The Immortal Race

T HE world, a huge ball of iron, is more or less indestructible. But what of we who live on it? Can our current technological growth continue for ever? Despite the ceaseless apprehensions of pessimists, there is every reason to suppose that it can. Our resources, in the shape of extraterrestrial materials, appear inexhaustible, and there is no likely threat to the existence of the human race. Many people find these facts most difficult to accept. When I tell them that I write about the future, they often reply in a puzzled fashion: ``Future? Do you think we have one?" The imminent doom of humanity, from one mysterious cause or another, is seen as inescapable. But it is not so. Natural disasters may cause many thousands or even millions–of deaths, but the human race as a whole appears immune to them.

Outbreaks of pestilence, however destructive, are never a long‑term threat. They can even bring advantages. The Black Death in the fourteenth century killed half the population of Europe . Yet the only noticeable result was a sudden burst in economic growth as a shortage of labourers caused agricultural wages to shoot up. At about the same time the Little Ice Age began, bringing bitter cold after a long period of balmy weather. It might have been imagined that despair at this natural calamity would bring about an age of darkness. But instead an age of luxury began. English merchants started to import spices, wine and silks, while Edward III and his nobles set about buying expensive armour, rich furred robes, jewelled belts and tapestries, turning their castles into palaces and starting a century long war with France . The great flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919 killed some 50 million people, more than twice as many as the First World War. But instead of bringing humanity to its knees, it was followed by a world‑wide surge in population and a burst of economic growth. Despite these examples, many people fear that fresh onsets of disease will threaten the survival of the race. AIDS has long been a popular candidate. But even if AIDS were to kill three million a year, this would only be 0.05 percent of the world's population. It is doubtful even if a nuclear war could annihilate mankind. Herman Kahn showed in his 1962 book On Thermonuclear War that about half the American population would survive such a war and that the ``survivors would not envy the dead." Luckily his prediction was never tested. Sir Fred Hoyle, in his 1964 book Of Men and Galaxies, said there must be an unknown danger point at which technological growth would fail without hope of recovery. I believe that he had his timing wrong, and that the danger point occurred hundreds of thousands of years ago, when our ancestors discovered how to kill at a distance. After that, freed from the fear of wild beasts, we were immortal. These trends are analysed in a recent paper (Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 59, pp. 239‑246, 2006) predicting that our inexorable technological growth will take us to the stars. Only special relativity, and perhaps not even that, will prevent the formation of a galactic empire.