Who will succeed Homo Sapiens?
Homo Sapiens (the wise humans), we claim ourselves to be, for we possess complex brains that have enabled us to build complex societies, managed via the likes of governments, businesses, social networks, science and technology, economic integration. ‘Sapiens’ for we are credited with inventions like money, language, music, rituals, traditions. ‘Sapiens’ for human ability to overcome environmental forces, to defy death, to look after our self-interests.
Our self admiration has given us many names: Homo Amans (loving man), Homo Animalis (man with a soul), Homo Deus (human god), Homo ethics (ethical man), Homo investigans (investigating man) and others.
However, as humanity stepped into the 21st century, once marginalized voices have found their way into the mainstream and started to question our claims, murmurs have matured into loud noise. Changing climate, pandemics, threat of nuclear wars, pollution, crony capitalism, inflation, racial conflicts, inefficient governments, strained relationships, loneliness and other dark clouds are threatening the human race. Pessimism has started to flow in the human bloodstream as highs of optimism have vaporised.
Sebastian Rudolf Karl von Hoerner, a German astrophysicist, has summed up for us a future where desire for supremacy and an easy life drives humans actions, in an article titled “The Search for Signals from Other Civilizations” in 1961, in the following words, “total destruction and biological and mental degeneration”.
Homo necans (killing man), Homo mendax (lying man), Homo sanguinis (bloody man), Homo ferox (ferocious man) and others have taken centrestage. Long held assumptions are being challenged. Big questions on the future of humanity remain unanswered. Concrete answers are being sought.
Will changing leadership and regimes, bringing in new legislations, creating new institutions, new science and other measures bring complete relief? Or
Are there fundamental flaws, undercurrents slowly cracking up and sweeping away the land beneath us? What are they? How to conquer them?
The book (Homo Unus: Successor to Homo Sapiens) is an attempt to unearth answers to the question, “What will it take humanity to survive and thrive in the tough times ahead?”
