I was watching Glenn Beck on TheBlaze TV tonight and I had to turn this story off:

‘Transhumanist Movement’ Is Coming: The Ethical Dilemma Posed by Rapidly Advancing Technology

I had to turn it off to save my own sanity because I already understand where we’re heading.  No, I’m not claiming to know all the specific details about the technological advancements Beck was discussing, but then, I don’t have to know what they are: I already understand humanity well enough to see the inevitable conclusions.  And for me, that conclusion is that we – as a species – are quickly approaching the point where simple moral law will demand our extinction.  But don’t worry, I’d never do anything to bring this about – even if I had the ability (because I don’t have to: Christ will handle that when He returns).

Beck was telling his audience about these stories:

Meet ‘Rex’: The World’s First Bionic Man With Artificial Organs That Only Costs $1M

World First: 3D-Printed Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Ridiculously Accurate ‘Futurist’ Shares His Bold Prediction on The Glenn Beck Program

Now, I already understood where all this is heading long before Beck started talking about it, but for those who do not understand the threat here, let me try to explain.  Kurzweil may be brilliant, and he may not mean any harm with the technology he is developing, but then, how many scientists ever saw the weapons that would be developed from their work?  And now, Kurzweil is head of one of the world’s most massive data-gathering organizations in the world:

AI Legend Ray Kurzweil Is New Google Engineering Head

So, why is this a problem?  Well, it wouldn’t be – not if we still feared God.  But now that – as a society – we increasingly scoff at those who believe and even mock the very idea of God, society no longer contains the moral restraints necessary to prevent people from using our abilities for what amounts to nothing but pure evil design.  And that was the subject of this Blaze TV show:

How Are Advancing Tech, the ‘Singularity’ and Gov’t Regulation All Connected? Buckle Up and Let Glenn Beck Explain

You see, here is the problem: man is arrogant – so arrogant that he never sees that just because he can do something, it doesn’t mean he should.  Our arrogance also blinds us to things that then lead us to believe we are capable of more than we are.  The notion of ‘artificial intelligence’ is a good example.  AI is just that: artificial, not real.  For however good a job the programmer does to make a machine appear to ‘think,’ it is not thinking.  In the end, it is just executing a program.  We may believe we have taught the machine to ‘learn,’ but it doesn’t.  All it does is compile data and run it through whatever logarithms its programmer built into it so that it can better predict a given outcome the next time it encounters it.  But it has not thought nor learned.  In reality, we have just anthropomorphasized  our creation because we have an inner need to play god.

But that is another thing humans miss: the evidence for God.  It’s all around us; it’s everywhere you look – if you only stop to understand what you are seeing.  I covered before how science – real science – has discovered that there is an aspect to our conscience and our decision-making process outside our physical bodies that neuro-science cannot explain – except to say it points to the existence of the human soul.  Then there is the problem of a universe that operates on cause and effect, yet exists only because of a first.  In other words, before “The Big Bang,” there was no time, so it was impossible for any cause to happen to bring this universe into being – and yet, here we are.  Those who dismiss the possibility of God’s existence never seem to want to deal with this problem, or they try to dismiss it as well with childish questions such as “Well, who ‘caused’ God?”  In reality, that question betrays a colossal ignorance on the part of those who ask it.  The reality is that there must be a God, and that we are violating His natural law, and that such violations will have consequences.

But let’s relate this arrogant blindness back to the issue of technology.  Technology is the same issue as the one I just explained.  We have misunderstood what it really means: to us and for society.  We think technological advancement is a sign of advancement in intelligence and understanding, but it isn’t.  If I teach a monkey to use a hammer, I have not made him smarter.  If I then teach him to use a nail gun, he is still the same monkey.  And so it is with us: we’re just learning to manipulate things better, but we haven’t learned any better: we haven’t advanced – haven’t ‘evolved.’  If we had, then maybe we would understand the dangers of what this technology represents.

And this is the point where I realize those who are blinded by their arrogance will think me an enemy of ‘advancement,’ – especially the younger crowed.   I’m not; I just don’t believe that more sophisticated technology is the same thing as better understanding.   If it were, then maybe we’d see that it is not necessarily a good thing to be blending man and machine.  That ‘printing’ life has the very real risk of leading to things we will not be able to control.  And that the ability to track everything that every human does at every second of the day, and for a few people to have access to that data represents a weapon beyond anything that mankind has ever seen or imagined.  The Borg are no longer a thing of science fiction.  They’re on our doorstep now.  And if that is the path we are to travel as a society, then we are deserving of the same fate as the Borg – and for the same reasons.