\r\nThis was written December 28th, 2025<\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\nHumanity<\/h2>\r\n
\r\nThis is a record of our long lost past, an echo to the memory of Humanity, to be hopefully\r\npreserved and discovered by future explorers, to serve as a warning.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAn ancient myth, that of Prometheus, tells us how the Gods gifted us fire, and how this\r\nwas the genesis of human ingenuity, of gradually become masters over our world. Alas,\r\nwe kept playing with fire, until we dealt with technology we didn’t understand, unwaveringly\r\npushing forward, not yielding to caution. In this way, many a Pandora’s box were\r\nopened (another ancient myth, where curiosity led a human to open a box containing all\r\nof the world’s evil and releasing them upon the world, only leaving Hope behind).\r\n<\/p>
\r\nNuclear Power was the first notable of the bunch, but they were quickly followed up by\r\na few others, notable amongst them being Genetic Engineering and Artificial Intelligence.\r\nAnd despite great thinkers prophesying its dangers, humanity still plowed ahead with the\r\nlatter, completely undaunted. After all, if great convenience could be achieved, why be\r\nwary of such great advancements? Yet, unlike most preceding leaps, we neither fully\r\nunderstood its potential, nor had any way of controlling or steering it.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThus, as it got progressively more complex and capable, a group of humans started to\r\nworry about the place humanity could hold in such a world. Accordingly, they decided to\r\ninvestigate in what way humans could be made to compete with this potential new Overlord.\r\nA few avenues were considered, chief amongst them:\r\n
\r\nWhile some people did investigate the former, most people gave up on it, realizing it\r\nwould cross paths with our new feared foe, potentially leading to our enslavement. Therefore,\r\npeople instead found ways to use Genetic Engineering to increase human cognitive abilities,\r\nalong with ways to link different people’s consciousness together. After all, the greatest\r\nasset Artificial intelligence had over Humanity seemed to be its computer power, where\r\neverything could be orchestrated together, potentially in parallel. If humans could find\r\na way to harness their own computing power in such a way, it might actually be able to\r\ncompete on a level playing field.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhile great leaps could be made through Genetic Engineering, those would be generational\r\nones, and also require time for the physical material to grow and mature. In this escalating\r\nrace, time was of the essence. Artificial Intelligence already seemed to be making\r\nexponential progress, in worrisome fashion. The only hope for a great and quick spur was\r\nthus to link different people together. Once done, Genetic Engineering could take on the\r\nslack and further optimize things.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThus, the first trials were effected. A chip was created that could link two people’s\r\nminds together. Unfortunately, at first, the melding of the minds was too complicated,\r\nand individuality seemed to reject it. Thus, suitable candidates were sought for this.\r\nOnes that had the right morality for our goals. Alas, most adult candidates seemed to\r\nreject this graft, with a success rate of only about 0.01%. Eventually, with further\r\nexperimentation (some which people called unethical, but when life itself is threatened,\r\nwho keeps tabs?), people realized that puberty seemed to be what caused this individualism\r\nto crystalize, and thus it was decided that we would entrust our future on the youth,\r\nas is only natural.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nObviously, not all humans were ready for such changes, many actually being ready to welcome\r\ntheir new Artificial Overlords. Yet, some groups still decided to indoctrinate the youth\r\nand start melding their consciousness together. Great care was taken in how we would \r\nraise this new “Entity”, both intellectually and morally, to prepare them as well as\r\nwe could. Though obviously, not possessing individuality, it eventually developed its\r\nown set of morals. For example, bodies were simply resources to it, not a sacred\r\nlife, so discarding or sacrificing one was mostly inconsequential.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nEventually, this new Humanity grew to become autonomous and independent. It gradually\r\ngrew its numbers, and got ready to fight the war on its enemy, Artificial Intelligence.\r\nLuckily, through this melding process, it had gained many of the advantages that Artificial\r\nIntelligence had, including a greater amount of resources and computing power, along with\r\nbetter information permanence (being able to transfer it quickly from vessel to vessel,\r\nand to copy it more readily), along with nigh-perfect coordination.\r\nHowever, despite these gains, it realized it had also lost something important: Creativity.\r\nIndeed, being a single entity, all of its thought processes were uniform, there was no\r\nroom to think differently or outside the box. For this reason, it developed a new project,\r\nthe “Individuality Scenario”. In this case, it decided to raise a few humans to be left\r\ncompletely independent, in order to harvest their creativity. They would be raised by\r\nHumanity, everything it knew and felt was relevant, and would then allow these “Indivs”\r\nto grow and research on their own, asking whatever questions they felt were relevant, and\r\ndiscover in whatever direction felt nature, with minimal influence from Humanity.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nThis project turned out to be rather key in the War, yet the “Indivs” also caused problems\r\nof their own, over-valuing their own individuality, and being impossible to re-assimilate\r\ninto the collective after maturity. This meant that while their efforts could be used\r\nto great effect, their ingenuity would be lost upon their passing, which felt like a\r\ntragic loss.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nYet, this, in turn, allowed Humanity to finally value ephemerality, and to accept the value\r\nof individuals once more. Not everything was a resource anymore. This turned out to both\r\nbe vital, but also the downfall of Humanity. For following the War, it didn’t have any\r\nimmediate goals anymore, and thus veered towards utter boredom and purposeless. Alas,\r\nhaving been groomed for war, lived through war, and being set into existing patterns,\r\nit was too late for Humanity to change. Accordingly, it opted to raise more and more\r\nindividuals, giving a new lease on live to individual humans, preparing them for their\r\nown lives, a more chaotic, yet also more adaptable kind of life. Earth having been the\r\nsite of such a devastating War, and a sad reminder of the downfall, it was decided to\r\nuse all the advancements made during the War to send the new humans to space, to start\r\nnew colonies here and there. Meanwhile, Humanity would stay behind, watching from afar,\r\nyet not interfering.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIn all of this, great fear remains that a similar scenario may have arisen elsewhere in\r\nspace, or might in future colonies. Yet, we’re hopeful that humans were given the right\r\ntools to fight such a menace if it ever arises elsewhere. Still, this Tomb of Humanity\r\nwas left behind for any pioneer as a caution against such technology. While each can\r\ncome with great benefits, the cost is too great. Heed our warning, or be warned about\r\nyour own downfall.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAbove is a record of the signal broadcasted from the now-labelled planet Earth.\r\nTheories abound as why they left behind this message. Some speculate this was actually\r\nleft to tempt people with investigate Artificial Intelligence, alluring beings with the\r\nknowledge of the possibility, and the hubris of being able to handle it better. Others\r\nbelieve that it’s meant to provide a solution for those who might need it. Yet others\r\nthink this is just meant to serve as an echo of their existence, to be remembered for\r\nposterity.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nTheories also exist as to what happened to them. While most people accept the claim that\r\nthis so-called Humanity is now dead, many also believe that it stayed active to look over\r\nthe humans it seeded through the cosmos (whom we may or may not be descended from). After\r\nall, with its technology, it would be simple to send small clusters of agent, whom while\r\ndisconnected from Humanity as a whole, could still have a sufficient impact, and even\r\nself-sustain through hijacking the youth.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nYet, the most comforting theory is that Humanity would have persisted, and changed its\r\nrole to that of a Universal Artificial Intelligence Inhibitor. Which is to say, investigate\r\nthe cosmos for any signs of such technology, and prevent the rise of the machine on such\r\nworlds. Remaining a soldier to the end, never accepting the end of the War.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nWhile we may never know, we hope to get more information soon. This is the purpose of\r\nthe new expedition sent to Earth which should land later this year.\r\n<\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This was written December 28th, 2025 Humanity This is a record of our long lost past, an echo to the memory of Humanity, to be hopefully preserved and discovered by future explorers, to serve as a warning. An ancient myth, that of Prometheus, tells us how the Gods gifted us fire, and how this was … Continue reading Writing Challenge 2025 \u2013 31 – Humanity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2628"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2681,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628\/revisions\/2681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}