The Greatest Threat to Humanity

BY SOFO ARCHON

This is the transcript of a spontaneous talk.

What is the biggest threat to humanity?

Some people say that it’s a possible third world war — a war that could kill most, if not all, humans through the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.

Others say that the biggest threat to humanity is artificial intelligence, which could theoretically surpass human intelligence and start acting in uncontrollable ways against human welfare.

Still other people say that the biggest threat to humanity is resource depletion. They claim that as the human population grows and as our environment becomes more and more degraded, fewer and fewer people will have access to even basic resources such as food and water, resulting in mass starvation, disease, and social destabilization.

But in my view, none of those things are a real threat to humanity.

To me, the real threat to humanity is this: humans themselves. Because if you think about it, it is humans who make wars and create weapons of mass destruction. It is humans who develop and use technology such as artificial intelligence in unwise or possibly threatening ways. It is humans who are causing so much damage to Earth to the point that soon we might be facing ecological collapse.

Humans do all of those things because of their arrogance and their stupidity, which result from their egoistic mindset, which itself is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of who they are. Humans don’t see themselves as being intrinsically connected to this planet and to other humans. Blinded by self-interest and driven by desires such as perpetual economic growth and technological progress, they are killing the very planet they depend on, and they are fighting among each other when everybody could have enough and all humans could live peacefully and in harmony with Earth.

And unless we wake up to the reality of who we truly are, unless we let go of our superfluous values and start living wisely and responsibly, sooner or later we are bound to annihilate ourselves.