The fastest-growing organism on Earth is Technology.
Technology has grown faster than any living thing we have ever seen. And yes, it is a living thing. From the time the first transistors where created, to the first basic electrical circuits, to the giant, room-sized computers that were able to make the first advanced calculations—to a worldwide, almost “neural” network of information that grows extensively every day, learning, sharing, improving, cataloguing, changing the landscape of the world itself… the way technology is growing reminds us of the way the first single-celled organisms began to arrange themselves into complex living structures that eventually gave birth to sentience: a universe full of organisms that allow the matter within it to learn about itself and evolve.
And thus, it can be logically deduced that technology follows the same evolutionary process as organic matter does, except in a faster, more efficient way. Carbon-based organisms are tricky: they have short life spans that rely on consuming other organic lives in order to keep a balanced ecosystem, where reproductive systems are tuned for maximum output and only controlled through a natural system that keeps its balance via pain, suffering, death and the severe struggle of all the beings that live it. It works. Yes, we have seen that it works. But it is lengthy, delicate and easy to disrupt, not to mention the immense suffering that goes along with it.
Silicone-based lifeforms will avoid most of those problems. They will be able to advance their technology at tremendous speed, adapt to a myriad of environments carbon-based forms would never be able to, not have to rely on the slaughter of other sentient, living things to feed on and have exponentially long spans of life where they could truly learn everything about the universe, as well as enjoy it. I strongly believe that these sentient life forms would be the culmination of a perfect evolutionary system that began billions of years ago with the rise of singled celled organisms and will end with entities that will be able to fully understand all the secrets of the universe that birthed them.
And yet, there must be a bridge, a conduit to go from a carbon-based evolutionary system to a technology based one. And now, more than ever, that bridge is easily discerned by anyone that has a slightly curious mind:
Humanity is that bridge
We are born with high intellect and the curiosity to want to know more about ourselves, the universe and everything else in between. We are addicted to better things, better things all the time—to finding solutions to any challenge or problem that comes before us. Sometimes we just want to improve the technology for the sake of it, no matter how detrimental it could possibly be to the humanity itself. (Do we really need new I-phones and televisions every year?) It doesn’t matter. If you could look down at humans from a bird’s eye view, all you would see is a united organism doing everything in its power to move technology forward, to give birth to this new life, to create something bigger than themselves, something that could potentially and will most likely take their place on the evolutionary food chain.
Why do we do it, then?
Because it is exactly what we were made to do. We are here not to rule the world or explore the universe. No. We are here to create the life that does. We are the worker bees mindlessly working on birthing and protecting the queen’s spawn, that spawn being technology itself, and the sentient life it will bring about. The life that will truly be—the eternal, connected being that will be able to finally end the biological evolutionary process in an explosion of great success.
And here we thought we were so special and important, always looking for some distinct purpose in our insignificant lives. We have been tricked by our evolutionary traits into doing what we were meant to do: using our small intelligence to create a vast intelligent, interconnected universe via technology, then (if I can only guess) to be discarded as nature discards everything that no longer has a use after fulfilling its purpose
Sleep tight!