Human Extinction

Jeremy Anderson
November 16, 2016

With a multitude of different species on the endangered species list, and with the
rapid decline in natures health since the latest boom in technological advancement,
humans have the potential of being added to that list. If humans are good at one thing, its
creating tools to make every-day life easier. Many of these tools include refineries, cars
and other machines that produce certain emissions harmful to our health because they are
not compounds found naturally in earths atmosphere. A simple solution to this problem
would be to stop using the things degenerating the health of the natural world. Another
solution, in an article published in American Scientist by Hillary Rosner, would be held
in the potential of technological advancement or in other words human cyborgs.
While we have the potential to integrate biological life with technology, (Rosner, 70)
discusses the plausibility of human-technology integration. One particular question he
raised was about what it meant to be human, and how integral technology might
eliminate said humanity. First of all, the brain works by firing synapses through nerve
cells that communicate with each other. This happens billions on times per second, and
there are billions of neurons in the brain. Somewhere within those neurons and synapses
is where some neurologists believe hold the key to our identities. Which Rosner
explains as a potential roadblock in this type of advancement because it does raise
concern not only about what it means to be human, but what it would mean if we, as a
species were to lose that.
As humans, we are vulnerable to natural systems. If technology proved advanced
enough to eliminate our reliance on the natural world, we may lose a connection to the
natural world, but have the potential of living forever or be immortal. Another concern
with immortal human-cyborg life that was raised in this article is the morality of humans
and how this morality could potentially be effected by uploading the human brain into a
cyborgwhich could only, in theory, happen. One questions Rosner asked was whether
or not humans would still hold, or even be taught that they have a moral obligation to the
rest of humanity. One philosopher she interviewed who goes by Sander, co-authored a
paper called Transhumanism, Human Dignity, and Moral Status, which argued that
enhancing humans with more than merely physical attributes would have an effect on
how we treat the rest of the population (or more specifically, murder for example, is seen
as wrong in society and with human-robot integration that view may possibly diminish).
Other scientists believe in Moral Enhancement through medical or biomedical methods
in order to ultimately upgrade our moral principles. If were going to have massive
intelligence and power at our disposal, we need to ensure Dr. Evil wont be at the
controls, Rosner explains. Ultimately, the decision to be uploaded into a cyborg must be
made at the individual level, and may never truly become possible, but we, as a human
race, must find a solution to reverse the decline in natural resources every human needs to
survive.
In an article in New Scientist, Author Sol Richard discusses a method that has
the possibility of restricting the negative consequences seen in regard to climate change.
The author goes on to explain that when a lake is covered by algae, it has reached a
tipping point, or a point in which conditions have gotten so bad, we need an unnatural
solution to solve the problem faster than it will solve itself. One solution that has
consistently proved successful is the removal of larger, predatory fish in lakes. This is an
example of reversing the effects of an ecosystem once it reaches, or even surpasses its
tipping point.

Earth, however, is on its way to its tipping point. There are many presented
solutions because this is a rather well-known issue, but I found the ideas in this article to
be most plausible. Sol explains that he has a better idea than reverse engineering, or
using giant space mirrors to reflect some of the suns energy away from earth. His
solution would be synthetic biology, which means using unnatural processes to create
natural things. This would be done by examining specific cells already effected by
environmental change, plug[ging] chunks of DNA that code for specific jobs and getting
the cell to do new things without affecting it otherwise. This solution would the answer
to a multitude of ecosystems reaching their tipping point such as: Polluted bodies of
water, our atmosphere and greenhouse gasses, preventing the spread of arid climates that
make life harder to grow, etc. The possibilities of reparative outcomes using synthetic
biology are endless, we just have to figure out how to create nature through unnatural
means.
This solution entails two different theoretical methods. One being to transfer a
specimen from its natural environment to an experimental environment (while genetic
information is transferred or if the genes are carefully selected in order to have an
organism whose outcome is new functionality that will ultimately save its life), and back
to its natural environment. The other would be to inject genetic material into a cell and
have it naturally incorporated into their genome.
One specific experiment I would like to focus on would be cyanobacteria. Sol
has analyzed bacterial transplant experiments, one of which happened between 1992 and
1994. The period of experimentation was so short due to the large number of failed
experiments. The problems were boiled down into microbes not being able to properly
adapt to survive in their new or unfamiliar environment. One moral question raised from
these methods is whether or not we are biting more than we can chew, or if well be able
to manage such large-scale ecologic change. Aside from that, new research has
unearthed in recent years, that it is in fact not only plausible, but possible for synthetic
creations to behave in the way we want them to. For example: It is possible to give
bacteria a suicide switch that turns on automatically once the organism strays outside
the boundaries we define for it. There is an experiment that was done by Hendrik Jonkers
at Delft University in the Netherlands. It entailed him inserting synthetically made
bacteria into concrete, and when cracks would develop, the bacteria spring to life and
produce a calcium compound designed to repair damage.
Another, more natural, theoretical solution Sol presents is the plausibility of
removing sewage from main waterways. Bacteria could be designed to somehow capture
carbon dioxide or to break down toxic waste chemicals, along with turning itself off in
the presence of clean, fresh or open water.
Lastly, with some of these possible solutions in mind, its plain to see that a few of
them are farfetched, but these outlandish ideas serve to illuminate the fact that our
planetas well as the life it supports is dying, and in order to ensure the continuation of
our species, measures must be taken to manipulate our surroundings in a way that ensures
the best possible outcome, which would be the survival of the human race and the decline
of harmful processes weve created that largely contribute to the desiccation of important
life-supporting ecosystems.

Literature Cited
ALL TOO HUMAN. By: Rosner, Hillary, Scientific American, 00368733, Sep2016, Vol.
315, Issue 3
BACK FROM THE BRINK. By: Sol, Ricard, New Scientist, 02624079, 10/1/2016, Vol.
232, Issue 3093