What is the Goal of Human Evolution?

If we are able to enhance and/or engineer ourselves and/or our progeny what is the goal? To be stronger, bigger, smaller, smarter, faster? Do we want to live forever? Or is it to be happier, universally compassionate, more intuitive or insightful? Can these attributes be engineered? Will we find them on another planet?

We need to find remedies for our weaknesses. People who are sick or injured need to be cured or at least comforted. But I can't see that the end all and be all of human existence has anything to do with our physical existence beyond our physical comforts.

Broadly, the ultimate goal of human existence is happiness and that can't be genetically engineered or manufactured through implanted enhancements. I would like to have TiVo eyes as much as the next person. It would be a great toy but it is not the answer for my need to be happy.

http://www.businessinsider.com/humans-in-1000-years-2015-10

Unsolvable

Moral Problem; we are saving the weak and in so weakening the entire human race.  

Human evolution depends upon the weak dying before they reproduce and the reproduction of only the most evolved.  So what do we do with the lesser among us?

Capitalists' Adgenda

If it were possible to fill every job vacancy available there would still be people without a job.  How will those people support themselves?  Social Democrats suggest that the wealth of the working and just clearly rich, be spread around to feed and clothe those without a visible source of income.  Capitalists see no reason why the poor shouldn’t just starve or freeze to death.  Puritans see riches that one controls as sign of divine grace and starving and freezing to death proof of moral error.  Protestant ethic declares that riches are a matter of predestination.  But none of this addresses the problem of more people than jobs.  If there were more jobs than people the discussion would be different.  Until someone comes up with a way to create jobs out of thin air the only solution to the ‘more people than jobs’ conundrum is to reduce the population.  Limiting the number of children a couple can have didn’t turn out well in China.  And now they have upped it to two but I still don’t think they have it rite.  Until it becomes the socially responsible thing to do to have no children I don’t see the Earth’s population decreasing.

Capitalists see no reason to shrink the pool of working poor who take their underpaid jobs and put pressure on all of us to work for less.  The problems of the poor are not capitalists’ problems and hunger induces workers to withstand otherwise intolerable conditions for unconscionably low compensation. 

You are not God

If it is possible that there is a God, which is knowable to humans and that knowledge is based upon faith not merely knowledge learned as language is learned, from example and observation, then there is no reason to believe that the knowing of God could happen to anyone at any place without any prior knowledge of said God’s existence.  And that does not happen.

Could you, through faith and the sure knowledge of your everlasting spirit, know unerringly, that there is a God?  And in the absolute knowing of God wouldn’t you have to have some, possibly infinitely small, piece of God as part of yourself so as to know, rather than to believe or have faith in the fact that God exists?  Wouldn’t there have to be something within you that was God that was real for you, to unerringly know this ‘truth’?

Can and/or should we assume that God is rational?  And if we do assume that God is rational can we further assume that we would/can understand God’s rationale?

As finite beings, living in the infinitely small slice of time we call now, we are limited as to what we can comprehend concerning the infinite.

Anything that you are aware of is finite and therefore not God.

Vice and Virtue

Vice

immoral or wicked behavior.

synonyms:

immorality, wrongdoing, wickedness, badness, evil, iniquity, villainy, corruption, misconduct, misdeeds;

criminal activities involving prostitution, pornography, or drugs.

synonyms:

immorality, wrongdoing, wickedness, badness, evil, iniquity, villainy, corruption, misconduct, misdeeds;

an immoral or wicked personal characteristic.

Virtue

Behavior showing high moral standards.  "paragons of virtue"

synonyms:

goodness, virtuousness, righteousness, morality, integrity, dignity,rectitude, honor, decency, respectability, nobility, worthiness, purity;

 (In traditional Christian angelology) the seventh highest order of the nine-fold celestial hierarchy.

Why did some behaviors become labeled Virtuous and others Vices?  Vice, in general, is illegal but not everything that is against the law is considered a vice.  A vice, even when detrimental to no one but them self, is considered immoral.   Why are vice and virtue morality issues and not just legal issues?

Rationale

noun

a set of reasons or a logical basis for a course of action or a particular belief.

"he explained the rationale behind the change"

synonyms:

reason(s), reasoning, thinking, logic, grounds, sense;  principle, theory, argument, case;  motive, motivation, explanation, justification, excuse; the whys and wherefores "the rationale for offering wireless access was simple"

Vice has no need for a rationale.  Virtue needs a rationale.

Vice is understood without explanation.  Virtue needs an explanation (rationale) to be understood and followed.

Vice is obvious.  Virtue is convoluted.

Because we indulge we can over indulge.  Because we can save we can horde.  Because we can use we can abuse.  Because we can discern the difference between feast and famine we can be gluttonous.

If we cannot attain what we need to live we die.  If we can obtain what we need to prosper and reproduce there may be the opportunity to accumulate more than we need.  If we do accumulate more than we need then we have the opportunity to overindulge (engage in conspicuous consumption – gluttony – excess – extravagance – luxuries – superfluous – hording – abuse – pride – arrogance – egotism – vanity – arrogance – self-absorption) at the expense of others.  Without surplus there cannot be vice.  Without surplus and the ability to think symbolically there cannot be virtue.

Capitalists

The capitalists’ objective is to buy land, buildings, materials, tools and labor, combine them to manufacture a product they can then sell for more than it cost them to make and end up with enough profit to buy more materials and more labor and sell more of their product for a profit ad infinitum or until they have a monopoly on their market so they can simply jack up the price, to add to their profit without using capital.

The capitalists’ number one credo is; use as little capital as possible to make as much profit as possible.  To this end they will buy the least expensive land, build minimal structures, which they then fill with the cheapest equipment available.  They divide the work into the smallest and simplest segments so they can higher the least costly labor (the young and untrained, preferably female workers) who they then provide the absolute minimum education (on the job training whenever possible) who they then equip with the absolute bare minimum of tools and support.  Then they ask their laborers to work at the highest intensity they can manage (even if it is to the detriment of their health, hoping they will die, quit or be forced to quit because they can no longer do the job, before they have to be paid (as highly trained labor) a higher wage) and whenever possible they ask them to work without compensation or benefits.  And all the time wages are maintained at an artificially and unnecessarily low rate to trap the wage earners in their lot so they do not become independent and stop making profit for the capitalist.  The laborers are of no interest to the capitalist after they leave their employ so there is no reason to provide them with a pension.  And it is in the capitalists’ best interest to have a surplus of workers to compete for their jobs which help to keep the wages/benefits as low as possible.  Although the capitalist benefits most from the labor it is the labor class that is then taxed to support those that cannot support themselves and wait in reserve to jump at the chance to be underpaid.

Workers who understand the capitalists’ process/philosophy/credo, work for the highest wage they can with the best benefits.  They work the absolute minimum hours they must to maintain themselves and their dependents for as long as they can and they contribute as much as possible to their retirement.  They do everything within their power to be and stay healthy and refuse to do work that is a detriment to their health or life away from work.  They continue to work for as many years as possible to take advantage of the higher wages and benefits that seniority and well-earned skills afford them.  They never work without adequate compensation.  They demand the best tools, support and education available and they make use of these resources rather than doing other departments tasks.

We Are Not Equal

Living your life by the ‘golden rule’ is problematic.  No matter how you define your terms, and I don’t care what combination of physical, economic, mental, emotional, social, cultural and/or moral scales you use, no two humans can be measured and found to be equal.  We don’t equally desire, we don’t equally appreciate.

In general, idealistic terms, your treating me as you wish to be treated or my treating you as I wish to be treated seems like a very good idea.  But, there is a vast horde of people out there who treat themselves in abusive and/or masochistic or culturally and/or socially specific ways that I don’t want to have anything to do with.  And there are many, who I assume, believe that how I want to be treated is dreadful!  So I think the rule to live by ‘should’ be; “Treat others as they wish to be treated and let others know how you want to be treated.  And if you can’t do this, walk away”.