{"id":1402,"date":"2016-04-30T23:12:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T23:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=1402"},"modified":"2016-04-30T23:12:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-30T23:12:19","slug":"play-with-fire-play-god-and-play-your-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/04\/play-with-fire-play-god-and-play-your-part.html","title":{"rendered":"Play with fire, play God, and play your part"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1354 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/375\/2016\/04\/Fire-1024x625.jpg\" alt=\"play with fire\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" \/>We all &#8220;play God&#8221; or &#8220;play with fire&#8221; at some point. What we do affects people&#8217;s lives, even their chances of longevity. But are these things really so bad?<\/p>\n<p>Had your ancestors chosen not to play with fire, life might\u00a0not be nearly so comfortable or warm now. Expressions like &#8220;you play with fire&#8221; or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/synbio-scientists-more-than-playing-god.html\">&#8220;you play God&#8221;<\/a> come into play prominently\u00a0in my futurist areas\u00a0of interest. It happens typically when scientists or inventors are doing something destined to change the lives of millions. The\u00a0terms are\u00a0quite fitting, but I smile when they\u00a0are\u00a0used. To me, to &#8220;play with fire&#8221; represents something good when it comes to science.<\/p>\n<p>Humans are different from animals. Perhaps most significantly, we are the only ones who &#8220;play with fire&#8221;, the only species\u00a0capable of destroying itself. There is a very realistic possibility that it could come to this eventually. But that very same destructive tendency is also the reason for humanity&#8217;s greatest accomplishments. Space rockets, combustion, knowledge of chemistry and physics.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0scare once existed among a small few\u00a0that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) might create a black hole or some other peril understood only among\u00a0quantum physicists and cosmologists. There\u00a0were\u00a0an even smaller few who would have told you it is worth the risk.<\/p>\n<p>Technological civilization is a tightrope.\u00a0We who promote it so earnestly are\u00a0well aware of its risks. Worse for those who want to panic and try to backtrack, we are already too far along the tightrope to stop or to falter now. Humanity has to continue its course of discovery and development, even if it produces nightmarish risks. We are not animals anymore and there is no turning back.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists already know how the genome works. There are some people among environmentalist circles who shall want to panic about this &#8211; <em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hjbentham\/status\/653123719041318913\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;leave Mother Nature alone!&#8221;<\/a><\/em> No. What has been discovered has been discovered. No one can rewind.<\/p>\n<p>If an area of science\u00a0isn&#8217;t properly understood and its possibilities tested &#8211; if the controversial breakthroughs in areas like\u00a0artificial life or artificial intelligence are not exhaustively pursued, they\u00a0will just stay on the shelf. Then, they will be continued\u00a0during\u00a0some\u00a0more chaotic &#8211; and less ethical &#8211; period in history. Let these great scientists continue to expand the zones of knowledge and all possibilities now, and continue the path we have been on.<\/p>\n<p>Better yet, kindle some bright\u00a0ideas from my short book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Catalyst-Techno-Liberation-Harry-J-Bentham\/dp\/1500436720\/\" target=\"_blank\">Catalyst<\/a><\/em>\u00a0about more on\u00a0this subject.\u00a0If you are too impatient to listen, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Catalyst-Techno-Liberation-Harry-J-Bentham\/dp\/1500436720\/\">read<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-919\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/375\/2015\/09\/hjb-signature-new-transparent-300x86.png\" alt=\"hjb signature new transparent\" width=\"300\" height=\"86\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We all &#8220;play God&#8221; or &#8220;play with fire&#8221; at some point. What we do affects people&#8217;s lives, even their chances of longevity. But are these things really so bad? Had your ancestors chosen not to play with fire, life might\u00a0not be nearly so comfortable or warm now. Expressions like &#8220;you play with fire&#8221; or &#8220;you&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,41,63,37,66,61,62,45],"tags":[1467,1466,1294,5,1488,64,1126,4],"class_list":["post-1402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazon","category-book","category-futurism-2","category-history","category-politics-2","category-science","category-synthetic-biology","category-techno-progressivism","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-life","tag-ethics","tag-futurism","tag-science","tag-synbio","tag-synthetic-biology","tag-technology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Play with fire, play God, and play your part - L&#039;Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"To say you &quot;play with fire&quot; is often used to patronize or ridicule an innovation. 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But wouldn't it defy your nature as a human, not to play with fire?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/04\/play-with-fire-play-god-and-play-your-part.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Play with fire, play God, and play your part - L&#039;Ordre","og_description":"To say you \"play with fire\" is often used to patronize or ridicule an innovation. But wouldn't it defy your nature as a human, not to play with fire?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/04\/play-with-fire-play-god-and-play-your-part.html","og_site_name":"L&#039;Ordre","article_published_time":"2016-04-30T23:12:19+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2016\/04\/Fire-1024x625.jpg"}],"author":"Harry J. Bentham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/04\/play-with-fire-play-god-and-play-your-part.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/04\/play-with-fire-play-god-and-play-your-part.html","name":"Play with fire, play God, and play your part - L&#039;Ordre","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/04\/play-with-fire-play-god-and-play-your-part.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/04\/play-with-fire-play-god-and-play-your-part.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2016\/04\/Fire-1024x625.jpg","datePublished":"2016-04-30T23:12:19+00:00","dateModified":"2016-04-30T23:12:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e"},"description":"To say you \"play with fire\" is often used to patronize or ridicule an innovation. 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Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. 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