Page 50 - Liberating Liberals V2

Meaning-Making Maestros
color and colonial peoples on Earth — perhaps about 9/10ths of Earth’s population — have begun to be liberated during the last fifty or so years, it appears that the moral arc of history does seem to be tending towards justice. But from the view of potential ecological disasters and mass destruction weapons, the moral arc may be tending towards the greatest possible atrocities.
Yet we can even take this apocalyptic possibility in stride. The Fermi Paradox tries to explain why our planet has not yet been visited by more advanced lifeforms from other planets when there are probably billions of planets that can sustain life in the universe. Fermi’s answer is that it’s the nature of intelligent
life to destroy itself, because technology often outdistances the capacity to control it.39 Thus if we earthlings do destroy ourselves we are just one of many worlds to do so. It’s the worst possible tragedy, but a common one in the universe.
And hopefully some worlds won’t self-destruct so the great universal experiment of consciousness will not end. Perhaps someday some more successful world will learn from our history so our insights into civilization and happiness will not be lost even if we do destroy ourselves. That’s a small compensation for humanity-wide suicide, but something nonetheless. Unless we are the only human-like conscious-ness in the universe. Then ... darkness.
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