According to Harvard Professor Steven Pinker, On the Future: Prospects for Humanity is “an engaging analysis of the most important issues facing the world, sprinkled with insight and suffused with wisdom and humanity.” This remarkable book is written by Lord Martin Rees, the U.K.’s Astronomer Royal, world leading scientist, former Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University, and former President of the Royal Society.
On the Future: Prospects for Humanity is of concern to us all. While the bulk of it focuses on what is going on outside this Earth, Rees is making it clear that difficult issues and dilemmas facing us today (climate change, health care, food shortages, population growth, energy, the economy, etc.) cannot be resolved in a better way by future colonies of humans in space or planetary colonies. Conditions for a reasonable number of humans to live anywhere outside our Earth are adverse and simply not conducive for human colonization. Thus, we must solve our global problems and key challenges here on Earth.
Dr. Rees demonstrates a truly remarkable knowledge base. As an astronomer, his focus on issues outside Earth comes as no surprise, and include both the nearby, like The Moon, Mars, other planets and the solar system, as well as the not-so-near, like the Milky Way, exoplanets, etc. At times, the book is rather complex and perhaps more technical than most, and the reader is presented with a wide collection of names, events and citations. However, this all adds to the credibility of this book and, definitely, there is no namedropping!
A major question that the book attempts to shed light on is the extent to which we have reason to be “techno-optimistic,” based on positive developments in cybertechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and the like. Here the author presents an optimistic view, even though the gap between the way things actually are on this world versus what they could be, is perhaps larger than ever.
Rees starts by taking us into the key realities on Earth today. He demonstrates the enormous transformation that has taken place in the past 100 years and how this seems to have led to unprecedented stress on Earth’s environment. The author focuses on what he sees as six key challenges, or problems, in this respect:
There seems to be a poor ability to forecast, especially among most scientists. This can indeed have led to slow reactions, even inaction. While we have reasons to be optimistic, the lack of forecasting creates high anxiety these days.
The threat of a nuclear war is still with us. Today we have nine nuclear powers, and regional conflicts may lead to nuclear events. Even between the superpowers, maybe the threat of a nuclear war is bigger today than it was during the Cold War.
The world population is likely to grow to around 9 billion by year 2050, up from today’s 7.5 billion. Innovations are called for, especially in the food supply sector.
Biodiversity is dwindling at an alarming rate.
The climate is changing quickly, with an alarming increase in CO2 and global warming, all with dramatic effects in at least two ways:
Violent, disruptive, extreme climatic events.
Steady effects, such as the impact of temperature increases on melting ice and permafrost.
We need a Plan B to obtain better control over these truly challenging issues, something we still do not have. Of course, such “geo-engineering” shall be difficult, yet possible!
The author then goes into an in-depth discussion of humanity on Earth. Expected scientific advances in the coming decades are central here. Many benefits are expected, but also ethical dilemmas, risks, and even potential catastrophes.
Rees also discusses how the rate of change is accelerating, particularly in fields such as biology, cyber-technologies, and AI. Costs are plummeting for technologies such as CRISPR-cas9 used to manipulate human embryos. Ethical issues are, however, also becoming more challenging. Moreover, the use of these new technologies in new ways of warfare – bio terrorism – is unfortunately also becoming a reality of the day (see my book review of Hacking Darwin by Jamie Metzl).
Machine learning has advanced dramatically. AI is more powerful than ever, and jobs are being threatened. Robots are taking over. The “safest” jobs are those that require human judgement. Of course, AI mostly represents a positive development, including opening up larger sets of data for analysis.
The author points out that we seem to have become increasingly dependent on large, complex, often international systems such as electrical grids, mobile phone base station networks, air traffic control systems, financial systems, and logistics systems. While not often disrupted, when such rare events take place, the negative consequences can be real, and the author points out a growing vulnerability here that is definitely material.
The book then moves on to look at humanity from a cosmic perspective (i.e., the discussion of domains beyond our planet). There is a fair amount of speculation here, perhaps above all regarding a post-human future. How did things start on this Earth, some 7 billion years ago? There seems to have been a big bang 14 billion years ago, but we still do not have much insight about this.
Coincidentally, we have been gaining important new knowledge regarding how things might look outside our solar system. Already more than 400 new exoplanets have been identified. An impressive set of new telescopes, optical as well as electromagnetic, are being constructed by major international consortia. Are these going to detect forms of life “out there” and perhaps even shed new light on how it all started on Earth?
Manned and unmanned space exploration is more intense than ever. The initial phase of this (e.g. the Space Race, the first person on the moon, the Sputnik and Apollo programs) seemed to be characterized by a certain pioneer spirit and a willingness to take risks. However, manned space expeditions are gradually becoming less cost effective compared to unmanned explorations.
The private sector may increasingly become the main driver of manned space expeditions, with such initiatives as SpaceX, backed by Elon Musk, or Blue Origin, backed by Jeff Bezos, among others.
Later on, Rees attempts to help us understand ourselves more deeply as a human race. There is perhaps more speculation than scientific facts here. Still, there are limits to how much complexity we as human beings can comprehend, even though the advent of supercomputers has helped us to understand more, above all through complex correlation analysis.
A vibrant conflict still exists between religion and science. Is there a God behind this all? The so-called creationists claim that God created the universe, as it is and as it has always been. There is, however, another group of religious scientists who acknowledge the reality of evolution, the so-called Intelligent Design group. In contrast, many scientists are proponents of natural theory – Big Bang and random chance. Rees positions himself somewhere in between these extremes.
The role of scientists is of key importance, and Rees discussed this topic in his conclusion. “Good” science might be compared with start-ups in business, where one should always be open to new insights, in a quite analogous way to logical incrementalism in business, to “make good even better.” Collaboration in debate is paramount.
A number of key choices should be made within the not too distant future, but short tenures among politicians and business leaders alike may make it difficult to reach such decisions on, for example, antipollution measures, energy, conservationism, the economy, and modern food manufacturing and distribution. To have a “feel” for scientific realities among decision makers shall clearly be an advent, the author thinks.
Rees concludes with a note of optimism: Science will definitely make a positive contribution in making good even better.
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