Enrique Suarez’s Answers to Mr. Stephen Hawking’s Comments about the Long-term Future of the Human Race
I wrote this Article Back in 2017
Stephen Hawking: “I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load”.
Enrique Suarez’s answer: I believe that the long-term future of the human race is to learn to live together in this beautiful planet by respecting and enhancing the human economic system to operate, somehow, at a pace that ensures all other species their place in Earth’s ecosystem, while it provides decent livelihoods for all humans. The main responsibility for this paradigm change lies in the corporations’ faulty growth-for-the-sake of growth archetype based on greed (and governments that support them) that created the climate change in the first place and the consequences for the rest of us that Mr. Hawking is talking about. Therefore, what “we the people” have to do is to pressure “our governments” with all kinds of activism to be more responsible with the majority of their constituencies that want the climate change to be addressed for governments can be held more accountable than corporations as history demonstrates.
Moreover, scientists also know that not all planets are capable of sustaining life. We know that already for quite some time because in our solar system Earth is the only planet of which we certainly know that it sustains life. Mars could also have had life on it, but that isn't for sure. And my own instincts tell me why the creator or superior intelligence created sustainable life on this planet Earth and not on others. Do we know this reason?
Stephen Hawking: “I see great dangers for the human race. There have been a number of times in the past when its survival has been a question of touch and go. The Cuban missile crisis in 1963 was one of these. The frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future. We shall need great care and judgment to negotiate them all successfully. But I'm an optimist. If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries, our species should be safe, as we spread into space”.
Enrique Suarez’s answer: I am optimistic too that we can avoid disaster not by going to live to other planets but to stay here but with one big caveat; we need to recognize and realize by experience and not by belief, who we really are and what our place and purpose in this planet is all about which will only come in my opinion by appreciating and experiencing life itself within us as opposed to philosophizing it, so that we can see the beauty of our own existence, therefore the beauty of life itself, that is, that both life and planet Earth are a gift for all of us. If we think in this way, then we know that technology can be on our side to improve life’s existence for all of us here on this planet. The reason why I am stressing so much this point is that I experience almost every day the wonders of life if we know where to look for.
Stephen Hawking: “If we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, we should make sure we survive and continue. But we are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history. Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million. Our only chance of long term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space. We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space. That is why I'm in favor of manned, or should I say "personed," space flight”.
Enrique Suarez’s answer: As I said above, “we the people” did not create the environmental crisis but it was superimposed on all of us by the “corporate elite’s own narrow view of how humans conduct economic activity. Therefore, the selfish and aggressive instincts that Mr. Hawking is talking about are not universal or genetically-driven but environmentally-driven and only practiced by a few. Therefore, “we the people” at a minimum, have to pressure and enlighten our governments so that they can see the main mission of businesses as enabling people to fulfill their innate creative talents by meeting the economic needs of genuine human customers without impairing the operation of Earth’s biosystem.
Having said this, I also know that institutions cannot create this necessary inner and spiritual understanding that we are all connected on this planet, but they can only facilitate this understanding. In other words, the change that I am talking about needs to take place in each individual first. This paradigm change does not need to be complicated or controversial either, that is, if we want to be prosperous, all we have to do is to be generous. If we want to be smart, all we have to do is to be simple. And If we want to be strong, all we have to do is to be kind.
Sincerely yours,
Enrique Suarez
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