Ill advised tinkering takes us to places we don't want to be!
1. “The Pale Blue Dot”: Carl Sagan’s apt description!
2. Earth’s deep blue seas and her lush green forests: Climate Stabilizers and Air Purifiers.
3. Earth’s surface: At present, at least, no need for space suits or hazmat gear on most of it...
4. Humans are eliminating their fellow living entities — large, small, and tiny!
5. But some of the “tiny” now swarm in protest of humans’ betrayal of the basic right/obligation
of all living things to “Live and Let Live.”
“The Pale Blue Dot”: Carl Sagan’s apt description!
Dear Fellow Earthlings,
Why are we in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic? Is this something that we could have avoided? As to why, it is due to the fact that there are just too many people living in a limited area called Earth. On this oblate spheroid’s surface we are competing with each other -– and with other living things — for scarce resources.
One thing that we humans tend to do more than most other living things is to constantly be in search of places where we really have no true need to enter. Indeed, huge numbers of humans are constantly trying to go into places they shouldn’t: other people’s private spaces, other people’s souls, other living things‘ domains – and even into places which they are not physically capable of going into without the use of inventions, of technology, of “revolutionary” (sometimes with very bad side-effects) methods of doing things.
Humans tend to rush headlong into new “realms”, new adventures, new challenges… They tend to see such moves as “bold”, “lucrative” — and as their “manifest destinies”.
Actually, if we have not yet been to a given place, it seems that it is only the fact that we are merely still unable to do so.
Something as ostensibly “simple” as COVID-19 suddenly appears (perhaps not despite us, but rather because of us) — and still we just hunker down/humble down for a while, with the full intention when “This passes”, of moving on in our careless, self-centered ways, many of us believing that we are special, that our transgressions will be forgotten and/or forgiven by the power or powers that be…
We are probably not quite as important as we see ourselves in the grand scheme of things. Therefore, it is imperative that we should be more considerate of the feelings of our fellow humans and fellow living things. Furthermore – since there are already some among us who feel that robots should be protected by laws similar to those afforded to humans and (for some people) other living things, we need to tone down the rhetoric about “robots’ rights” when those BOTS, by their very nature, care not a whit about humans – or of the sanctity of life here on Earth!
In robots, it is accuracy, logic, efficiency, and power that matter. While we must “live and let live” as regards life forms, it is probably best to consider the opposite as we consider granting rights to robots – and live instead by the credo:
“Allow no non-living entity to be brought to life.”
Robots in charge would attach zero importance to what is right or wrong –- or to the notion that any distinction between these two concepts even exists!
Steve Walker
Earthsaver and Jingles Creator
© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.