^{Published in ILLUMINATION}

In my last article, we discussed how to think about the SHAPE of Self, Society, Civilization, and Humanity at large. Each shape has a size, quality, and various domains of activity within it. It grows in scale the further away they are from the Self and uncovers how difficult it gets to comprehend the whole picture the further away we get. We ended with Humanity and its dual-phase type of quality. Quantum thinking might call this superposition if you're nerdy like me about that stuff.

Indeed, Humanity has a superposition in that it is planetarily huge and intimately tiny, encompassing the totality of all of us and each of us simultaneously. It’s tough to think of things that way and how they impact our daily lives, but I find it helpful when stepping back and reflecting on how we interact with each other. So, when topics like climate change, political views, or the future of AI come up, I tend to extract from my mental SHAPE map to understand better where others are coming from and then start forming my opinions.

We’ve journeyed through the intricate dance of human activity, proximity, and engagement, exploring how digital technology reshapes our personal and societal landscapes. Now, let’s broaden our horizon, venturing into the spheres of Earth, the Universe, and Existence itself, where the digital intertwines with the cosmic, revealing the profound impact of our technosapien evolution.

The SHAPE of Existence, Part 2

The alarming number of messages demanding your attention and urgency is getting out of control. The human brain has a limited capacity for what it can concentrate on and care about. We have to protect it, which is much harder today. Let’s expand our minds by summarizing the complex systems that make up the Earth, the Universe, and our concept of Existence so that maybe we can keep in mind the totality of our impact.

EARTH — Hypercomplex and planetary!

All of humanity operates throughout the environment, shaping and being shaped by all ecosystems and ecologies across Earth. Ecologies like Grasslands, Tundra, Mountains, Forest, Oceans, Desserts, Glacers, and I would include Urbanity are the backdrop of all things on Earth. As our culture augments toward hyperconnected global communication networks, what does that mean on a planetary scale for our environment, climate, and life sciences? Sociologists posit a new epoch across the great scale of time we are now in, the Anthropocene. It is an epoch where the scale of human activity has grown to a strength that now affects planetary systems such as the Earth’s climate, oceanic flows, and living ecosystems, where it had never before. In other words, humanity has become a planetary force contending against the other ecologies.

Moreover, we continue developing larger tech-induced hyperobjects by venturing into AI, Quantum Computing, and globalized digital marketplaces that take finite resources and energy to maintain. Both efforts are to develop tech to move us away from the climate threshold, while others are trending in the other direction, catalyzing our climate concern.

How can we understand various technologies' impact on the planet more easily and incidentally back onto ourselves? We should all have an inherent awareness of our planet’s ecosystems, how they generally work and interact at large and local scales, and the impact we have on them, and they have on us.

Here are some starters regarding our digital footprint on Earth:

1. Climate Change and Digital Technology: The digital revolution is not without its environmental cost. Data centers, the backbone of our internet, consume an estimated 2% of the world’s electricity, emitting as much CO2 as the airline industry. Yet, technology also offers unparalleled tools for combating climate change. From AI-driven climate models to blockchain for sustainable resource management, digital technology is a double-edged sword.

2. Biodiversity and Connectivity: Digital technology has the power to both harm and heal our planet’s biodiversity. On one hand, the proliferation of electronic waste and habitat disruption from tech infrastructure pose significant threats. On the other, citizen science apps and remote sensing technology have become vital in tracking and protecting endangered species.

3. Agriculture and Food Security: Precision agriculture, powered by IoT devices, drones, and AI, is revolutionizing how we grow food, making farming more efficient and less resource-intensive. This technological advancement could be the key to feeding a growing global population while minimizing environmental impact.

THE UNIVERSE — interstellar complexity and astronomically massive, yet it is discoverable.

We can no longer limit the understanding of human activity on planet Earth; we must stretch our horizon to yet another magnitude and include the universe. It is very hard to comprehend, but as we uncover cutting-edge scientific discoveries about how the universe works, how does this impact how we relate to the largest entity known to humankind?