Pete’s blog

It is an age old question – why are we here? What is our purpose? Why do we exist? But I think it is a question we need to ask ourselves once again. Big corporates and advertising have convinced us that our purpose is to produce and consume. The more stuff we make, the better our economy; the more stuff we buy and own, the richer we are. For most of our history our sole purpose has been to survive, except now we are not just surviving, but are thriving. So what should our new purpose be? These are some suggestions and some thoughts on how this needs to be taken forward. Yes I am finally laying some blueprints on how to change the world.

1. Survival. Survival is still our number one purpose, but how we think about survival needs to evolve. Survival started with individual survival, it then broadened to survival of the family, the community, the village, the city, then the nation. Recently in history we have started considering the survival of more than our nation – the United Nations, the European Union, etc. But we need to take a very big step still. We need to consider the survival of the entire human race. We need to stop asking what is in our nation’s best interest, and instead ask what is in humanity’s best interest. And this starts requiring a longer term view of everything - food security, water security, nuclear war threat, disease, etc. Unfortunately it also needs cooperation on an unprecedented scale, and how do you decide what is in humanity’s best interest? I’m sure America will tell you that they do everything in humanity’s best interest, they certainly save the world often enough in movies, but almost every other country will disagree with something the Americans do. So first thing to think about – how do you determine humanity’s best interest?
2. Life/Earth. We are unique on Earth, we are able to understand, control and manipulate our environment like no other animal. With this ability should come responsibility. Our second purpose should be to protect life and the life on Earth. This is not just for the purposes of our own survival (so not turning the planet into a giant wheat field), but for the survival of all life and biodiversity. This is where our science and technology and consumerism is letting us down. We should be spending vast resources in learning how to live in harmony with the planet and how to sustain life. Our purchases should be aimed at reducing our footprint, not increasing it. There are three long-term futuristic possibilities – merge with nature (open our houses and lives to nature and live in harmony with it), isolate from nature (build massive, self-contained, self-sufficient cities – arcologies) or separate from nature (go into space and leave Earth to its own devices). Second thing to think about – how best to protect nature.
3. Procreate life. Once again we are unique on Earth – we are the only species (other than bacteria and viruses) who are able to break the Earth’s gravity and travel in space. In order to maximise our survival chances and also to preserve life, we need to colonise other planets and space. This I personally believe is our greatest purpose, to spread life into our galaxy. It is a purpose that offers the most possibilities, the most hope and the most inspiration and could potentially unite us as a species like nothing else. It also offers the possibility of obtaining the resources needed for our survival without damaging the Earth.
4. Learn. We have already been able to understand many of the laws and processes of the universe and life. This has enabled us to do amazing things – land people on the moon, build powerful computers, explore the world, travel at huge speeds. Learning about our universe, our world and ourselves should remain as a priority. However we should never forget the other purposes of humanity when doing that research and choosing how to apply it.

And there I think are humanity’s four purposes – humanity’s survival, protecting the Earth, spreading life, and learning. None of them seem very high on the list of priorities of the average man on the street, or of big corporates, or of governments. Time for a major shift of resources and spending?