I've found meditation to be a useful tool for mental pain. Watching one's own consciousness is actually quite fascinating. You notice the thought stream running through "your head". This stream is active at all times, feeding off the past, projecting onto the future, happy, sad, angry, anxious. It's a very bumpy ride and makes life painful. A lot of difficulties are created by this stream.
Meditation is the process of 'noticing' this. Just to see it in action is a kind of liberation because one realizes that one is not actually subject to this at all. By quietly watching, one sees that anxiety is caused in the present by fear of what might happen in the future. Thoughts keep dragging you out of "what is now".
If, instead, you just silently witness "what is now", good things happen. Pain dissipates (you are alive in infinity after all), and you connect with a truth hard to describe.
I've discovered a way to avoid pain. That is to be self aware. Self awareness is a choice we must make from moment to moment. It is constant watchfulness. A personal design. "A way out of hell" as Gandhi theorized. Extreme emotions make us feel alive but they are a sad substitute for tranquility.
The mere awareness of the operations of our own thought processes is liberation itself.
The sun shines. We are on a tiny ball of rock orbiting this sun on the outer arm of an insignificant galaxy in an insignifcant portion of an infinite universe. Scientifically, no matter what direction you direct your attention to, from the smallest thing (down to the size of an atom and below) to the largest thing (up to the size of billions of galaxies), scale falls into meaninglessness. The only real scale is consciousness in the present moment and perception itself. No other metric offers escape.
You are here now and it is wonderful.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Is Alien intervention humanity's only hope?
The following is a hypothetical intercepted transcript of alien communications.
Transmission report 17 B
STATUS: Observation
INFILTRATION LEVEL: Electromagnetic wave interception of Species 34CJL3’s broadcasts. Also, some field level biological samples taken. Preliminary reports confirm bi-pedal nature of dominant species and dimorphic sex differentiation.
PLANET REPORT: Body is orbiting a typical class G main sequence star at 1.7 S.A.U. It is the third rocky body from the energy point and is primarily inhabited by species 34CJL3. Other species (particularly 36CJL5) are also well represented on the planet but these are largely self sufficient and completely unaware of the existence of Species 34CJL3. They are known as “ants” to Species 34CJL3. A large gas giant in their system has allowed long term stable ecology by gravitational suction of foreign bodies. Atmosphere of body is mainly Nitrogen. However, the specimens require oxygen. They are provided this by plentiful secondary organisms. Planet is in balance but specimen 34CJL3 is altering this. Typical planetary population reductions of Specimen due to over infestation apply.
STATUS: Specimen 34CJL3 is non cohesive. Their communication level is low. They use sound waves produced in a biological structure below the brain center to ‘echo’ through their dense atmosphere. Specialized structures on the side of their heads have evolved to receive these transmissions. The sounds produced are of typical ‘language’ types already encountered on many other worlds. The usual deficiencies are inherent. Misunderstanding abounds. Some specimens have shown the ability to commune beyond these sounds but these individuals are rare. Current studies indicate 96.2% of the specimens rely on their primitive communication system to ‘commune’ with each other. Obviously, communion, as we know it, rarely occurs between beings on this planet.
SURVIVAL ESTIMATION: This species is interesting. It is young. Transmission report 14 C reported the previous colonization of this planet as being mainly composed of small brained ‘lizards’. Event 27BGE4 (check the records, typical asteroid collision) resulted in mass extinctions of cold blooded specimens. Warm blooded specimens proved survival ability. Bi-pedal social apes evolved from these lesser types. Ability to perceive gradually increased. After much repetition, Species 34CJL3 learned to pass on information gained from singular incarnations to those who came later in the time dilation. This allowed them cohesion. They quickly changed from hunter gathering to agriculture. They began to realize that they were on a ’planet’.
(Rapid increase in Specimen population was reported in 16 B).
As indicated in transmission report 17 A, Species 34CJL3 has currently mastered electromagnetic wave promulgation. They broadcast to each other by manipulating Spectrum 1 over airwaves in their atmosphere. They still use the ‘language’ created in the biological structures in their lower throat to communicate with each other however, severely limiting development. They manipulate each other using this. They have always done so but never on the grand scale they are now achieving. Unit boxes in their homes create the general consensus. Also, they have created a system of interrelation whereby individual ‘worth’ is directly related to worth in accumulating resources (See previous report on Species 15CJL2 on a similar planet 300 quandraids from here and how they disappeared by simple fission impacts because of this lack of communion). Many of the specimens look to each other in search of communion but the very language they have created to help themselves communicate, restricts them. An internal monologue creates fear, they forget that they are merely individual Specimens, that they are all one, together, and this blocks communion. Without communion, the long term survival of Species 34CJL3 is estimated at 2 - 3 chronocaps.
MISSION ESTIMATION: It is worth while for us to continue observation. Though body 678CGL is nearby and reports indicate that silicon based structures may have colonized that body, current communion on board our unit indicates a high level of interest in Species 34CJL3. We should like to extend our stay by .44 Asimovs. Though many other species we’ve observed have killed themselves off in similar timeframes, we ask in Transmission Report 17 B if it is possible to extend our mission beyond the specified worm curve so that we can see how the fate of this species manages itself in the multiverse.
We must admit, we’ve grown fond of them.
End Transmission…
Transmission report 17 B
STATUS: Observation
INFILTRATION LEVEL: Electromagnetic wave interception of Species 34CJL3’s broadcasts. Also, some field level biological samples taken. Preliminary reports confirm bi-pedal nature of dominant species and dimorphic sex differentiation.
PLANET REPORT: Body is orbiting a typical class G main sequence star at 1.7 S.A.U. It is the third rocky body from the energy point and is primarily inhabited by species 34CJL3. Other species (particularly 36CJL5) are also well represented on the planet but these are largely self sufficient and completely unaware of the existence of Species 34CJL3. They are known as “ants” to Species 34CJL3. A large gas giant in their system has allowed long term stable ecology by gravitational suction of foreign bodies. Atmosphere of body is mainly Nitrogen. However, the specimens require oxygen. They are provided this by plentiful secondary organisms. Planet is in balance but specimen 34CJL3 is altering this. Typical planetary population reductions of Specimen due to over infestation apply.
STATUS: Specimen 34CJL3 is non cohesive. Their communication level is low. They use sound waves produced in a biological structure below the brain center to ‘echo’ through their dense atmosphere. Specialized structures on the side of their heads have evolved to receive these transmissions. The sounds produced are of typical ‘language’ types already encountered on many other worlds. The usual deficiencies are inherent. Misunderstanding abounds. Some specimens have shown the ability to commune beyond these sounds but these individuals are rare. Current studies indicate 96.2% of the specimens rely on their primitive communication system to ‘commune’ with each other. Obviously, communion, as we know it, rarely occurs between beings on this planet.
SURVIVAL ESTIMATION: This species is interesting. It is young. Transmission report 14 C reported the previous colonization of this planet as being mainly composed of small brained ‘lizards’. Event 27BGE4 (check the records, typical asteroid collision) resulted in mass extinctions of cold blooded specimens. Warm blooded specimens proved survival ability. Bi-pedal social apes evolved from these lesser types. Ability to perceive gradually increased. After much repetition, Species 34CJL3 learned to pass on information gained from singular incarnations to those who came later in the time dilation. This allowed them cohesion. They quickly changed from hunter gathering to agriculture. They began to realize that they were on a ’planet’.
(Rapid increase in Specimen population was reported in 16 B).
As indicated in transmission report 17 A, Species 34CJL3 has currently mastered electromagnetic wave promulgation. They broadcast to each other by manipulating Spectrum 1 over airwaves in their atmosphere. They still use the ‘language’ created in the biological structures in their lower throat to communicate with each other however, severely limiting development. They manipulate each other using this. They have always done so but never on the grand scale they are now achieving. Unit boxes in their homes create the general consensus. Also, they have created a system of interrelation whereby individual ‘worth’ is directly related to worth in accumulating resources (See previous report on Species 15CJL2 on a similar planet 300 quandraids from here and how they disappeared by simple fission impacts because of this lack of communion). Many of the specimens look to each other in search of communion but the very language they have created to help themselves communicate, restricts them. An internal monologue creates fear, they forget that they are merely individual Specimens, that they are all one, together, and this blocks communion. Without communion, the long term survival of Species 34CJL3 is estimated at 2 - 3 chronocaps.
MISSION ESTIMATION: It is worth while for us to continue observation. Though body 678CGL is nearby and reports indicate that silicon based structures may have colonized that body, current communion on board our unit indicates a high level of interest in Species 34CJL3. We should like to extend our stay by .44 Asimovs. Though many other species we’ve observed have killed themselves off in similar timeframes, we ask in Transmission Report 17 B if it is possible to extend our mission beyond the specified worm curve so that we can see how the fate of this species manages itself in the multiverse.
We must admit, we’ve grown fond of them.
End Transmission…
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Now Voyager
After having posted the "Mission Statement" of this blog as a first post, I now find the Sun's illumination creeping against my window pane. Darkness is dying and I've drank a little too much, stayed up too late and morning presses against the glass. I'm on one of those melancholy buzzes that has lasted a little too long. These precious hours. Anyway, I'll defer to the words of a personal hero, Carl Sagan. What follows is his description of the Voyager Program, when humans sent a vessel out into space, perhaps something that will be the only evidence that we humans ever were; after the realization of the Hilaritus Universalis.
"Then, at last, completing their long good-bye to the Solar System, broken free of the gravitational shackles that once bound them to the Sun, the Voyagers will make for the open sea of interstellar space. only then will Phase Two of their mission begin.
Their radio transmitters long dead, the spacecraft will wander for ages in the calm, cold interstellar blackness-where there is almost nothing to erode them. Once out of the Solar System, they will remain intact for a billion years or more, as they circumnavigate the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
We do not know whether there are other space-faring civilizations in the Milky Way. If they do exist, we do not know how abundant they are, much less where they are. But there is at least a chance that sometime in the remote future one of the Voyagers will be intercepted and examined by an alien craft.
Accordingly, as each Voyager left Earth for the planets and the stars, it carried with it a golden phonograph record encased in a golden, mirrored jacket containing, among other things; greetings in 59 human languages and one whale language; a 12-minute sound essay including a kiss, a baby's cry, and an EEG record of the meditations of a young woman in love; 116 encoded pictures, on our science, our civilization, and ourselves; and 90 minutes of the Earth's greatest hits-Eastern and Western, classical and folk, including a Navajo night chant, a Japanese shakuhachi piece, a Pygmy girl's initiation song, a Peruvian wedding song, a 3,000-year-old composition for the ch'in called "Flowing Streams," Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, Blind Willie Johnson, and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."
Space is nearly empty. There is virtually no chance that one of the Voyagers will ever enter another solar system-and this is true even if every star in the sky is accompanied by planets. The instructions on the record jackets, written in what we believe to be readily comprehensible scientific hieroglyphics, can be read, and the contents of the records understood, only if alien beings, somewhere in the remote future, find Voyager in the depths of interstellar space. Since both Voyagers will circle the center of the Milky Way Galaxy essentially forever, there is plenty of time for the records to be found-if there's anyone out there to do the finding. We cannot know how much of the records they would understand. Surely the greetings will be incomprehensible, but their intent may not be. (We thought it would be impolite not to say hello.) The hypothetical aliens are bound to be very different from us-independently evolved on another world. Are we really sure they could understand anything at all of our message? Every time I feel these concerns stirring, though, I reassure myself. Whatever the incomprehensibilities of the Voyager record, any alien ship that finds it will have another standard by which to judge us. Each Voyager is itself a message. In their exploratory intent, in the lofty ambition of their objectives, in their utter lack of intent to do harm, and in the brilliance of their design and performance, these robots speak eloquently for us.
But being much more advanced scientists and engineers than we-otherwise they would never be able to find and retrieve the small, silent spacecraft in interstellar space-perhaps the aliens would have no difficulty understanding what is encoded on these golden records. Perhaps they would recognize the tentativeness of our society, the mismatch between our technology and our wisdom. Have we destroyed ourselves since launching Voyager, they might wonder, or have we gone on to greater things?
Or perhaps the records will never be intercepted. Perhaps no one in five billion years will ever come upon them. Five billion years is a long time. In five billion years, all humans will have become extinct or evolved into other beings, none of our artifacts will have survived on Earth, the continents will have become unrecognizably altered or destroyed, and the evolution of the Sun will have burned the Earth to a crisp or reduced it to a whirl of atoms. Far from home, untouched by these remote events, the Voyagers, bearing the memories of a world that is no more, will fly on."
A tear bubbles against my eye as I drift into sleep...
"Then, at last, completing their long good-bye to the Solar System, broken free of the gravitational shackles that once bound them to the Sun, the Voyagers will make for the open sea of interstellar space. only then will Phase Two of their mission begin.
Their radio transmitters long dead, the spacecraft will wander for ages in the calm, cold interstellar blackness-where there is almost nothing to erode them. Once out of the Solar System, they will remain intact for a billion years or more, as they circumnavigate the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
We do not know whether there are other space-faring civilizations in the Milky Way. If they do exist, we do not know how abundant they are, much less where they are. But there is at least a chance that sometime in the remote future one of the Voyagers will be intercepted and examined by an alien craft.
Accordingly, as each Voyager left Earth for the planets and the stars, it carried with it a golden phonograph record encased in a golden, mirrored jacket containing, among other things; greetings in 59 human languages and one whale language; a 12-minute sound essay including a kiss, a baby's cry, and an EEG record of the meditations of a young woman in love; 116 encoded pictures, on our science, our civilization, and ourselves; and 90 minutes of the Earth's greatest hits-Eastern and Western, classical and folk, including a Navajo night chant, a Japanese shakuhachi piece, a Pygmy girl's initiation song, a Peruvian wedding song, a 3,000-year-old composition for the ch'in called "Flowing Streams," Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, Blind Willie Johnson, and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."
Space is nearly empty. There is virtually no chance that one of the Voyagers will ever enter another solar system-and this is true even if every star in the sky is accompanied by planets. The instructions on the record jackets, written in what we believe to be readily comprehensible scientific hieroglyphics, can be read, and the contents of the records understood, only if alien beings, somewhere in the remote future, find Voyager in the depths of interstellar space. Since both Voyagers will circle the center of the Milky Way Galaxy essentially forever, there is plenty of time for the records to be found-if there's anyone out there to do the finding. We cannot know how much of the records they would understand. Surely the greetings will be incomprehensible, but their intent may not be. (We thought it would be impolite not to say hello.) The hypothetical aliens are bound to be very different from us-independently evolved on another world. Are we really sure they could understand anything at all of our message? Every time I feel these concerns stirring, though, I reassure myself. Whatever the incomprehensibilities of the Voyager record, any alien ship that finds it will have another standard by which to judge us. Each Voyager is itself a message. In their exploratory intent, in the lofty ambition of their objectives, in their utter lack of intent to do harm, and in the brilliance of their design and performance, these robots speak eloquently for us.
But being much more advanced scientists and engineers than we-otherwise they would never be able to find and retrieve the small, silent spacecraft in interstellar space-perhaps the aliens would have no difficulty understanding what is encoded on these golden records. Perhaps they would recognize the tentativeness of our society, the mismatch between our technology and our wisdom. Have we destroyed ourselves since launching Voyager, they might wonder, or have we gone on to greater things?
Or perhaps the records will never be intercepted. Perhaps no one in five billion years will ever come upon them. Five billion years is a long time. In five billion years, all humans will have become extinct or evolved into other beings, none of our artifacts will have survived on Earth, the continents will have become unrecognizably altered or destroyed, and the evolution of the Sun will have burned the Earth to a crisp or reduced it to a whirl of atoms. Far from home, untouched by these remote events, the Voyagers, bearing the memories of a world that is no more, will fly on."
A tear bubbles against my eye as I drift into sleep...
Mission Status 1A
Future humans may one day ask, "What really happened in the early 21st century?"
We will not be around to answer this question. We'll have dodged it nicely. Instead, future humans will have to deal with our shit all by themselves. Right now, according to UN estimates, the population in 2050 will be pushing 9.2 billion. Crowded onto a finite planet, these future humans will be knee deep in our discarded plastic water bottles. Peak Oil, Peak Water and resource wars for these will be our legacy.
What a short stint humans have had on this planet.
The dinosaurs existed here successfully for 160 million years. They were so successful that it took a deus ex machina to end their reign. No natural or evolutionary process could dislodge their dominance so a meteor had to come from space to do it for them. Minus that impact, they'd still be here, dumbly munching vegetation and eachother.
In evolutionary terms they are the most successful lifeform ever to inhabit this planet, having managed an uninterrupted 160 million year span. Us hominids, on the other hand, have managed a paltry 3 million years (that is if you include our hairy but upright ancestors). Agriculture and civilisation itself are a mere eight thousand year anomaly tacked on to the end of millennia of hunter gathering.
Dinosaurs themselves have a very specific legacy for us.
Legacy exists in the minds of those of us who come 'later'. One's legacy is something discovered by others after you are gone. Those who dig through the soil using sentience and intelligence are the ones who decipher what legacy shall be. Our paleontology has constructed the legacy of the dinosaurs; large lizards with tiny brains that walked the earth for aeons yet never discovered the wonder of fire, tools or toilet paper. Dumb leviathans, shambling across the earth, terrifying but as thick as planks. For humans, the dinosaur legacy is that of cold blooded terrible lizards, too dumb to alter their fate and who got wiped out by nature because they were around for too long and were becoming a bit of a pain. Nature needed a reboot.
So the question of Hilaritus Universalis is...
What shall our human legacy be? What shall our fossil record be?
Obviously, addressing the question presumes our extinction. But so be it. Let's toy with that for a moment while we grab the popcorn from the microwave. We're talking legacy here and since nothing lasts forever anyway, it's safe to presume humans will one day be gone and some future inhabitants of this planet will dig up our fossil remains and try to peace together where we went wrong, much like we do to dinosaurs.
Homo Sapiens.
"An interesting species of bipedal primates that evolved from other hominids and became the dominant species on earth for 200,000 years. They expanded rapidly aided by their ability to develop intimate social groups. They were cunning hunters who worked in packs and soon lost the hair from their bodies over time by clothing themselves with the dead skins of their prey. They later developed fire. They then expanded rapidly from a single continent and colonized the entire planet except Antartica."
Toward the end of this expansion, in the last 5% of their time on the planet, they discovered agriculture and settled in permanent locations. This gave rise to an explosive growth in their numbers. Abundant food led to task specialization which in turn furthered discovery. Their large brains, progressively larger over time finally found a purpose for all that grey matter: science and civilization.
From a roaming population of 1 million humans in 10,000 BCE to 200 million in 1 AD to 1 billion in 1800 to 6.7 billion in 2009, humans expanded rapidly, dominating all ecosystems, displacing all other species leading to mass extinctions. Prey animals were the first to go such as the mammoth in 10,000 BCE and, as the human population expanded, the extinctions began to include fellow top tier predators like the wolf, tiger, and bear.
However the lack of prey was not the cause of human extinction. The legacy of humans, for those who might come later and will one day dig up the fossil remains, was written in humanity's own insatiable nature. Resource abundance encouraged a bloom in their numbers. They dominated. They sucked the planet dry. They took all there was to take. They invented a God in their own image so that they could make him responsible for their actions instead of themselves whenever selfish action conflicted obviously with their individual morality. They went to war with their own kind, made the planet uninhabitable and died out because they were incapable of collective action on behalf of themselves. They inherited too much of the lizard brain of their dinosaur ancestors perhaps. Having reached total dominance of all the territory that was, the only enemy left was themselves. So they divided up the land and gave each region a name. And those of one region would kill to prove their pocket of earth was better than the 'other's' region.
Meanwhile, the earth burned.
Humanity's legacy may prove its worth in infinite time by serving as an example to those other species who will come later. When these future beings dig up the fossils of human civilisation and piece together the story of its rise and fall, humanity will serve as a warning beacon to all those with intelligence of what not to do.
Just the way dinosaurs today to humans are dumb scary lizards who outlived their usefulness, we humans will someday, to another species, be the 'intelligent selfish hominids' that proved the limits of the usefulness of 'intelligence' and who overran the planet and destroyed themselves by greed and avarice. Human legacy on earth shall be the lesson that intelligence is useless unless it is tempered by empathy and care.
It is terrifying that, despite all human artistic and scientific achievement, human legacy may one day be only a warning to future lifeforms of 'the road that should not be taken', that void into which the humans fell, and all we shall be is a learning tool to point out to distant inhabitants of this rock the very course of action any would-be intelligent species must avoid.
Grab the popcorn fellow travelers, let's take a ride and watch the decline and fall of us.
We will not be around to answer this question. We'll have dodged it nicely. Instead, future humans will have to deal with our shit all by themselves. Right now, according to UN estimates, the population in 2050 will be pushing 9.2 billion. Crowded onto a finite planet, these future humans will be knee deep in our discarded plastic water bottles. Peak Oil, Peak Water and resource wars for these will be our legacy.
What a short stint humans have had on this planet.
The dinosaurs existed here successfully for 160 million years. They were so successful that it took a deus ex machina to end their reign. No natural or evolutionary process could dislodge their dominance so a meteor had to come from space to do it for them. Minus that impact, they'd still be here, dumbly munching vegetation and eachother.
In evolutionary terms they are the most successful lifeform ever to inhabit this planet, having managed an uninterrupted 160 million year span. Us hominids, on the other hand, have managed a paltry 3 million years (that is if you include our hairy but upright ancestors). Agriculture and civilisation itself are a mere eight thousand year anomaly tacked on to the end of millennia of hunter gathering.
Dinosaurs themselves have a very specific legacy for us.
Legacy exists in the minds of those of us who come 'later'. One's legacy is something discovered by others after you are gone. Those who dig through the soil using sentience and intelligence are the ones who decipher what legacy shall be. Our paleontology has constructed the legacy of the dinosaurs; large lizards with tiny brains that walked the earth for aeons yet never discovered the wonder of fire, tools or toilet paper. Dumb leviathans, shambling across the earth, terrifying but as thick as planks. For humans, the dinosaur legacy is that of cold blooded terrible lizards, too dumb to alter their fate and who got wiped out by nature because they were around for too long and were becoming a bit of a pain. Nature needed a reboot.
So the question of Hilaritus Universalis is...
What shall our human legacy be? What shall our fossil record be?
Obviously, addressing the question presumes our extinction. But so be it. Let's toy with that for a moment while we grab the popcorn from the microwave. We're talking legacy here and since nothing lasts forever anyway, it's safe to presume humans will one day be gone and some future inhabitants of this planet will dig up our fossil remains and try to peace together where we went wrong, much like we do to dinosaurs.
Homo Sapiens.
"An interesting species of bipedal primates that evolved from other hominids and became the dominant species on earth for 200,000 years. They expanded rapidly aided by their ability to develop intimate social groups. They were cunning hunters who worked in packs and soon lost the hair from their bodies over time by clothing themselves with the dead skins of their prey. They later developed fire. They then expanded rapidly from a single continent and colonized the entire planet except Antartica."
Toward the end of this expansion, in the last 5% of their time on the planet, they discovered agriculture and settled in permanent locations. This gave rise to an explosive growth in their numbers. Abundant food led to task specialization which in turn furthered discovery. Their large brains, progressively larger over time finally found a purpose for all that grey matter: science and civilization.
From a roaming population of 1 million humans in 10,000 BCE to 200 million in 1 AD to 1 billion in 1800 to 6.7 billion in 2009, humans expanded rapidly, dominating all ecosystems, displacing all other species leading to mass extinctions. Prey animals were the first to go such as the mammoth in 10,000 BCE and, as the human population expanded, the extinctions began to include fellow top tier predators like the wolf, tiger, and bear.
However the lack of prey was not the cause of human extinction. The legacy of humans, for those who might come later and will one day dig up the fossil remains, was written in humanity's own insatiable nature. Resource abundance encouraged a bloom in their numbers. They dominated. They sucked the planet dry. They took all there was to take. They invented a God in their own image so that they could make him responsible for their actions instead of themselves whenever selfish action conflicted obviously with their individual morality. They went to war with their own kind, made the planet uninhabitable and died out because they were incapable of collective action on behalf of themselves. They inherited too much of the lizard brain of their dinosaur ancestors perhaps. Having reached total dominance of all the territory that was, the only enemy left was themselves. So they divided up the land and gave each region a name. And those of one region would kill to prove their pocket of earth was better than the 'other's' region.
Meanwhile, the earth burned.
Humanity's legacy may prove its worth in infinite time by serving as an example to those other species who will come later. When these future beings dig up the fossils of human civilisation and piece together the story of its rise and fall, humanity will serve as a warning beacon to all those with intelligence of what not to do.
Just the way dinosaurs today to humans are dumb scary lizards who outlived their usefulness, we humans will someday, to another species, be the 'intelligent selfish hominids' that proved the limits of the usefulness of 'intelligence' and who overran the planet and destroyed themselves by greed and avarice. Human legacy on earth shall be the lesson that intelligence is useless unless it is tempered by empathy and care.
It is terrifying that, despite all human artistic and scientific achievement, human legacy may one day be only a warning to future lifeforms of 'the road that should not be taken', that void into which the humans fell, and all we shall be is a learning tool to point out to distant inhabitants of this rock the very course of action any would-be intelligent species must avoid.
Grab the popcorn fellow travelers, let's take a ride and watch the decline and fall of us.
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