Beta Humans Travelling to the Future of Humanity

Can humans reach the next stage of our evolution and become 'beta' versions of ourselves by embracing the technological revolution to upgrade the world around us? What conditions would be needed for 'beta humans' to rise? It is possible to upgrade the world's 'operating systems' for the betterment of all human beings? And where in the world is the crucible from which the very first beta humans might emerge?As income inequality widens and social mobility stagnates within nations who built their twentieth century prosperity upon the values of the Enlightenment, they face seemingly intractable problems which threaten their very identity and existence. Trust levels and educational outcomes are in decline and politics has become divisive and polarised as deadlocked Governments are unable to deal with entrenched human problems.Becoming 'beta humans' may now be the only way to break the deadlock and elevate all human beings beyond current limitations. As the chain reaction of rapid technological development accelerates, humans have the opportunity to attain a new stage of evolution. But the elevation of humanity onto a new concourse will not come from human-robot augmentation or from brain implants. It will come from the upgrading of every aspect of the world in which humans live and the environments in which humans choose to exist and to interact and to live our lives.Whilst the nations of the Enlightenment continue to support their legacy operating systems with expedient and iterative patches, other nations have already started to embrace the full upgrade of their own operating systems to build toward, at least theoretically, superior societies. And travel through the United Arab Emirates, China, Russia, Japan and Singapore shows that the world's first beta humans may not emerge from the nations who led the twentieth century. Beta Humans: Travelling To The Future Of Humanity charts the first-hand experience of travelling through the countries and cities that are surging ahead through their embrace of technology to upgrade the operating systems of their society and everyday life. A final chapter of 'Lessons For A Beta Future' offers ideas for preparing the world for beta humans, and warns that dark forces could usurp the values of the Enlightenment if human progress is allowed to stagnate.Mapped against his experiences of growing up in a deprived region of a Great Britain during a time when the country was wrestling with the prospect of decline, and with deference to the repeating tropes of modern human history, author Michael Macfarlane is however optimistic that "as humans we are programmed to co-exist"; but says that technology has risk because "our internal software has been augmented by access to artificial forms of higher intelligence that increasingly makes our programmed disposition for inter-human cooperation seem obsolete".Macfarlane says that as humans we stand at a juncture between the biological limitations of the 'internal software' created during our relatively primitive beginnings, which cannot be 'upgraded' far beyond our biological limitations, and the opportunity to substantially improve and augment human life by upgrading the things that we can improve. Through highly personal stories he argues that we can create a new 'beta' version of our world. We can become beta humans.