Humanity Upgrade explores the most vital issue of our time. We are in the midst of the greatest transformation in human history. As the pace of change approaches the speed of light, you need an entirely new way of navigating life. These times are filled with unlimited opportunities and significant challenges. This relentless progress is accelerating, causing untold amounts of stress and uncertainty. We have organized ourselves into civilizations and societies in a microsecond on the cosmic time scale. Twelve-thousand years is not nearly enough time for our brains to adjust to the stresses and uncertainties of modern life. We need to accelerate our evolution. You will be introduced to five key principles that will help you adapt and accelerate your progress. A brief story and some important background will reinforce how vital Humanity Upgrade is to your life.
My young nephew was visiting me in NYC from the hills of West Virginia. He lives in a beautiful town named Lewisburg. His parents own a large property where you can hunt and fish in their backyard. Their nearest neighbor is over a mile away. NYC was a shock to his system. He stood very close to me as we walked down Fifth Avenue. He scanned every person and got a little bit closer every time a bus or taxi zoomed by. A NYC native came up to us in Times Square asking for money, and I turned to Sean to see what he thought. All he could do was grab my leg for dear life. On one corner, he exclaimed in amazement, “I can’t even see one tree.” This was a completely foreign environment for him and it automatically activated all his instinctual safety and survival mechanisms.
A trip to NYC can be a stressful experience for some people but most New Yorkers will tell you it is perfectly safe. This is true no matter where you live. In the last half century, we have witnessed amazing progress, and it has made the world a much safer place. The three major causes of death: violence, famine and plague, have been virtually eliminated. When people hear these facts, they snap back with things like, “What about AIDS or the conflict in the Middle East?” These are very difficult and tragic situations, but the reality is that we live in the safest most prosperous times in human history. Steven Pinker, in Enlightenment Now and Yuval Noah Harari, in Sapiens, go into exquisite detail on how this happened and why it is totally accurate.
