Perils of humanity

What would be the state of affairs if we were immortal? Human beings like every other being perish after some time. The amount of degradation caused by a human in his/her lifetime to the environment is just insurmountable. We can only imagine the extent of damage done to the environment and the moral degradation that humans will undergo if there were no timelines for our lives by a phenomenon of death.

Recent discoveries in the field of medicine have been quite successful in extending the lives of humans. The discovery of medicinal drugs, patient specific treatments and targeted delivery of medicine to a diseased part of the body has aided this process. The research in Stem cells and other totipotent cells has helped in recovery and sometimes even replacement of damaged organs. The manipulation of DNA for acquiring specific characters are on the way. We already have cloning and designer babies causing serious ethical concerns. Overall, when humans acquire power and control over the nature by the way of technology, we tend to misuse it by crossing the line of morals.

So technological improvements and innovations which is supposed to improve the lives of all humans is creating and aggravating inequality among the haves and the have nots and slowly degrading our morals. So is it technology or power that corrupts us ? Wherever we see power, we see domination and recession, so power by its very nature makes one superior and the other inferior. All the norms and values that we have imbibed right from the childhood are given up and we acquire new characteristics and values once we gain power. That means that the values embedded in the subconscious by the way of passive hypnotisation right from childhood gets changed and manipulated very easily by power. If that were the case of nature, then what would be the consequences. Nature has unlimited power and if nature decides to vanquish everything including itself, then what would remain?

We see an example of King Ashoka in history. He is called "Ashoka, The great" not because of the conquest and his prowess, but he adopted Dhamma(Prakrit) or Dharma(Sanskrit) after winning a war. Winning a war is gaining power over the people. It is easy to adopt Dharma after losing, but after winning the war, adopting dharma is something which has to be cognised by humanity. After acquiring power, the king saw the suffering that the people will undergo. He developed an empathy towards the sufferers, stood in their positions and felt what they felt. Then he realised that if he could do something like that to others, then there will be someone who could do the same thing to him.

From this example, we have to realise that if we could look down on other species, then there will be other species taking birth in the universe for looking down upon us. All the technological advances have made us feel invincible that we can defy everything in nature. But time and again we have seen our ego being crushed to ground and humbled. Still we don't realise the complexity of nature. If power can corrupt our morals, then what would be the purpose of having a conscience. We are no better compared to other species which have lesser intellect than us. This brings us to the question that why do humans have a higher intellect than other species and what is the purpose of a human in this world. The nature has a complete and absolute capacity to survive without us, but still the nature has sustained our lives. What might be the reason?!