There is this belief that’s spreading, that human beings will be able to outsmart their way out of any problem. The energy crises will be solved with clean nuclear fusion and hydrogen, water cleanliness will be solved with bottled water, and overpopulation will be solved with increasing agricultural efficiencies. And oh yeah, that “educating” the world will create a million jobs and give us everlasting world peace. Given enough time, science and intelligence will liberate us from all that we don’t like about the world.

This is all a bunch of crap.

We live in a world of biological processes. No matter how much our brains don’t want to admit it, we are biological creatures. We derive nourishment and happiness from biological sources. We live in a world designed to provide us with everything we need. It is only when we think we can do better, that things fall apart.

We are transforming the world from a biological process to a rational process. Replacing the magic and power of irrational biological processes with clean, scientific, understandable solutions. Eliminating the soil’s natural ecology, and replacing it with specific nutrients engineered for perfection. Getting rid of face to face learning for the more efficient computer learning. Along the way, we are losing the most important part, the biological processes that make us human.

Nature understands this, but human beings do not.

We want to completely redesign the world for efficiency. Pills for brains to work the way we think they should, genetically engineered food to grow the way we think they should, and mass communication so people think the way they should. Slowly eroding diversity to create a very simplified world. One that will never work.

The problem with science is it looks at everything as though it’s happening within a vacuum. Each discipline only happens within its own little world. Physicists don’t know much about sociologists who don’t know much about biologists. Least of all who understand every discipline. Everybody’s asking “How do I do this?”, and very few are asking asking, “Why? Why should we do this?”

Why do we want to redesign the world so bad? Why do we want science to rule over every area of our life? Why do we want a veneer of reason over every aspect of our life?

Science won’t save us, we need a biological, irrational world. Despite our best intentions, our brains are still driven by feelings. People are not rational beings just because they have rational thoughts. Watch what they do, and you will see the irrationality. Creating a world of rationality with science will only destroy our spirits. Force us all to pretend to be something we are not, and leave nobody happy. Then make billionaires of the people who sell us synthetic happiness.

I challenge you to an experiment. Sit in front of a television for three hours and then write down how you feel afterwards. Then go into wilderness for three hours and write down how you feel.

Next, chat with someone online for half an hour, and then talk with someone in person for half an hour, one on one with no distractions. Write down how you feel after each.

Which feels more real, which feels better? We are feeling creatures, and everything we do is to feel a certain way. Why are we sacrificing the immediate closeness for the detachment of technology? Why do we give our cell phones and computers so much time, but ourselves and each other so little?

Science won’t save us. It will only disconnect us further and further, into little efficient machines that are all miserable. Fifty years ago I don’t think anyone knew what social anxiety was. Now it seems like everyone’s got it. We’re uncomfortable and we don’t know how to act. We’re losing our ability to relate to each other in exchange for the ability to relate to machines.

So what am I advocating? The elimination of science and technology? The destruction of reason for a world of complete irrationality and feelings? That we do away with modern medicine in exchange for magic potions?

None of the above. I’m just pointing out the necessity for restraint in how much we seek to change the world for the “better”. Very often, the largest pushes forward are really bigger steps back. The green revolution made global food production dependent on fertilizers and pesticides derived from oil. Now the production of food depends completely on massive oil inputs. What happens when we can’t create an easy fix to replace these non-renewable inputs?

I’m advocating appropriate technology and voluntary simplicity. Intelligence tempered with wisdom. Our massive technological advances have come exponentially quicker and quicker, but our collective wisdom has not grown as quickly. There is a push to know more and more, and information gets larger and larger. But nobody knows what information matters and what doesn’t. Computers can organize it all for us, but they can’t tell us if it matters or what it means.

Our intelligence has outpaced our understanding. We need to be very careful with things we don’t completely understand. Releasing genetically modified corn into the food supply with only a few years of testing. Dropping an atomic bomb to end a war.

So let’s start with implementing solutions we understand. We know a living soil is better for the plant and for the person who ends up eating it. Why are we solving the problem with the most complicated, technologically advanced solution we can find?

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Social Commentary, The Big Picture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.