Enlightenment virtue Essay Example for Free

Enlightenment virtue Essay The advances in robotics have also been staggering. Todays robots, in addition to doing the menial tasks once performed by unskilled laborers, are considered vital contributing participants in such diverse environments as hospitals, factories, universities, offices, and banking institutions. The level of artificial intelligence attained is not quite at human levels, but is approaching those levels at an unprecedented pace. Machines already are in charge of making complicated decisions for the government and military; its only a matter of time before these types of robots are also helping direct the economy and aspects of private life. Despite fears that robotic technology would displace their human counterpart workers and cause massive unemployment, that has not yet been the case, with the employment rate actually increasing, albeit in areas that require highly skilled personnel. The mass-production of household robotic technology has made it possible for many consumers to purchase machines that take care of domestic tasks like preparing food and cleaning, allowing parents to have more leisure time, or to spend time with their children. In fact, the amount of newly available leisure time has been a dominant factor in the recent recreational activity and entertainment industry boom. (Last Name) 4 There is still a large measure of economic disparity between society in the post-industrial West verses the industrializing countries of Africa, Asia, and South America. While the AIDS virus was pronounced curable by doctors at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine two years ago, there are still people who are dying of the disease in the world simply because the medicine needed to cure people is being given to wealthy countries very disproportionately. Biotechnology has impacted both of our lives in a very significant way. The Human Genome Project, made it possible to unravel hereditary genetic disorders like Alzheimers and Huntingtons disease which have devastated families like ours for centuries. Despite your acquisition of Huntingtons at birth, scientists were able to identify the damaged genes in your DNA and correct them accordingly. Similarly, other diseases once thought incurable (e. g. AIDS, cancer) have been remedied by biotechnology and reputable scientists are seriously proposing that practical immortality could be possible. Progress in biotechnology has also come to help economically disadvantaged countries cultivate previously barren regions with genetically enhanced crops that thrive despite hostile conditions. War among nations still exists. Ian Buruma said that â€Å"Koran itself was the source violent abuse†. (p. 5) I agree with this statement. While it is undoubtedly true that Muslims like Bouyeri with their fundamentalist, misogynistic and murderous interpretation of religious text surely represent a threat to the Enlightenment virtues of freedom and reason, do public personas like Theo Van Gogh indeed represent a personification of those same Enlightenment virtues. This persistent refrain that echoes through the book forces the reader to question the illiberal and often intolerant practices of the Dutch Muslims amid whom Bouyeri was reared as well as the Dutch (Last Name) 5 who have managed to delude themselves into believing that hatred is somehow an Enlightenment virtue. Our global impact is finally receiving the scientific attention it deserves. The outcome will largely determine the future course of evolution. Human-modified ecosystems are shaped by our activities and their side effects. They share a common set of traits including simplified food webs, landscape homogenization, and high nutrient and energy inputs. Ecosystem simplification is the ecological hallmark of humanity and the reason for our evolutionary success. However, the side effects of our profligacy and poor resource practices are now so pervasive as to threaten our future no less than that of biological diversity itself. This looks at human impact on ecosystems and the consequences for evolution. It concludes that future evolution will be shaped by our awareness of the global threats, our willingness to take action, and our ability to do so. Our ability is presently hampered by several factors, including the poor state of ecosystem and planetary knowledge, ignorance of human impact, lack of guidelines for sustainability, and a paucity of good policies, practices, and incentives for adopting those guidelines in daily life. Conservation philosophy, science, and practice must be framed against the reality of human-dominated ecosystems, rather than the separation of humanity and nature underlying the modern conservation movement. The steps scientists can take to imbed science in conservation and conservation in the societal process affecting the future of ecosystems and human well-being are discussed. Assessing the implications for our own future is no simpler than it is for ecosystems. The future can be gauged from several points of view from human carrying capacity, capacity for a given standard of living, or for the diversity of future options, for example. Should (Last Name) 6 our horizon be measured in ecological or evolutionary time in decades and centuries, or in millennia and millions of years? One could well argue that our very success evolutionarily is proof of our ability to modify ecosystems to our advantage and that we can take care of the environment in due course, when we can afford it. The challenge for ecology and environmental studies is to gauge the outcome of human action on ecosystem processes and on our own future. If there is no link between biodiversity and human well-being, then the future may be bleak for diversity but not necessarily for humanity. If that is the case, the fate of diversity will depend on human compassion, esthetics, and emotions rather than on human welfare. How do I see myself fit into it? Because of my knowledge and faith in God, I am well fit to the future. Future means reality and reality is not independently given but is contingent upon our decisions. (George Soros p. 4) Future is just like today that if we neglect and forget will just become nonsense past. â€Å"To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together†¦, written by Archibald Macleish. (Al Gore p. 12) The earth is truly a masterpiece so let’s protect our endangered environment. (Last Name) Bibliography Buruma, Ian. Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance. New York: Penguin Press, 2006 Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It . Rodale, 2006 Soros, George. The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror. Public Affairs, 2006.