On humanity

Evolution has led humanity to possess an exceptional degree of consciousness. The perception of individual existence is a common trait in other animals. Humanity however has a distinct capability to analyse the role and destiny of the species holistically, both within local and global environments.

This capability is supported by at least two important human traits:

• Culture transfer: subsequent generations can critically analyse and build upon previous bodies of knowledge. This creates a stream of questions, answers and revisions running in parallel to history. This can be depicted by expanding the analogy of fruit ripeness in a tree. The tree fruits represent humanity’s inquiries and concerns. As history progresses, complex or unapproachable questions remain at the higher branches of the tree. Some of these questions hang from the outer higher branches, and thus are visible to humanity. Some hang from the inner higher branches, and will be discovered as humanity sets aside branches as it climbs. On the same note, the height of the tree is unknown, which does not necessarily imply a negative judgement.
• Forethought: enables humanity to plan for particular objectives based on existing information. Forethought is closely related to and supported by intuition, which enables the creation of information estimates to complement the devised plans.

Unsurprisingly, this capability can promote self-centric views, as it provides an advantage over other parties. In the context of our species, this has occurred through history in what’s known as humanism. Humanism claims the goal of humanity is the greater good for the human species. Often, the greater good for a particular party is associated with a detriment for contending parties, and consequent dominance of the former. This can be true from a short-termed perspective, however the scope of the greater good is often not momentary, but rather continuous over time.

As an aside, these self-centric views have also occurred within humanity itself, for example nationalisms, ethnic groups and religions. In fact, these can be considered extensions of the more general concept of social dominance, where an individual or group of individuals (not necessarily human) prioritise their own greater good over contending individuals in the ecosystem. The degree of believe in dominance from a rational point of view grows with the decrease in uncertainty over the capabilities of other parties. It’s a case of “knowledge is power”. Note this is assuming the contending capabilities don’t entail a risk for dominance. For example, humanity has a considerable understanding of the contenders within the planet Earth and the risk of their capabilities, so it is confident on its dominance. This cannot be said about possible extraterrestrials contenders, as where there is both a high degree of uncertainty and a considerable possibility of risk from their capabilities.

From the point of view of a party, the above-mentioned concept of dominance applies to controllable parties. However, there can be uncontrollable parties. For humanity, most preeminently nature. Non-controllable parties with potential for destructive behaviour can unbalance the state of social dynamics. Often, sentient parties show respect, fear and even ask for mercy or favourable outcomes from uncontrollable parties. A clear example is the interaction between humanity and superhuman gods.

From this scenario, to achieve a continuous and consistent greater good from a self-centric point of view and in the pressence of uncontrollable parties, diversity and compromise can be fundamental.

Dominance can result in a decrease in diversity of views and methods. Lack of diversity decreases criticism and pressure on the dominant party. The dominant party grows on the premise of static views and methods, and hence can lose its adaptability. Examples of this are common from the transition into globalisation and the digital era. To maintain a healthy degree of diversity, dominant parties can recur to compromise, enabling other parties to exist and apply different methods.

Globalisation is a multi-faceted factor in this context. It can foster diversity by increasing the number of contenders. It can also increase power of dominant parties, as they can now influence other segments of humanity. A related concept is that of standardisation. Common frameworks created to foster interactivity and enable channels of compromise among existing parties can also become a constraint for the development of diversity or new parties. With this, there is a risk of a decrease in global diversity.

One final question derived from the above is how can humanity as a species remain adaptable with its current degree of dominance. Note diversity is a medium, not an end. The end result, as explained above, is to achieve a continuous criticism and pressure on the adopted methods and views. It may be possible to achieve this via internal diversity. This is related to the concept of freedom, enabling members of a party to express different views and opinions, essentially creating diversity within dominance.