The New Babel

By Rafael M. Juvida

""You almost feel like you are flying when you are already falling." - RJM.

Why are we building a tower?

The answer comes from the depths of human curiosity and our thirst for

new discoveries. More than ever before in human history, the development

of technology has skyrocketed and continues to do so today. The 21st centu

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: May 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9789361722905

Book preview

The New Babel

Collapse Of An Advanced Civilization

Rafael M. Juvida

Ukiyoto Publishing

All global publishing rights are held by

Ukiyoto Publishing

Published in 2023

Content Copyright © Rafael M. Juvida

ISBN

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

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To Marife, Manolito, the woman of my life and to the rest of my friends who helped to make this book possible.

I have been going through this book. The writing style is quite good. As I understand it, the author is giving readers the idea of how ancient times and today are not that different in the terms of ambition and goals. The difference is the technology, but technology is not that much of a factor. In both ancient and modern times, we witness the rise of power, which does not match the speed at which humanity adapts to it. Through the lenses of Christianity, we can see the future to emphasize the larger scheme of things".

—Igor Bobek,

EU Projects Expert, Space Start-up Founder and CEO

Contents

Regaining the Lost Purpose

The Modern Attempts To Establish Their Tower

Part I - The Ancient World

The Ancient Tower of Babel

Great Confusion

The Birth Of The Nations

Part II - The Transition

The Fate Of Mankind

Part III - The Modern World

The Modern Tower Of Babel

The Building Blocks Of The Modern Tower

Rotten Spirituality

Self-Exaltation

Natural Science

The Test

The End From The Beginning

About the Author

Regaining the Lost Purpose

More than ever before in human history, the development of technology has skyrocketed and continues to do so today. The 21st century will witness the return of the human race to the Moon, as well as the first steps humans will take on Mars. This fast-paced development and innovation in the technological sense must be met with caution. Much has been learned about the unsinkable Titanic. They believed that the powerful colossal ship was strong and would not be destroyed, however, this was bogus and completely fabricated. What we see today is an utterly uninhabited tower and a colossal ship that has sunk. People didn't know that mankind themselves, and all it deems meaningful would vanish forever until very recently in human history. Humans just recently realized that the physical universe could continue without us, although haphazardly. But this was one of the most significant discoveries made by people, and yet we still chose to build towers of our own. Isn't it the same with a transhumanist? Real transhumanism aims to manipulate evolution to change humanity at its core and create a new species amongst humans. Humans also had already made attempts to control their environment. Humans, for instance, consume 50% of the fresh water on Earth, 30% of the planet's marine net primary output, and 42% of its terrestrial net primary productivity per year. The amount of land used to grow food for humans has increased from 7% in 1700 to 40% today. The planet's land mass has been altered for the human usage to the extent of 50%. Humans now repair more nitrogen from the atmosphere than all other natural processes put together.

Why are we building a tower?

      In both ancient and modern times, we witness the rise of power, which does not match the speed at which humanity adapts to it. Humans have repeatedly attempted to become gods, and the biblical account of the Tower of Babel serves as an accurate metaphor for this tendency. It contains aspirations of attaining godlike immortality by mind uploading to virtual reality together with breakthroughs in the quantum world, one of which can also have a very major downside. The mind does not function exactly according to algorithms, whereas a machine does. Also, mankind had shown great ongoing dispositions to slay strangers in large numbers and was constantly on the point of establishing violent hatred of foreigners. They were never able to consistently recognize the humanity in all people of their species. Short-term thinking was a catastrophic weakness of humanity. Even when faced with data, it was only able to predict the short-term future—at most a few years—viewing the long-term as a fantastical situation. Its immediate impulses were allowed to run wild and worked to ruin both its future as an individual and as a group.

Human extinction

  There has never been a time in history when the rates, scales, types, and combinations of change are happening now. Because of the momentum of human population expansion and the need for further economic development in the majority of the world, we live on a planet that is dominated by humans, and this domination will only grow over time. It's unclear which trend or trend set will rule in the future, but it is most certainly controlled by humans. A moment comes in the development of any civilization, even ones that appear to be thriving, when extinction will be inevitable, no matter what they could do to prevent it. This concept of the extinction clock is the most pernicious threat to humans. Extinction is typically the result of a slow response to environmental degradation among other things. The species most in danger are those that take over specific habitat patches at the expense of others, which frequently migrate to new locations and are therefore more widely distributed. The majority of the earth is occupied by humans, and because we sequester a sizable portion of the planet's productivity, we dominate it. Therefore, humanity may just already be a living corpse. Another existential peril that keeps researchers up at night is the abuse of biotechnology.

By utilizing biology, this technology creates new goods. Cassidy Nelson is particularly concerned about one of these: the misuse of biotechnology to create harmful, contagious viruses. She stated that although she was concerned about many possible pandemic scenarios, she did believe that the ones that might be caused by humans were the most biological threat to humanity in the twenty-first century. For those who are willing to perceive them, the signs are already present. When the habitat degrades to the point that there aren't as many resources available, fertility begins to diminish, the birth rate falls below the death rate, and death rates fluctuate owing to potential pandemics that could damage genetic resources, there is only one direction left to go: down. The question is, How quickly? The answer is yet to be known. If it happens, then we are most likely gone. Soon, all that will be left of humanity will be a thin coating of all sorts of plastic, radioactive isotopes from nuclear wastes, chicken bones, and livestock in the fossil record. Much of our paintings and portrait may survive, and if fortunate, they could recover hard disks and USBs from the internet containing some of our collective memories and strands of consciousness of some unknown creatures that inhabited a strange blue dot. Technological development can be an opportunity, as well as a threat. On one hand, technology helps us in everyday life. Like me, I wrote this foreword on my laptop. Medicine uses technology to diagnose patients and administer adequate treatment. Our lives are tied to technology more than ever before. But we must be careful how we conduct ourselves when using technology, because, it can lead us to the heavens, or take us to our demise.

A possible panacea

      In this book, Raphael is giving readers the idea how the ancient times and today are not that different in terms of ambition and goals. With this, we may be able to pinpoint both empowering and debilitating patterns that will shape humanity's destiny as the twentieth century comes to a close. Interactions between attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors help shape how change happens over time. However, those cosmic aspects of the environment over which people have no control ultimately determine the possibilities and limitations of human existence. Modern thinking that there are no boundaries or ends to the world runs the risk of colliding with this obstinate truth. Humanity has the task of learning how to create a sustainable future in the face of challenges to its long-term survival and reconnect to the divine purpose it once had. A real sustainable human population level would simply maintain the human race at a level where it has access to enough food and clean water to exist, according to several analyses in numerous researches. Our idea about sustainability, the environment, and whether a world is worth living in necessitates that future humans will provide adequate space and resources for everyone to live in while also enjoying those things themselves.

To conclude, one does not succeed if one does not try, fail and try again. Sometimes, an idea can take a decade, sometimes a century but sometimes it takes a larger part of human history that sees the idea being developed from the idea to final realization. From the first people to view the sky, to the Apollo missions and now Artemis, there are so many examples of how progress is made and how long it can take. But that does not mean that it should not be done. We can know that things that are worth doing never come without consequences for the ones doing them.

—Igor Bobek, EU projects expert, space start-up founder and CEO.

The Parable of the Owl and the Tower

An owl was living on a far-away planet, and he was the first among the creatures in that universe, not until a maple tree came to save his life that was filled with dreariness. They lived close to each other up until the owl saw that the maple tree is not living her life while continuing her bad attitude.

The owl, feeling lonely, decided to go. Even after a last-minute reunion with the maple tree, the owl left to go to other planets and find companionship.

What will happen to me now that I am gone at my place, the owl said to himself. The owl then passes nearby planets and comes into contact for the first time with the peculiar, constrained world of adults.

The first is a ruler who demands allegiance but has no people under him until the owl shows up. The only person on the next planet is an arrogant man who just seeks adulation from the owl. When the owl flies into a drunken man later, the latter says that he needs to drink to forget how ashamed of drinking he is. A businessman who claims to possess the stars introduces himself to the owl on the fourth planet, making it crucial for him to know the precise number of stars.

The owl then meets a lamplighter who, even though his planet rotates so quickly that dark and dawn both happen once every minute, obeys regulations that force him to light a lamp every evening and put it out every morning.

The owl eventually lands in a world where a geographer lives. However, the geographer does not know about his planet because his only job is to document what he learns from wise explorers. When the owl cites a flower, the geographer responds that flowers are not documented since they are fleeting when the owl is asked to describe his home world and advised to go to earth.

The owl went on to earth and befriended a fox that showed him what life meant in a very deep spiritual way, but as soon as the owl left the earth, he forgot all the things that he once did and went on to join the ruler, the arrogant man, and the businessman and the rest of others with the celestial council in their work.

We are living in our worlds for so long, and we don’t have anyone who could fulfill our unified task. We are too frail to do it on our own. Imagine if we could work together and build towers using baobabs to reach the highest to gather the stars!

Yes! the arrogant man said. And we don’t have to be stuck in our tiny backyard, and finally I can have the applause of the people living in distant isles when we gather them as one in our alliance!

The team who gathered was now exhilarated, and the ruler began to make his commands to his subjects with his partner the businessman ordering the arrogant man and his team: the lamplighter to gather as many baobabs as he could while the geographer and the prince were forced to gather the people from other small planets.

The construction began, and the owl who was now grown up allotted much of his time to building the tower. It also happened that at the time that the fox could travel in space with the pilot who was now an astronaut.

Only the fox, a wise creature was cautious about their plan with the celestial council. He said: This isn’t right! You shouldn’t have gathered the people to fill the small spaces to build towers out of the things that are already known as bad. Should we not solve first the baobab seeds which are considered a pest to every planet before we build this tower out of it? Or even replace it with what we know can be beneficial?

The businessman replied: The celestial council has proven to us that this is not exceedingly difficult to do, besides it is already difficult to find baobab seeds nowadays. It is good for us to find one first, and we will make them bow down to our wishes later.

This is a catastrophe! cried the prince who finally understood everything, but his cry was not heard as the crew had finally finished the tower. It is too late also when he learned that his rose joined them in strengthening it.

So, the owl decided to fly using his balloons set up to see the view from above. He saw that the baobab's roots pierce right through and they had completely overtaken the rest of the planets including those who are invited to join, and its stem and branches had grown so long that it has touched the sky.

The owl decided to follow them and found out that is going to entangle the planets altogether. They thought that they were building a tower that will reach the sky, but what they are building is trees tied altogether that are continually missing the mark, and instead of stretching to the sky it will finally choke their planets to death.

We know at this point how the story ends, but I will leave it to the readers to decipher the message of this parable which is dedicated to those aware of our deep predicament and those who still see the essential that is invisible to the eye.

The Modern Attempts To Establish Their Tower

We are obsessed with superheroes (for some are supervillains) and to be something greater than ourselves that triggers our innate capacity to be curious and to discover something new fuels a lot of interests like never been done before. Why not? There are a lot of things that have been unraveled this century. Many of these changes have greatly benefited humans at the expense of other living things, while others have brought about complex issues that endanger our very existence. The last 100 years have witnessed some of the most spectacular and swift transformations in history. The attempt by humans to influence the environment has a long history. We have figured out how to grow a steady supply of food, control temperature using clothes and heating and cooling systems, and construct shelters that can endure even the worst weather conditions. The fight to endure the harsh conditions of the environment has been a recurring theme in our history. Because of this conflict, we frequently see the outside world as an adversary that needs to be subdued, subjugated, and profited from in any way possible. But as we alter the environment to suit our needs and preferences, we also endanger the delicate equilibrium that nature's Creator carefully crafted.

That situation has reached a stage where it is no longer salvageable. Sadly, there are far too many people for us to keep fighting the planet. With a population that is getting close to 8 billion, we have decided to band together and construct our towers. As a result, our effect is substantial and frequently disastrous. Since the 1970s, the human strain on wildlife has increased dramatically. Natural resources are becoming more and more scarce, and this has a price. If significant areas of the natural environment are lost. In that case, the quality of life for humans will be drastically decreased, and unless anything is done about it, the lives of future generations will be in danger. The ability of nature to sustain humans has decreased during the past 50 years. The quality of the air and water is declining, the soils are being depleted, crops lack pollinators, and the coasts are less storm-proof. Numerous issues are plaguing many of the world's major cities as a result of rapid growth without adequate planning. The human population has doubled, and consumption has grown by 45 percent per person since 1950 and is constantly rising. To fulfill escalating human demands for resources like food, energy, and timber, the planet is increasingly managed in a way that maximizes the flow of material from nature. As a result, at least 70% of the land on Earth has undergone direct human intervention, primarily for the purposes of agriculture and animal husbandry. These activities have the greatest negative effects on terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, necessitating deforestation, land degradation, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Megacities around the world are frequently characterized by a lack of clean drinking water, significant air pollution, inadequately built public transportation systems, and high crime rates. We currently reside in the future. You can have anything you want to be delivered to your home or have any information you want to be poured right into your head at the touch of a button. We have plenty—infinite ways to pass the time amusing ourselves, innumerable ways to put the boredom to bed, and unlimited access to every comfort imaginable. All because of our technology which also has some dire consequences. A rising collection of studies by psychologists, neuroscientists, marketers, and public health specialists contains it, cold and hard. The average attention span has been reduced by seconds, brain capacity has decreased, the work-life balance has deteriorated, and family time has decreased by hours, according to what these folks claim and what their research demonstrates.

They have made it harder for us to recall things. They make it harder to be creative and come up with new ideas. They increase our susceptibility to anxiousness. They force parents to neglect their kids. They are also addictive, if not in the debated clinical sense but in all other respects. More than 6 billion people in the world now have this power at their fingertips, including 72% of Filipinos, and it is transforming the way we do a wide range of things, from shooting photos to calling self-driving cabs. However, smartphones have also altered who we are; they have fundamentally altered our natures, changing the way we communicate and interact. For all their many advantages, it is evident here in how they have transformed not only certain businesses or societal norms but also people who use them.

Aside from that, the planet is at a turning point right now. The vital food chain is in danger, and many plants and animals are extinct or on the verge of extinction. We would not have done so extensive harm, and the Earth would not be in jeopardy now if we had attempted to coexist with our environment rather than opposing it. If we continue to abuse our planet as if we were building all of our destructive acts into one tower, we will undoubtedly