The Great Lifespan Escape

At the time when the lines begin, in the mid-18th century, life expectancy in Europe and the Americas was around 35, where it had been parked for the 225 previous years for which we have data.3 Life expectancy for the world as a whole was 29. These numbers are in the range of expected life spans for most of human history. The life expectancy of hunter-gatherers is around 32.5, and it probably decreased among the peoples who first took up farming because of their starchy diet and the diseases ...

 Credit is Trust in the Future

We’ve already seen that money is an astounding thing because it can represent myriad di

 The Fraud of Agriculture

Scholars once proclaimed that the agricultural revolution was a great leap forward for humanity. They told a tale of progress fuelled by human brain power.Evolution gradually produced ever more intelligent people. Eventually, people were so smart that they were able to decipher nature’s secrets, enabling them to tame sheep and cultivate wheat. As soon as this happened, they cheerfully abandoned the gruelling, dangerous, and often spartan life of hunter-gatherers, settling down to enjoy the ...

 Nietzsche's Ubermensch as a Precursor to Transhumanism

...over a century ago, Nietzsche wrote, in Also Sprach Zarathustra, that the ultimate purpose of humankind was to create a being transcending human abilities, an ubermensch. While ubermensch is often translated into English as “super man”, it is actually much closer to the concept of H . The ubermensch was a person above all weaker beings, an empiricist who gained knowledge from his senses just as H will gain knowledge from trillions of sensors. The ubermensch would not be constrained by...

 Darwin and Abraham Lincoln Were Born on the Same Day

Charles Darwin (fig. 4.1) was bom on the same day as Abraham Lincoln—February 12,1809. Like Lincoln, he was a liberating force for humankind, but instead of freeing people from slavery, he freed biology from the bondage of supernaturalism. Philosophers of science have long pointed to Darwinian evolution as the greatest scientific revolution within biology, comparable to the role of Newton's or Einstein's revolutionary ideas in physics or the plate tectonics revolution in geology. Before Dar...

 What Kind of Engineer is God?

Three engineers were having lunch one day, and the talk turned philosophical: The first engineer wondered what kind of engineering help God had when He created humankind, and proposed "It must have been a mechanical engineer -- just look at the variety of movements in all the joints of the body!" The second engineer responded, "No, I think it must have been an electrical engineer -- think of how the brain controls all the functions of the body via electrical impulses." The third engineer t...

 1973 Humanist Manifesto II - Humanity As a Whole

Humanity As a Whole IN CLOSING: The world cannot wait for a reconciliation of competing political or economic systems to solve its problems. These are the times for men and women of goodwill to further the building of a peaceful and prosperous world. We urge that parochial loyalties and inflexible moral and religious ideologies be transcended. We urge recognition of the common humanity of all people. We further urge the use of reason and compassion to produce the kind of world we want - a ...

 1973 Humanist Manifesto II - Ethics

Ethics THIRD: We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life,...