Let’s take this first week of 2025 to think about the future. The distant future.
Where is it all going with life, evolution, and progress? Is natural selection still natural? Who’s doing the selecting: is it environmental factors or is it us? If humanity is somehow exiting the natural process that created it, will evolution still lead to the ‘best’ results? Will our descendants be mindless meatwads slithering through a plastic-nuclear wasteland, or will they be hybrid organo-mechanical creatures with the knowledge and powers of the gods? Or should we try to stay more or less the same for a million years, and create an intergalactic human empire?
What happens when you gain control over your genetic future?
For a little inspiration, take a look at this short (and slightly gruesome) comic called Darwin’s Defeat, by RG Llarena and Axel Medellin.
And if you’re around on January 7th, join me in the Echo building as we ponder the course of the distant future. There is a new art exhibition in the foyer which is so endearingly lovely yet terrifying that we simply need its inspiration for this conversation.
EXISTENTIAL TUESDAYS
Existential Tuesdays are small weekly* lunch discussions in the Nook of the TUD Library. Practice your critical thinking skills, learn to see the world from different perspectives, and hang out with your fellow deep thinkers in Delft.
Interested in other events in the Nook? Sign up for the newsletter to find out what else we’re planning.
* no sessions during exam weeks or study weeks
