Anthropocene angst could be the end of us all

Richard Godwin

’VE been re a d i n g u p o n the Apocalypse, usually a reliable source of escapism in the summer months. Every generation dreams it will be the last, and such dreams are ultimately reassuring: what could be more flattering than to discover that you and all your pets and classmates were the ones who mattered all along? But I must admit, the latest hot takes on the imminent destruction of humanity aren’t quite taking the edge off.

Over at the 35th International Geological Congress in South Africa a group of scientists are arguing that humankind has entered a brand new epoch — the Anthropocene — as distinct from the temperate Holocene, which gave rise to all that we hold dear about 11,500 years ago. In the Anthropocene (dating back to the first plutonium bomb tests in the 1950s) it’s humans, not gods or asteroids or tectonic plates, who have the greatest impact on the Earth’s biosphere. If we carry on destroying habitats, burning carbon and forgetting to bring our own bags to the supermarket, we will bring about its destruction.

Which is not to s ay that the Anthropocene is a dead loss; it’s just that t h e o n l y w ay o u t s e e ms equ ally terrifying. In his fascinating new book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari correlates recent technological and political movements to imagine a near-future in which humans control our own evolution. (He dates the Anthropocene to the emergence of humans 70,000 years ago, by the way, and points out that Stone Age man wasn’t much better than Facebook man.)

Harari believes artificial intelligence (AI) and biotech are developing at such a pace that 21st-century humans will soon transcend our corporeal limitations and acquire divine powers. “The train of progress is again pulling out of the st ation — and t hi s wil l probably be the last train ever to leave the station called he writes. Alarmingly however, “to get a seat on this train, you need to understand 21st-century technology, and in particular t h e p o we r s o f biotechnology and computer algorithms”.

It certainly puts Jeremy Corbyn’s battle with Virgin Trains into perspective. But Harari takes it a step further. Soon we will not only abandon the algorithmically illiterate but the entire philosophy of humanism that has shaped post-Enlightenment politics, since we won’t necessarily be born equal any more. The elect will become one with all the data of the universe; those left behind will face obsolescence or extinction. If you still use Hotmail, you’re livestock, basically.

It’s a convincing thesis. As soon as such technology becomes available it’s naïve to imagine we won’t use it. It also seems likely that swathes of humanity will become economically useless. And aren’t upgraded/optimised humans already emerging? See: Kim Kardashian’s bottom, antidepressants, gym culture, sleep apps, sex-reassignment surgery, the astonishing popularity of tattoos.

All the same, like most visions of the future it says more about our anxious and unequal present. Anthropocene angst — a feeling of being implicated but powerless — is itself a symptom of a culture that puts too much emphasis on individual choice. And the idea that man might create a digital god to save us is surely the ultimate narcissist fantasy.

We m a y face unprecedented challenges, but for the moment the unglamorous machinery of collective organisation, the rule of law and good governance look the best ways to meet them.