Dissertation Article Summary

Your Children Will Live To See Man Merge With Machines. But Will It Save Or Destroy Us?

Mail On Sunday Review Magazine.

Extracts from: Why The West Rules – For Now, by Ian Morris, Professor Classics And History At Stamford University,

1	The main purpose of this article is: To give the reader a glimpse of the future as the author sees it.
2	The key questions that the author is addressing is: Does the East and the West meet on middle ground and continue to grow and develop in partnership. Or, do they, compete for world domination thus going to war which may ultimately destroy the planet.
3	The most important information in this article is: The combining of the human brain and machines. It would mean new ways of living our lives. Working practices would change dramatically and the ways we grow old are just a couple of method we would have to adapt to. It would be the dawn of a New Age of Man and Machine, which, at present, the normal human brain has a difficult time to imagine.
4	The key secondary sources are: Professor Morris talks about one of the projects that the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is currently working on. It is a "molecular-scale computer built from enzymes and DNA molecules rather than silicon". Once developed they propose implanting these 'computers' into the heads of soldiers thus giving them an advantage over the enemy as they would be able to think quicker, have access to the Internet (is was DARPA that gave us the Internet) and process information quicker. IBM also has their Blue Gene/Q supercomputers research running and, according to, Professor Morris, "would take us a quarter of the way towards a functioning simulation of a human brain". Inventor Ray Kurzweil is adamant that in the 2030s neuron-by-neuron brain scanning will permit the uploading of the human brain onto machines.
5	The key primary sources used are: The author cites facts and figures to make his predictions. He states that, "Europeans and Americans live 30 years longer than their great-grandparents and enjoy an extra decade or two before their eyes and ears weaken and arthritis freezes their joints".  Morris also informs the reader that human the human lifespan has increased and points out, "Even in Africa, plagued by AIDS and malaria, people live 20 years longer in 2010 than they did in 1910". Climate change is affecting the planet now with drought and flooding, this in turn creates crop failures. The populace of these areas are struggling to survive and many thousands of them are on the move creating 'climate migrants'. They are fleeing to countries which are in desperate need of aid from the richer nations of the world. Technology must be used to feed these poor people.
6	The main inferences/conclusions in this article are: In the not too distant future the human brain shall be altered mechanically and that machines shall have brains operating them. This technology must be used for the good of mankind and not the domination of one nation over another. The East and West must embrace these developments of face annihilation.
7	The key concept(s) we need to understand in this article is/are: The advancement of technology is developing at such a speed then in a few decades the East shall have caught up with the West  and when they do hopefully they shall integrate otherwise there shall be massive conflict.
8	The main assumption(s) underlying the authors thinking is (are): Climate change is affecting where people shall live due to drought and famine and the huge migration of those affected by this. He also describes what technologies the West is developing which shall make their armed forces stronger, think quicker and respond faster on the battleground by the integration of technology with the human body.
9	If we take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are: Armageddon between East and West or, as Kurzweil calls his 'neuron-by-neuron brain scanning technique', 'Singularity' and biology shall be transformed.
10	If we fail to take the author’s line of reasoning seriously, the implications are: War on a massive scale and the possibility of destroying the life of our planet as we know it.
11	The main point(s) of view presented in this article is  (are): Mankind has two choices; it either embraces the technologies being developed or annihilation of the human race as countries or even continents doing battle with the new, ever growing, fighting technologies.