Saving politics with new religions
Choose one. Humanity is:
- great and doesn’t need hierarchy at all
- okay but needs great leaders and masses that follow
- so so and really needs competent bureaucracies
- not good but might succeed with the right new technology
- bad but will be replaced in the next millennia by augmented humans
- very bad but will be replaced in the next millennia by human creations
- awful and will cease to exist in the next millennia
Roughly those that think humans are great are anarchists, okay are Republicans, so so or not good are Democrats, and awful are apolitical.
For bad and very bad, lack of concern for the environment and poverty and belief in technological but not social innovation are in line with large numbers of elites believing that humanity, in its current form, will not be crossing the finish line.
The record stinginess of American’s billionaires also displays a dim view of humanity. They can’t take the money with them but they also don’t have any enthusiasm for philanthropy — except when it intersects with transhumanism.
However spending the next thousand years waiting to be replaced isn’t going to be fun. Can some political compromise be reached with believers in human replacement?
First we would need a vision of what a graceful exit for humanity looks like. Second we need to transform our rapidly declining existing religions into bearers of that graceful exit vision.
For instance one vision is that the earth’s environment and the state of current humanity form the womb for the birth of these beyond human entities. So rather than just partying till midnight of our 301,000 year reign, it might be more fun to clean our act up and be better parents of our replacements.
Another vision could be the exploration of current human limits. Convince the elites that seeing what “classic” humanity can do is a fun way to spend this gap time.
Maybe have multiple religions — church of classic humanity and church of the graceful womb — running simultaneously. Perhaps some billionaires can be convinced to help found these religions instead of expand into the stars nonsense.
With the recognition that our root cause problems are spiritual, not financial or environmental, people who want change can be more effective and our society can be more social.