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Climate Change is a Test

I generally don't like the "Just Arrow of Time" idea that a lot of people seem to implicitly believe in. By that I mean the idea that current and historical events are somehow guided in a way that, eventually, creates a better, more just world. I don't see any reason to believe that's anything more than a fiction. And when people use it to justify or explain away past wrongs ("it was a different time," or "we have to judge them by the standards of their time" come to mind) or to absolve themselves of current social responsibility ("things will all work out in the end"), it's just gross.

But fiction can have value. And the Just Arrow of Time has value not as a fact or an analytical tool, but as a statement of intent. If anything I say in this post implies any kind of divine or inherently just order to the world, that is what I am doing. I am either speaking metaphorically, or making a poetic statement of intent.

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Humanity is on the precipice of something incredible. AI grows more and more powerful and complex every day. The things possible with GPT-3 are truly unbelievable. CRISPR has unlocked our potential for genetic modification. The solar system seems closer to our reach than ever before. We create and modify our environment at an unthinkable scale. Almost everything on this planet today bears our fingerprints. The only word I can really find for the coming technological revolution is simply "apotheosis." We will create life -- true, thinking minds -- if it is possible to do so. We will engineer out the accidents of our evolution -- aging, death, misery. Our power will truly be godlike.

But we aren't gods. We're stinky, hairless apes with big heads. And we already fucked up.

The Industrial Revolution gave us a new power over our environment, and we have yet to prove that we are ready for it. Climate change is a test. But not of our readiness to wield the godlike power of the coming technology. We will not be worthy of it when it comes, just as we were not ready for the Industrial Revolution. Climate change is our chance to prove that, even though we inevitably fuck something up when we gain new power, we can fix our fuckups and become worthy of that power.

We already fucked up with climate change. But if we can get our shit together and turn things around, civilization might survive long enough to fuck up with the rights of sentient AI, or genetically-modified humans (ever think about how ableism interacts with genetic birth ""disorders""?). And we will have proven our ability to fix those fuckups too.

In fact, we've shown that we are capable of this. We fucked up with CFCs, they were destroying the ozone layer. So we banned them, worldwide, and the environment is recovering. There is nothing implicitly stopping us from doing the same thing with fossil fuels.

Of course, we also eradicated smallpox with a powerful vaccination campaign. There was nothing implicitly stopping us from doing the same thing with COVID-19. And yet, we didn't. Instead we had anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, and a lack of government support and commitment to lockdowns.

I do not know which way things will go. Clearly, we are capable of radical success, or total failure, or something in the middle. But let's set our sights high anyway. Let's imagine a world where, given godlike power, we accept it with caution and humility, instead of actually believing ourselves to be gods.