[I know that the Greek is probably UTTERLY mangled, but, hell, I never had any classes!]
I’m not really afraid of nature in as much as I simply don’t like many things that are considered “natural” by modern designers and most of western civilization.
This became apparent when I started shopping for my new place and most of my friends and family didn’t really like what I was going for: Hard angles, no “warm” colours, no plants of any kind and a strict adherence to a cubical and semi-symmetrical order. My living room is probably the most unsafe room for kids to be in, in the whole of Germany. The furniture is angled and has sharp and defined angles. There are next to no cushions. It’s all black and hard wood. Apart from the sofa, which is black and made out of some synthetic fibres, but is still rectangular and spots an interesting amount of hard angles for something not made out of a hard material.
I decided against a rug and took to a dark-brown laminate as my floor.
I prefer other things in that way, too. I love how the iPhone 4/4s look compared to their forefathers. I almost purchased an iPad1 over the 2 model simply because I don’t like Apple’s penchant for “rounded edges”. I want to feel the edges. I want them pronounced and crisp and straight and as perfect as possible. I want to have the illusion that I could [i]shave[/s] with my gadgets.
My mouse and keyboard are as rectangular as possible. I even got rectangular plates and non-rounded cutlery.
And on a greater scale, I abhor how many people seem dead-set to retain the human form “as is” because they consider it “natural”. Fuck that! Nature fucked up. We’re a messy, badly designed species and we should use all the technology we have to make ourselves in our image. Nature might have started evolution, but I don’t see a single reason why we should be bound by it when we have the capabilities to exceed nature’s design in favour of something more useful to our actual way-of-live.
If I could have the transhuman options of cutting out sleep, defecation/urination and uncontrollable emotional and neurological reactions, I would do so withing a heartbeat. If I could make a surgeon take out my natural eyes and implant me a set of high-def, stereoscopic, wireless-enabled cyber-eyes with a wide range of civilian modifications, I’d do so. Without even thinking twice. Just because I was born with something doesn’t mean I have to die with it.
The idea that we should bow down to nature and try to emulate it is something I simply cannot grasp.
We are Humanity. We are here now. And we are, in the long run, a very much endangered species. Yes, mostly by our own doing, I agree. I don’t want to contest that. Multiple generations of humans fucked up, badly and spectacularly, on the environmental macro and micro scales. We made sure that we have dark times in front of us.
But we shouldn’t only be looking into how we can “heal” our planet. (I mean, fuck, DON’T STOP! Keep going and work as hard as you can on this!)
We should also look into how we can adapt ourselves to survive in new environments. And we shouldn’t stop because of any “sacred human form” bullshit.
This is our world. Our existence.
We should be working hard on stamping our own stamp on us. Nature isn’t perfect in all things. It does things right, to a point. But we should look into ways to get things BEYOND that point. To further ourselves. To advance our state of being. To enhance our frail and stupidly-plumbered frames.
Societies should stop bowing down to gods which probably don’t exist and start standing up, taking “destiny” into their own hands. If any supernatural beings want to make sure that we don’t deviate from any of their plans, they are welcome to manifest and tell us. But as long as they don’t, why the fuck do so many people keep themselves bound to the tenets of faiths which were corrupted to serve the will of other humans for centuries?
Yes, I’m an atheist. I’m also a technocrat and a transhumanist and a hopeless romantic.
There is an unparalleled beauty in a sunrise. There is beauty in a rose. There is beauty in how eco-systems work and adapt and create.
I am one of those people who can stop in their tracks on a sunny day, pick a flower, smell the air and smile like a fucking idiot because it’s just SUCH a good day.
I hope each and every day that we will find out, somewhen, that we are not unique snowflakes. That there is sentience and sapience besides ourselves. Because frankly, that would shut some of my most hated anthro-centric philosophies right up.
Yet, I still want ourselves, as a species, go further than that. To stop limiting ourselves because some lines of research are labelled “un-natural”.
Let’s leave nature behind.
Let’s step forward and create and design and re-design and adapt and innovate natural systems around us and inside us and between us.
Let’s become gods ourselves. Forgers of our own survival, on our own terms, from our own wills and minds.
…
That… Kinds crept on me.
It should have only been a small commentary on how I don’t like round “edges” and houseplants.
I… Don’t really know why I kept typing. Take this as a stream of consciousness. But this just came out of me, and this IS how I feel. Even though I myself feel and see that some points are lacking definition and aren’t worded as clear as they could be. Or should be. But this, right here? That’s what just came out of me, as one long string of thoughts and impressions. This is me. A part of me. What makes me. What IS me.
