Ask Jamie Metzl, an acclaimed futurist, what the future holds and the answer might surprise: we already know, because we’re already in it.
The human species is well on the path of developing and applying “god-like” powers to “read, write and hack the code of life”, Metzl says. And the consequences of that, “we’re seeing right now” – in fact, more than 90 per cent of us literally have the very latest of the biotechnology revolution inside us, in the form of the revolutionary mRNA vaccines which have been developed to fight the Covid pandemic.
“mRNA vaccines are basically injecting instructions to your cells… to do something they weren’t naturally designed to do, which is create this foreign object that is the spike protein from the SARS-COV2 virus. Then your body identifies that foreign intruder that you have produced – you are the manufacturing plant, and that’s how you get your immunity.”
For Metzl, talking in the fifth episode of the WellBeings podcast with Dominic Bowden, the point is less about individual technologies – even the “magic” of those vaccines, as he puts it – and much more about how all of us respond to them.
“We should all recognise that we’re making societal choices about how these technologies are used and should be regulated, and everybody should be part of that process.”
Those who resent technology and feel we should go back to “natural” ways, he argues, “we’ve already passed that point”.
“It’s not `technology yes or no?’. It’s, `technology, how best for humans?’ ” – and, he adds, for other species.
Those who resent technology and feel we should go back to “natural” ways, he argues, “we’ve already passed that point”.
“It’s not `technology yes or no?’. It’s, `technology, how best for humans?’ ” – and, he adds, for other species.
The Covid vaccines may be a more immediate example of how some will view the possibilities of technology as evil in themselves. Metzl sees them as amazing, the benefits they have delivered to humanity even more so.
“The fact that we have this hope of the vaccines is just incredible. Because if we didn’t have it, imagine this was like 100 years ago with the Spanish flu, and we just had to wait for this virus to burn through 7-8 billion humans. That would have been even more terrifying than this is.”
For those who fear technology his advice is, “just because something feels unnatural doesn’t mean it’s wrong or dangerous… Everything we have felt unnatural and dangerous, until it’s normalised.
“Nobody should be afraid of the technology in and of itself…
“All of this stuff seems like magic until it shows up… [and then] it just becomes normal.”
