After entering the 2 1 century, the famines, plagues and wars that once threatened the survival and development of mankind for a long time have all been conquered, and Homo sapiens is facing a new task: eternal life, happiness and incarnation as a new advanced Homo sapiens.
Let's talk about famine first. Famine has been the greatest enemy of mankind for thousands of years. For example, in China, from the period of Emperor Yan, the "ancestor of mankind", to the period of Huangdi, until the 20th century, various alternate China regimes have been ravaged by famine for thousands of years. Decades ago, China was synonymous with food shortage. Since 1974, although hundreds of millions of people still suffer from food shortage and malnutrition, hundreds of millions of people in China have been lifted out of poverty, which is the first time in China's history that they are no longer suffering from famine.
After famine, the second biggest enemy of mankind is plague and infectious diseases. For example, somewhere in East Asia or Central Asia, Yersinia pestis parasitized on fleas infected human epidemic "Black Death" through flea bites from 14 to 1930. This plague army quickly spread all over Asia, Europe and North Africa through rats and fleas, and reached the Atlantic coast in less than 20 years. At that time, the death toll was about 75 million to 200 million, more than a quarter of the population of Eurasia. Smallpox started in Mexico 1520 in March, when the population of Mexico was as high as 22 million, but by February140,000, only140,000 was left. Smallpox is only the first wave of attacks, and deadly infectious diseases such as influenza and measles have also hit Mexico in waves; By 1580, the population of this country is less than 2 million.
Two centuries later, on June 8th, 1778, influenza, tuberculosis, syphilis, typhoid fever and smallpox started in Hawaii, resulting in a densely populated Hawaii with 500,000 people at that time. By June 1853, the population was only 70,000.
After entering the 20th century, various epidemics have claimed tens of millions of lives. 1918 65438+10 In October, soldiers in trenches in northern France began to catch a particularly severe flu, commonly known as "Spanish flu", which caused thousands of deaths. At that time, behind the front line of the battlefield was the global war material supply network: Britain, the United States, India, Australia, the Middle East, Argentina, Malaysia, Congo and other corresponding places all got Spanish flu. In just a few months, about 500 million people (one third of the global population) were infected with the virus. In less than a year, the flu killed about 50 million to 654.38 billion people. In contrast, the number of people killed in World War I from 19 14 to 19 18 was only 40 million.
? Every few decades, there will be such a large-scale epidemic "tsunami" coming to mankind, and there are also some smaller but more frequent epidemics that kill millions of people every year.
However, in the past few decades, the prevalence and impact of epidemics have been greatly reduced. The global smallpox vaccination campaign has been very successful. The World Health Organization announced in 1979 that mankind has won and smallpox has been completely eradicated. This is the first time that mankind has succeeded in making an epidemic disappear completely from the earth.
In the past decades, the treatment of AIDS may be the biggest medical failure, but even this tragedy can still be said to be a symbol of progress. Since1the first outbreak of AIDS in the early 1980s, 30 million people have died and tens of millions more have suffered physically and mentally. Despite all kinds of difficulties, it took only two years to find the virus after the medical community realized this mysterious new infectious disease. After 10 years, the newly introduced drugs have transformed HIV infection from a certain death to a chronic disease.
? Every few years, people always warn that there may be another big outbreak, such as SARS in 2002-2003, bird flu in 2005, swine flu in 2009-20 10, and Ebola in 20 14. However, due to effective response measures, fewer people were affected by the epidemic. Take "SARS" as an example. At first, people were worried that it would become a new wave of the Black Death, but in the end, the global death toll was less than 1000, and the epidemic was quickly subsided. After the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, it seems to be getting out of control. 2065438+On September 26th, 2004, the World Health Organization called this epidemic "the most serious public health emergency seen in modern times". Nevertheless, the epidemic situation was controlled at the beginning of 20 15. By 20 16 10, the world health organization announced that the epidemic had subsided. Ebola virus * * * infected 30,000 people, of which 1 1 10,000 people died.
? The main reason for the emergence of new infectious diseases is the mutation of pathogen gene, which enables pathogens to transfer from animals to people, defeat human immune system, or become resistant to antibiotics and other drugs. In 20 15, doctors announced the discovery of a brand-new antibiotic "Teixobactin". At present, bacteria have no resistance to it.
The third good news is that the war is also disappearing. Throughout human history, most people think that war is inevitable, while peace is only a temporary and uncertain state. International relations also follow the law of the jungle. Even if the two regimes seem to live in peace, war will always be an option. For example, although Germany and France were at peace in 19 13, we all know that they might go to war in 19 14. Whenever politicians, generals, businessmen and ordinary people plan the future, they always think of the factors of war. From the Stone Age to age of steam, from the Arctic to the Sahara Desert, everyone on earth knows that neighboring countries may invade territory, crush troops, kill people and occupy land at any time.
Until the second half of the 20th century, this "law of the jungle" was finally broken or cancelled. In most areas, there are fewer wars than ever before. In ancient agricultural society, the number of deaths caused by human violence accounted for15% of the total number of deaths; In the 20th century, this proportion dropped to 5%; By the beginning of 2 1 century, it only accounted for about 1% of the total global deaths. In 20 12, about 56 million people died in the world, of which 620,000 died of human violence (6,543,802,000 died of war and 500,000 died of crime). In contrast, 800,000 people committed suicide and 1.5 million people died of diabetes. Now, sugar is more deadly than gunpowder.
In the past 70 years, mankind has not only broken the "law of the jungle", but also the "Chekhov law". Chekhov has a famous saying: the gun that appears in the first act is bound to start in the third act. Throughout history, emperors will be tempted sooner or later if they have new weapons in their hands. But since 1945, human beings have learned to resist this temptation. For example, a gun appeared in the first act of the cold war (implying nuclear weapons), but it was never fired. Now, we are used to the fact that many bombs in the world are shelved and many missiles are useless, and we have become experts in breaking the "law of the jungle" and "Chekhov's law". Even if these laws reappear one day, it is human's own fault, not some inevitable fate.
However, human achievements have also brought another message: history does not allow a vacuum. If the probability of famine, plague and war is decreasing, other things will inevitably become new human problems. This must be considered comprehensively, otherwise you may win in an all-round way on the old battlefield, but you will be caught off guard on the new front. Then, what problems will replace famine, plague and war in the 2 1 century?
One of the central topics is to protect human beings and the earth from human forces.
? The second major problem in the future of mankind may be to find the key to happiness.
? To ensure global happiness, it is necessary to involve the third major problem, to recreate Homo sapiens and let people enjoy eternal happiness.
? In the process of solving these new problems, the development of science and technology will subvert many of our "common sense" that does not need proof at present. For example, the free will advocated by humanism will face severe challenges, and machines will replace human beings to make wiser choices.
More importantly, when the development of science and technology represented by big data and artificial intelligence becomes more and more mature, human beings will face the biggest change from evolution to homo sapiens, most people will become "useless groups", and only a few people can evolve into new advanced homo sapiens with changed characteristics.
In the future, mankind will face three major problems: biology itself is actually an algorithm, and life is a process of constantly processing data; Separation of consciousness and intelligence; The external environment with big data accumulation will know yourself better than yourself. How to treat these three problems and how to take countermeasures will directly affect the future development of mankind.
So far, to increase people's strength, we mainly rely on improving external tools. But the future may focus on improving people's body and mind, or directly combine people with tools. There are three ways to go: bioengineering, electronic human engineering and non-organic bioengineering.