I received the above video from a friend:
Imagine the world we might live in if more were invested in science and technology. Imagine if the money wasted on religions, drugs, entertainment, gambling, and other trivial comforts were invested in scientific research. What would result? I can’t say for sure but you can be assured that progress in nanotechnology, genetic engineering, robotics, and artificial intelligence will be expedited. The world of Star Trek would be here sooner; we might transcend our current limitations; we might become transhuman.
Critics will reply that such a future might be hellish, and they are correct, it might be. But there is no risk-free way to proceed. If we abandon scientific research we will definitely seal our fate—whether from asteroids, climate change, viruses or bacteria, or eventually the death of our sun. Yes, we should proceed cautiously, but not so cautiously that we allow the “yuck” factor to be our first response to new ideas and technologies.
We need to confront much of what is essential in life that we suppress—death, decay, disease, suffering, pain, anxiety, and unhappiness—and reject it all. Let us make heaven on earth. And this will not result from useless petitionary prayers or vulgar superstitions. It will only come about when humans rely on reason and evidence to guide their thinking; and when human sympathy guides their actions.
But at the same time, in reality, what a difference there is between the world today, and what it used to be! And with the passage of more time, some two or three hundred years, say, people will look back at our own times with horror, or with sneering laughter, because all of our present day life will appear so clumsy, and burdensome, extraordinarily inept and strange. Yes, certainly, what a life it will be then, what a life! ~ Anton Chekhov
