Converging technologies and human destiny.
The rapid fertility decline in most advanced industrial nations, coupled with secularization and the disintegration of the family, is a sign that Western Civilization is beginning to collapse, even while radical religious movements pose challenges to Western dominance. Under such dire circumstances, it is pointless to be cautious about developing new Converging Technologies. Historical events are undermining the entire basis of ethical decision-making, so it is necessary to seek a new basis for ethics in the intellectual unification of science and the power to do good inherent in the related technological convergence. This article considers the uneasy relations between science and religion, in the context of fertility decline, and the prospects for developing a new and self-sustaining civilization based in a broad convergence of science and technology, coalescing around a core of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive technologies. It concludes with the suggestion that the new civilization should become interstellar.
Bainbridge
William Sims
WS
National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia 22230, USA. wbainbri@nsf.gov
D001709:Biotechnology / Q000941:ethics / Q000639:trends*; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems / Q000941:ethics / Q000639:trends*; D008297:Male; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000941:ethics / Q000639:trends*; D012070:Religion and Science