I often have that feeling and have to think the answer is, "we're already in
that world: AND "we'll never be in that world". Living in the Bible Belt of
the U.S. I am *constantly* surrounded by an all-pervasive religiousity: Every
street corner seems to have some huge church edifice on it, fundamentalist
christian bumper stickers festoon every other car and people's speech is full
of references to god and religion. I'm often struck by the *huge* gulf
between the ideas I share with a small circle of close friends and this net
community on the one hand and the overwhelming mass of people I encounter
every day on the other. In many ways, even more disturbing is the apparent
religious conviction of most "educated" people I encounter: Despite lots of
"formal education", the ideas of the Enlightenment don't seem to have had
more than the most superficial impact on the world view of most people. I
think to myself: "What if just one-quarter of what is spent on religion were
spent on furthering the transhumanist agenda? Just think of the progress we
would make!" It is frustrating and can be depressing.
The only way I can "reconcile" this is to be thankful that there is a cadre
of folks -- however small in relative terms -- who have internalized the
humanism of the Enlightenment and are pushing those ideas further. It seems
that what will come is more of the same, i.e. that the "vanguard" will
continue to advance at an ever-accelerating pace, pulling at least some of
the rest of humanity behind it as matter of simple "social fluid dynamics" --
at least for a while longer. If the rate of advance of the vanguard passes a
certain point (like the sound barrier?), their social sphere will completely
separate from the rest of humanity. What happens after that could get very
weird, indeed ...
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com> <burchg@liddellsapp.com>
http://users.aol.com/gburch1/ or http://members.aol.com/gburch1/
"The two most common things in the
universe are hydrogen and stupidity."
-- Harlan Ellison