Human Gods

In 1346, an unknown disease wiped out about 150–200 Million people in the span of about 7 years in the Continent of Europe. The people didn’t know that the cause of the death was a microscopic bacteria.

The Black death is by far the deadliest pandemic humans have ever faced. Back then, nobody understood anything about it simply because we did not have the tools to figure out the problem let alone solve it. The first time we even looked into the finer details of biological systems was about 300 years later in 1665 when Robert Hooke first looked through a lens to discover cells.

Yesterday I got my Covid vaccine and the same night I was in a terrible state, I could not get up, my body shivered to the point where I felt I might faint. Headaches disrupted my condition and I could only wonder what was wrong with me.

The next morning when I was in a state where I could at least function, I sat down to read how do these vaccines work at the molecular level. The fascinating thing is the amount of complexity that is involved in them and the way they are engineered. As humans, we possess such technology at this point in time that would be unimaginable about 100 years ago. It wouldn’t even be in the realm of magic. It didn’t even take us a year to make these Vaccines

We can go down to the fundamentals of reality itself and play around to alter it. For example, the current Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines use mRNA tech which , simply put , have the instructions to make the protein that the virus is composed of so that the immune system can learn to break it down.

When I read about such things they seem unbelievable at times. We can create engines which can take vehicles up to 30 times the speed of sound, hack defense mechanisms of bacteria to edit the genetic makeup of the body , create machines which can outperform ourselves, make cars which drive themselves and have access to information about anything around anywhere on the planet in seconds, we can split atoms to generate energy for our livelihood. We can literally put a helicopter on our neighboring planet.

What blows my mind even more is the span of time in which these technologies emerged. General relativity was laid out by Einstein back in 1915 and using that understanding it didn’t even take us a century to make GPS satellites. Having satellites was unimaginable let alone flight. James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of the DNA back in the 1950s and here we are, altering it. The Wright Brothers created the first aircraft back in 1903 and 44 years later Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier aboard an aircraft. Add 22 years more and there we are, setting our first step on the Moon. These timelines are truly inconceivable.

The question that arises in my mind is , why? What was the driving force that made us do all of this? Was it just a by product of science which was laid out in the 1900s or was it the wars what were fought that advanced technology to such an extent? what was the incentive?

The even bigger question is who has control over these technologies? Companies? Governments? It is a different story in different places around the world. In India, because of our socialist roots, most of space technology is controlled by the government and we barely manufacture jets. Contrary to that, in US, companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, SpaceX and other private players do the job.

Should there be regulation on technology? if yes, who regulates it? Government? Aren’t they selfish enough to satisfy their own incentives?

I ask these questions to the reader because we are living in a time where we possess Godlike technology. We could destruct our civilization in an instant with a tiny mishap in handling nuclear weapons.

The thing is, if governments have control over technology then they could use it to attain global superiority, and as soon as one country does that, others immediately follow. If you hand it down to individual companies, they use it as much as possible to gain profit (arguably) , the best example being big tech giants like Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon. But then, can we live without their services?

In my opinion, I would say experimenting with technology should be always allowed. This is because it is a complementary thing. When we advanced optics and space technology enough , we could send a telescope (Hubble) to look far away. That lead to better understanding in other fields in science. Improvement in one thing paves the path for improvement in other areas as well when it comes to technology and science. Only the incentive needs to be positive and in favor of humanity.

So take a step back and just appreciate the time in which you are live, because here, anything can happen, it only requires will.