem relatively clear at this point. As long as we can change the next generation enough to weed out undesireable genetic burdens on humanity we should do so. However, this is not so simple as it may seem. How do we define which traits are desirable. Once we start breeding children to become stronger or more beautiful haven’t we already crossed the genocide line? Isn’t a preventative genocide of genetically sick people still genocide, even if they are being replaced before conception with healthy people? Is the luck of the draw really the only fair way for humanity to propogate?
Perhaps the best thing that humanity can do is draw up a list of specific genetic traits that simply do not do any good. These traits can then be tracked or treated to some extent. They may never be eliminated but at least we would have the knowledge to stop their transmission in many cases if we should choose to.
On the other hand. Some of us may choose to take this farther and start communities with a different set of genetic ethics. Some us may decide to genetically modify ourselves and our offspring to be any number of things. If some of us decide to artificially evolve in this manner should the rest of us tolerate it?
I am inclined to allow it. I am curious to see what new species might evolve out of humanity. Surely our evolutionary path is not complete simply because we have aquired advanced technology? I suspect that at least some of us will inevitably evolve into our technologies or into new biology, likely both.
Perhaps the only difference between evolution and genocide is the difference between selective breeding and selective killing.
In the year 3000 as people evolved into stronger and more efficient multitaskers, they grew increasingly annoyed with the limits of the oral orifice, or mouth to use the vernacular. The people elected to create a new hole in their heads for breathing. The conventional mouth would be reserved for speech and assorted gestures of physical affection.
Oddly, the vote to add the new mouth was nearly unanimous, but the discourse concerning its location was robust and unrelenting. It was eventually decided that the mastication orifice would be located at the naval as the stomach would then be adjacent to it. This would require that all restaurants redesign their tables and that a new system of dining etiquette be implemented. All this could be easily done, of course. After all, humanity had made sudden changes before (like the last time it called itself humanity) and had even become somewhat accustomed to them.
Suggestions to locate the new mouth on hands were courageously defended, but were in the end such arguments found themselves deceased and desisted.
After two decades, humanity decided to go back to its old arrangement. People found that they missed the sensation of food travelling aaaaaaalll the way down the esophagus down into the deep pits of their bellies. People then decided that longer necks were in order. Arrangements for modification of the species were made shortly after.
Humanity is more fluid and adaptable than ever. Of course, in the beginning things were not so well organized. There was a point in the 21st century when not everyone had the ability to customize the next generation. Some who did have this privilege abused it.
What I am talking about of course is customizing new born children. It is not hard to pick and choose traits, it is not even that hard to cross species. Then, anything that isn’t done genetically can almost always be accomplished cybernetically or physically.
This is the privilege that initially was only available to some and which was abused by several. Classism became biological as well as economic. The rich grew children with special abilities. They built savants and synaesthetic. They built mental and physical prodigies of ever type. Even rich adults found ways to improve their bodies either with machines or with surgical additions of new body parts. The poor reproduced the old fashioned way. They fell further and further behind.
It was not until war broke out against a group of people who wished to wipe out inferior humanity that the problem of classism was truly dealt with. It is sad that clone and chimera armies of mean superhumans had to come into being before we decided to take the initiative to fully and fairly regulate the gene trade, the cyber-augmentation trade, and the physical splicing trade.
Now anyone has the right to change one’s body or the body of one’s progeny. However, for those augmentations which are considered dangerous or wrong, special licenses must be maintained and the subject must agree to the procedure. Newborn chimera humans are illegal.
The regulations have functioned with a large margin of success over the last few decades, but with so many new colonies being formed off planet, it may no longer be possible to regulate what humanity becomes.
I, doctor brain, have discovered the V-stream. This is the layer of energy on which human thought travels. I am currently creating a machine so powerful, it will effectively turn human kind into a hive mind. Mwahahahahahahaha.
Later…
Most of humanity didn’t do so well with the hive mind. Most of humanity is dead. We who remain feel ambivalently about most things. We may choose to turn off the machine at some point.
Later…
We choose to create individuals but we cannot ourselves become individuals. We will grow them in pods and send them far from earth. We hope they will prosper and that this will be adequate atonement for the xenocide that Dr. Brain effectively committed.
Later…
Success! We are very happy. We are very bored. Hmm. Perhaps we will colonize something.
Later…
Are individual human cousins do not understand us. They have declared war. We will flee rather than fight.
Later…
They are persistent. We will destroy them and try making individuals again later.
We all have hearts. I don’t mean the organ. I don’t mean the one inside you that keeps the beat of your biology. I mean your heart of hearts.
We all have hearts. They are made of felt. Some are stuffed. Some are not stuffed. They all hang in a dusty old closet in a creaky green house.
I visited that house once. I have forgotten how to get there. Have you been there? Do you remember the way?
So many forgotten hearts. So many many. But what is this? There is a piece of felt in my pocket. Perhaps a tiny piece of heart felt.
For the first time in history, humanity possesses a surplus of pollution free energy all over the world. Wind and Solar are primarily responsible, however alternative energies continue to augment our already efficient energy reserves. Now that energy is virtually free, we can begin the next great cycle of modernization.
Cheap transportation is one of the keystones to global economic success. We are constructing a new system of airways for electric aircraft. All transportation is being given wireless recharging capabilities, and the combustion engine is being gradually phased out. Soon we will have a world of truly free travel.
The other major field that is in need of modernization is of course agriculture. Organic garden systems and tower garden systems are solving this issue. We will soon perfect these arts so that any town can grow its own food easily and efficiently.
The area of study that I most wish to expand, unpopular as it may be, is space exploration. If we can make contact other creatures like ourselves, learn to terra-form, or discover large deposits of useful resources, we can ensure humanity’s long time survival in the universe.
As my final act as president of the world, I am tripling the global science fund.
The Lunar Fox Press 