Technosplit: The Bifurcation of Humanity
By Jeremy Lent,
Alternet
| 05. 17. 2017
Will social inequality soon be programmed into our DNA?
The chasm between rich and poor in the world has become so extreme it is frequently difficult to grasp. The eight richest men in the world now own as much as the entire bottom half of the world’s population. The wealthy OECD countries, representing less than 20% of the global population, consume 86% of the world’s goods and services, while the poorest 20% consume only 1.3%. These numbers translate into the shameful reality that a billion people go hungry every day and another billion remain chronically malnourished.
Nevertheless, you won’t hear much talk about these numbers in techno-optimist circles that breathlessly discuss the tantalizing possibilities of human enhancement. When futurists blithely envision the possibilities for human enhancement, they ignore the fact that billions of people are barely surviving. and will have no realistic chance of gaining access to these advances. In fact, spend enough time on these topics and you’re liable to forget that the majority of human beings are struggling to make ends meet and barely able to think about...
Related Articles
By Kylie Robison, Wired | 06.11.2025
In a $30 million mansion perched on a cliff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, a group of AI researchers, philosophers, and technologists gathered to discuss the end of humanity.
The Sunday afternoon symposium, called “Worthy Successor,” revolved around a provocative...
The Center for Genetics and Society mourns the loss of long-time colleague George Annas, who died on May 30. A remembrance at Bioethics Today calls George an “unwavering defender of human rights” and “a brilliant communicator, an intellectual pioneer, a polymath, devoted to justice for all, and a key figure in crossing boundaries in bioethics.” He is described as “a visionary health law pioneer” in an obituary posted by the Boston University School of Public Health, where he was the...
By Matthew Purdy, The New York Times | 05.29.2025
Image “Elon Musk” by Debbie Rowe, Royal Society on
Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by S.A. 3.0
As Elon Musk prepared to make a less than triumphant exit from Washington, he told the Fox News host Jesse Watters earlier this...