I, NANOBOT.
By Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member Alan H.
Goldstein who developed our A-PRIZE. First published on Salon.com.
Scientists are on the verge of breaking the carbon barrier — creating
artificial life and changing forever what it means to be human. And
we're not ready.
Don't call me Ishmael, for I am not a survivor. Don't call me Cassandra
either, since some might believe what I foretell. Perhaps I am the final
manifestation of the singularity ignited in Olduvi Gorge a million and a
half years ago. The flame that has grown to consume our planet and send
sparks into outer space. The singularity that started as an ineffable,
ineluctable pulse resonating through the neural matrix of Homo habilis.
A voice that said, You whoever you are, You must sharpen that stone,
pick up that bone, cross that line. A voice of supreme paradox; one that
simultaneously makes us uniquely human, yet is itself not human.
Nor is it the black extraterrestrial monolith of Stanley Kubrick's
imagining. Rather, it was always here. Hard-wired into us at the atomic
level — and we into it. A voice whose physical manifestation, the tool,
sang its song millions of years before human beings walked the earth.
This voice prophesied and then enabled our coming. It will instruct us
in our going. Or so I say, while understanding too well that in the 21st
century we are all jaded and stultified with sensory overload. It's
always the end of the world as we know it — and we feel bored.
So why listen to the voice of one who is not Ishmael, not Cassandra, not
even Ralph Nader? Because I can tell you something that no one else can.
I can tell you the exact moment when Homo sapiens will cease to exist.
And I can tell you how the end will come. I can show you the exact
design of the device that will bring us down. I can reveal the
blueprint, provide the precise technical specifications. Long before we
can melt the polar ice caps, or denude the rain forests, or colonize the
moon, we will be gone. And we will not — definitely will not — end with
a bang or a whimper. The human race will go to its extinction in a state
of supreme exaltation, like an actor climbing the stairs to accept an
Academy Award. We will exit the stage of existence thinking we are going
to a spectacular party.
more...
http://lifeboat.com/ex/i.nanobot
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