Primitive Emotions, Medieval Institutions, Godlike Technology: Finding Humanity's Higher Angels in a Technological World
When Technology Outpaces Humanity
Minutes after a gunman opened fire in a Colorado grocery store in 2021, raw footage of the terror streamed onto Facebook. The dystopian scenes of bleeding shoppers and shattered storefronts captured by bystanders ricocheted across the internet in real-time.
This visceral incident epitomizes an unnerving modern paradox. Our godlike technologies increasingly enable immediately broadcasting humanity’s darkest tendencies for viral consumption. But are we ethically evolved enough for such power?
“We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology,” biologist E.O. Wilson observed back in 1998. “And it is terrifically dangerous.” Wilson identified a growing gap between exponential technological growth and lagging human wisdom that strains society today. Advanced capabilities uplift but also amplify our primal flaws. With moral courage, we must guide these tools toward humanity’s enlightenment rather than its annihilation.
Primordial Tech: Empowering Ancient Instincts
Modern gadgets grant average people influence once reserved for gods. But absent checks, technology often removes brakes on our lower impulses:
Social platforms enable tribal hatred to spread rapidly. In Myanmar, Facebook algorithms that promoted inflammatory posts facilitated genocide against the Rohingya minority. Critics condemn emphasizing engagement over emotional harm.
Autonomous AI weapons systems may enable mass violence devoid of human accountability. Campaigns aim to ban “killer robots” before proliferation, fearing coding biases could violate ethics.
Deepfake videos manipulate elections by spreading false footage immune to truth-testing. Concerns grow as realistic forged media divides the populace.
Technology is not inherently perilous dangers arise when primitive instincts flow unchecked into exponentially more powerful vessels. With wisdom, we could uplift humanity through tools. But unconscious biases and outdated control systems heighten risks of misuse.
Medieval Methods: When Institutions Can’t Keep Pace
Rigid societal structures also struggle to regulate technology’s vast impacts:
Policymaking moves slowly compared to tech’s fast pace. Rules made for limited 20th century media strain to govern pervasive platforms and AI.
Entrenched bureaucracies concentrate authority, obstructing the open collaboration science and technology development require. Delayed pandemic responses reflected hampered data sharing across boundaries.
Hierarchies that resist evidence-based reforms hinder dynamic oversight of technological risk/reward tradeoffs.
Without institutional evolution, governance risks always lagging behind technology’s ripple effects. And oppressive systems may simply absorb tools to further centralized control rather than empower people. Updated responsive leadership is required to properly oversee technological change.
Minding Our Collective Gap
Is fusing primitive motivations with godlike gadgets destined for calamity? Not necessarily. With foresight, we could guide technology to uplift our higher angels instead:
Reform education to build critical thinking and digital resilience against misinformation and emotional manipulation.
Use platforms for mass organizing of activism, charity, and disaster response like 2014’s viral Ice Bucket Challenge raising $115 million for ALS research.
Implement flexible regulatory “sandboxes” where new technologies get tested transparently for social impacts.
Upgrade democracy itself with secure online voting, direct polling, and AI-assisted analysis to enable responsive leadership.
Incentivize scientists and technologists to rigorously assess social risks and benefits alongside technical capabilities when developing projects.
With collective will, we can evolve institutions and culture to harness technology for human dignity instead of destruction. It requires blending hard-won humanistic insights with new priorities:
Wisdom tempering knowledge. Power distributed across networks, not hierarchies. Logic guided by ethics. Tools uplifting all humanity.
Our Future in Human Hands
Truly we stand at a threshold between transcendence and calamity, as rising technological tides grant both terrifying and promising possibilities moving forward. But the future remains open within these turbulent waters. Despite primal flaws and rigid structures, resilience of human aspirations offers hope. The key is moral courage to build systems empowering our better angels.
For if tools can construct walls that divide, they can also build bridges that uplift humanity as one. With ethical imagination, we can shape technology to advance justice, creativity, and human potential. The choice resides in our hands. We must guide these awe-inspiring capabilities toward nobility rather than ruin, becoming the light that technology reflects back into the world. And if we stay centered in wisdom, no challenge we face with such godlike power at our command will prove insurmountable.