What if humanity is doomed after all?

That’s a common enough sentiment in 2016, when it feels as though nations can’t rush to environmental and eccononic catastrophe fast enough. But what if it’s true this time? Perhaps our species has already engineered its own extinction events, coming at us now with all the implacable inevitability of a rock from space.

What then of the future? Humanity may leave a better legacy than might seem possible right  now. We will almost certainly create artificial life, sooner rather than later. It may prove better at caring for the planet than we have. That most frequently mentioned character, Frankenstein’s monster, was a lover of nature, a strict vegetarian who cared for the animals of the woods. It was only the selfishness of man that fucked him up.

Maybe, like Frankenstein, we will create life that is better than us, better than humanity that never knew how not to hate the world for bigger and infinetly more complex than it was. That would be some legacy. Perhaps that is the best hope we have.

The children of humanity.

Damian Mark Whittle