ideia e dominação (?)

The most influential force in the world is the idea. Gods, priests, kings, dictators, democrats, terrorists, anarchists all need an idea to justify themselves. It is on the strength of one idea that we once believed that the world was flat and scientists had to work hard to prove that it was actually round. We again believe in a flat world from a completely different perspective.

We can expect sustainability to be the dominant idea of the second decade – perhaps also the third decade - of the 21st century. Will it be the idea that dominates most of the 21st century? I doubt it.
The sustainability idea is perhaps the last idea that concerns the human civilization that we know today. In the second half of this century, science and technology may change the very nature of humanity through dramatic developments in outer space exploration and GNR technologies (genetics, nano-technology and robotics). Human being of tomorrow may not be human being at all. They may be artificial designer humans or some combination of humans and machines. They may be able to go deeper into space and perhaps live there. They may even be able to connect to other beings in other galaxies. The issues we will debate then will be very different from the issues we debate today.

I don’t know which ideas will dominate in the world where humans co-exist with post-humans. I just hope that such a new world – which I will not be around to see – is different from our world in one very fundamental way. All the ideas that humans have developed so far – perhaps with the exception of sustainability – are ideas that compete for dominating the world. Thus, underlying all such conflicting ideas is the idea of dominance. (...) The big question before us is not so much which idea will dominate the 21st century. It is whether we can challenge the idea of dominance and save humanity.

Embora não me reveja em todas as posições de Sundeep Waslekar - afasto-me mesmo totalmente em alguns aspectos - o seu texto é muitíssimo interessante. A ideia: a maior força do mundo.