Humanity, Power, and Civilization

We have the ability to study faraway galaxies, alter genomes, piece together long-lost civilizations, make smart devices, and alter landscapes on a grand scale never seen before. However, progress in technology does not necessarily lead to moral progress.

Ali K. Lashari

Kings, empires, conflicts, economies, and technological accomplishments alone do not provide enough context to comprehend human civilization. The conflict between human dignity and the consolidation of authority lies beneath these apparent developments.

Everything from religion and society to ethics and human behavior to economics and education to farming and family life and technology is interconnected. They are all part of a larger system that influences people’s beliefs, values, behaviors, consumption habits, parenting styles, and overall sense of meaning in life.

Have we become a society where people are more conditioned to fit in with the institutions we’ve built, or do our institutions really exist to help people?

Ethics, Faith, and the Meaning of Life

Moral obligation is a major tenet of the Abrahamic faiths. Many prophets urged people to do more than just follow the rules; they urged them to be kind, compassionate, honest, responsible, protective of the vulnerable, self-restrained in their greed, and accountable to God.

The material world is not the end goal of human existence, according to this view. During this fleeting phase, possessions like money, education, family, and influence take on the weight of duty.

Someone can be ethically bankrupt even if they have a ton of money. Someone else may be poor, but they have insight, compassion, and integrity.

Consequently, it’s not as easy as saying:

So far, what have we amassed?

Here it is:

How did we handle the resources that were put into our care?

There is a significant social component to religious concepts of good and evil as well. The concept of evil should not be reduced to a faceless, unknowable entity. It takes many forms, including but not limited to: treating another person as a means to an end (profit), being dishonest, cruel, conceited, corrupt, and greedy.

This is one way in which human organizations play a role in the conflict between good and evil.

The Rationing of Income and Influence

There have been many instances throughout history of small elites amassing vast amounts of money and political power.

Over the course of history, various groups have wielded considerable power. These groups include kings, aristocracies, landowners, colonial powers, industrial enterprises, financial institutions, political establishments, and, most recently, global technology businesses.

Still, attributing all of humanity’s ills to the actions of a secretive ruling class would be oversimplifying things.

The very nature of power structures is the most pressing concern.

When there is a concentration of power in one group over another, whether it is in terms of money, land, food, data, technology, politics, or resources, people start to wonder:

Who gets to call the shots?

To what end do their choices lead?

What about the people who are responsible for accepting the risks?

What is the relationship between the resource owners?

How much real freedom do regular people still have?

At this point, political economy and ethics are interwoven.

Producing billionaires, skyscrapers, sophisticated machinery, and big corporations is not enough for a civilization to be considered evolved. The conditions in which average people live should also be considered while evaluating development.

A Lack of Resources Does Not Define Poverty

The idea that global poverty could be solved if the richest families in the world only shared their wealth is an appealing one.

Actually, things are trickier than that.

Money is not the only factor that causes poverty. It is associated with having the means to acquire and use land, as well as with having access to healthcare, schools, jobs, clean water, stable governments, effective institutions, equitable marketplaces, infrastructure, safety, and opportunity.

Read: Poverty continues to plague rural Sindh

Thus, alleviating structural poverty requires more than just charitable giving.

Donating to a good cause can end hunger right now.

Justice must enquire as to the root cause of the person’s food insecurity.

Because of this, a key difference becomes apparent:

Charity can help in the short term, but justice aims to make people’s lives better so they don’t have to rely on charity forever.

Therefore, for a human being to live well, they need respect, opportunity, education, health, a job that matters, financial security, and a voice in matters that directly impact their lives.

Is the Goal of Education to Foster Critical Thinking or More Conformity?

The advantages of modern mass education are immense. There has been a meteoric rise in the availability of information, scientific understanding, professional training, and literacy.

However, there is a significant flaw in standardized education as well.

It is common practice to educate, test, and grade children with vastly varied abilities using the same framework and with the same assumptions about what constitutes intelligence.

However, no two people are exactly same.

Some kids just have a knack with numbers.

Soil, vegetation, fauna, and topography may all be familiar to someone else.

Someone else might have exceptional vision.

Someone else could pursue a career in art, farming, philosophy, engineering, writing, or invention.

When schools only value a small set of skills, many types of intelligence go unrecognized.

As a result, schools shouldn’t aim to turn out test takers and job applicants.

Humans should be able to think, question, observe, create, experiment, and solve issues as a result of this.

When a society’s members get good at rote memorization but are hesitant to pose novel questions, it becomes intellectually feeble.

The Role of Seeds in Agriculture and the Prospects for Future Biodiversity

One of the century’s most pressing moral dilemmas may revolve around food.

A number of factors are altering farming practices, including water shortages, biotechnology, GI crops, patents, AI, precision agriculture, and evolving seed systems.

Just because certain technologies exist doesn’t mean they’re bad.

An increase in production, an improvement in disease resistance, a decrease in crop losses, or even assistance in agriculture’s adaptation to changing climatic circumstances are all possible outcomes of agricultural biotechnology and improved seeds.

However, when farmers lose substantial influence over the systems that are crucial to their existence, technology turns into an ethical dilemma.

Hence, the genuine discussion need not to consist solely of:

A comparison of current seeds with traditional ones.

I have a more fundamental question:

Who is in charge of the seed?

Are farmers able to keep it?

Can it be replicated?

Will any of the regional varieties be able to continue existing?

Guess who gets to keep the rights to the ideas?

Is the technology out of reach for small-scale farmers?

Is biodiversity protected by the system?

Will farmers be better off or will they become even more reliant on a select few suppliers?

Sustainability, biodiversity, nutritional quality, food security, farmer autonomy, ecological footprint, and long-term resilience should be the metrics by which agricultural modernization is evaluated, rather than productivity per hectare alone.

Concerns about Modern Consumers’ Diets and Health

Something truly astonishing has been accomplished by modern civilization: the massive magnitude of food production, transportation, processing, preservation, and distribution.

However, quantity does not always indicate nutritious value.

New types of vulnerability can be caused by things like highly processed foods, too much sugar, unhealthy eating habits, food fraud in poorly controlled markets, environmental pollution, and the decline of traditional culinary knowledge.

However, low-income areas may not always have access to healthier options because of the heftier price tags associated with organic foods.

This leads to a conflict of ethics.

No one should have to go without healthy food because they don’t have enough money.

The goal of a fair food system should be to ensure that all families can afford to eat healthy, locally sourced food.

Human Rights, Families, and Women

Over the course of human history, women have consistently performed crucial domestic duties.

Historically, women’s expertise and work have been crucial in many areas, including child nutrition, emotional stability, health practices, household administration, cultural transmission, and children’s education.

This type of labor is not usually appreciated in modern society due to the fact that it does not always result in a salary.

Still, among any society’s most important tasks is ensuring that its youth grow up to be mentally and physically healthy and well-educated.

It is not necessary to conclude that all women should stay at home in order to acknowledge the significance of women’s roles within the family.

Equally, just because women have careers doesn’t imply they have to leave their families.

Issues of agency, accountability, equilibrium, and social support run deeper.

Men also can’t be left out of this calculation. Education, emotional growth, nourishment, home stability, and family life are all responsibilities that fall on fathers as well.

That being said, the superior inquiry is not thus:

Ought women to work outside the home or remain at home?

This is the more important inquiry:

What steps can we take to create a community where families thrive, children are well-cared for, unpaid careers are valued, and men and women alike enjoy respect, agency, and meaningful decision-making?

Are you freeing yourself or becoming dependent on technology?

An unprecedented technological era is upon us.

It is possible that developments in AI, robotics, biotechnology, genetic engineering, automation, monitoring systems, brain-computer interfaces, and ever-more-powerful algorithms will have an even greater impact on society than the Industrial Revolution.

These innovations have the potential to improve human health, agricultural practices, schooling, archaeological digs, emergency preparedness, transportation, and the advancement of knowledge.

On the other hand, new power centers can be born out of these same technologies.

Technological advancement begs the question of human autonomy to what extent a small number of institutions can control people’s access to information, the algorithms that shape their behavior, their communication infrastructure, and, more and more, the technologies that they use for work, consumption, and learning.

This leads us to believe that the most pressing issue facing modern society may not be:

Just how smart are our robots going to be?

Could be:

Is the rate of human wisdom development sufficient to control the artificial intelligence we build?

Having more technology does not automatically mean having more wisdom, especially when that technology lacks ethics.

Furthermore, increased capacity without wisdom can amplify both human ingenuity and human devastation.

Global Warming and the Fallacy of Endless Growth

For a long time, contemporary society acted as if the world’s natural resources were infinite.

I disagree.

Every aspect of our natural world is subject to certain constraints, including our water systems, forests, soils, oceans, biodiversity, arable land, and weather patterns.

Those boundaries will be faced by a society whose foundation is ever-increasing consumerism.

Because of this, climate change is about more than just the environment. Because of this, people have to reevaluate how they think about progress.

Does affluence imply increasing consumption with each passing generation?

Conversely, can affluence imply better community health, less pollution, more stable families, more education, fulfilling employment, preservation of cultural traditions, ecological harmony, and adequate financial stability?

The question of riches may need a rethinking by humanity.

An In-Depth Problem

There is a catastrophe with climate change.

An emergency exists in the form of poverty.

A catastrophe is food insecurity.

In times of war, there is an emergency.

Possible new catastrophes caused by technological upheaval.

However, more fundamental issues may be lurking beneath the surface:

Lacking a sense of righteous purpose.

Civilization can progress materially while morally deteriorating when education is framed primarily through the lens of employment, agriculture through the lens of profit, food as a commodity, human attention as a product, technology as a tool of control, nature as a resource, and humans as consumers.

People and their responsibilities would once again take center stage in a different culture.

Fairness prior to taking advantage of others.

Respect for human dignity preceding limitless profit.

Familiarity prior to modification.

Responsible consumption precedes carelessness.

Instead of people using technology to benefit themselves, technology should benefit humanity.

Last but not least,

Technology that humans have created is very remarkable.

We can have an instantaneous global conversation. We have the ability to study faraway galaxies, alter genomes, piece together long-lost civilizations, make smart devices, and alter landscapes on a grand scale never seen before.

However, progress in technology does not necessarily lead to moral progress.

Consequently, the ultimate test of our species’ mettle may lie in its ability to grow in knowledge, equity, moderation, empathy, and accountability at the same rate as its technological prowess.

The richest persons’ fortunes, the size of a nation’s economy, the height of its structures, and the sophistication of its machinery are not the sole measures of a civilization’s greatness.

A more telling indicator is how that culture handles the weakest member of society.

Is food available to that individual?

Potable water?

Is it education?

Medical treatment?

How about respect?

A safe and sound setting?

The liberty to ponder?

Have a shot at honing their skills?

And a significant social role?

Maybe this is the point when our technological, ethical, educational, agricultural, familial, and religious spheres converge.

How powerful humans can become is not the only important question about civilization.

Once we have that ability, it’s all about the kind of person we want to be.

Read: The Humans from another Planet

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Ali Lashari is an Assistant Director (Excavation & Exploration) & Cultural Heritage Advocate, Directorate of Archaeology & Antiquities Wing, Culture, Tourism, Antiquities & Archives Department, Government of Sindh.