“We are as gods and might as well get used to it,” Stewart Brand said back in 1968. I remember reading that in the Whole Earth Catalog back in the day.
The concept appealed to me, as did the catalog and its successor, the Coevolution Quarterly. I recall thumbing through the issues, finding gems of ideas amidst a lot of odd ones. In those pre-Internet times, it was a way – along with alternative comics, music, and the underground press, not to mention the Civil Rights and antiwar movements and second-wave feminism – to find something new to chew on.
We were definitely looking for something new to chew on.
I don’t remember exactly what I thought when I first saw those words, but l suspect that part of what I thought was that they were an admonition to human beings who were starting to unlock knowledge beyond that needed for basic survival. I heard “Be careful. We’ve got more power than we understand.”
After all, I grew up in the shadow of the Bomb. We were playing with things that could blow up the whole world, and far too many of the men – and it was mostly men – in positions of power were not the sort of person who was good at taking care or planning for the long term.
But these days as I look at some of what Brand has to say, I’m not sure at all that I was correct about what he meant. I’m starting to wonder if he was thinking more along the lines of the broligarchs who are out to spread humanity throughout the universe and even think they’re going to live forever.
After reading Adam Becker’s More Everything Forever, I think those people believe they are gods, or that they’re becoming gods. Continue reading “Not Gods”…