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Spirituality

The Unity Imperative: Uniting the Divided States

Personal Perspective: We urgently need more unity. This could be the path.

Key points

  • Toxic levels of polarization are tearing the fabric of society. Unity isn't just desirable—it's imperative.
  • We've created a digital world evolving faster than we can adapt, challenging our collective well-being.
  • United use of AI could overcome our greatest challenges, including ourselves.

A house divided against itself cannot stand." These words, spoken by Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War and inspired by the teachings of Jesus, resonate with newfound urgency in our interconnected yet divided world. As we face mounting global challenges and political polarization, we stand at an inflection point in human history.

The Evolutionary Progress Paradox

Doesn't it feel like we're living in an increasingly mad world? Despite millennia of progress, we face problems so alarming, it's as if we're regressing. Our technological triumphs, rather than elevating humanity, seem to be unearthing ancient tribalism in new forms. What is going on?

This Evolutionary Progress Paradox is perhaps best captured by Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson:

"The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology."

We're hurtling into a sci-fi world evolving faster than our ability to comprehend, let alone adapt. In our relentless pursuit of progress, we've boarded Starship Humanity and launched ourselves into the cosmos at an ever-accelerating rate without a map or destination.

Here’s the staggering irony: The very progress we evolved to achieve has engineered a digital world we didn't evolve to inhabit. A truth we fear to admit is that the pace of progress has finally exceeded our ability to adapt to it.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." —Albert A. Bartlett, American physicist

Our "progress" has created a mad world that’s beginning to drive us all…a little mad. We are devolving into tribalism. This Evolutionary Progress Paradox presents a critical dilemma that necessitates unity. We cannot solve collective problems with divided approaches in an interconnected world.

To paraphrase Carl Sagan, extraordinary challenges require extraordinary unity. The solution to our Evolutionary Progress Paradox lies in The Unity Imperative.

The Unity Imperative: Merging our Evolutionary and Spiritual Purposes

The Unity Imperative isn't just a lofty ideal. It's the skillful progression of our evolutionary journey. It marries science and spirituality, revealing them as seemingly opposing fingers pointing to the same moon of truth.

Historically, science and spirituality have offered conflicting answers to the Big Questions of Life: Why are we here? What is our purpose? But what if they're complementary, and were always meant to be?

  1. Our Evolutionary Purpose. To survive and see our children thrive. This means neutralizing any existential threats to our species. If we fail to do this—if we trigger a global catastrophe through our own actions—we fail as a species. All the beauty, triumphs, and potential of humanity would be for naught. We simply cannot allow that to happen
  2. Our Spiritual Purpose. To love our neighbors as ourselves. This timeless and transcendent teaching, at the heart of all major religious and wisdom traditions, extends to everyone, permeating artificial boundaries. As Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said, “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”
  3. Our Unity Imperative. To fulfill our evolutionary purpose to survive by embracing our spiritual purpose to love our neighbors (everyone) as ourselves. In an interconnected world, we must transcend that which divides us to ensure our collective survival and thriving. This is the essence of Our Unity Imperative.

The tribalism that served us in our evolutionary past now threatens our very existence. The truth we know is this: We are one species—Homo sapiens—and one race—Human. It's time we internalize this deepest of truths: We are all members of One Tribe—Humanity. Within our inherently interconnected world, we are all neighbors, navigating this shared journey together even when we are doing this separately.

Physicist Albert Einstein captured this profound truth in a touching letter to a friend who was grieving the loss of his son:

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

The Path Forward: Leveling Up to Unity

Mike Brooks w/ Megal Alla/original work
Source: Mike Brooks w/ Megal Alla/original work

The Unity Imperative calls us to "Level Up" to greater unity because our shared world demands it. But you might ask, how can we overcome humanity's greatest obstacle—ourselves—to fulfill our true potential? What could be possibly intelligent enough to help us transcend our division and solve the complex problems of modernity?

Enter artificial intelligence (AI). By harnessing AI not for power, profit, or political gain, but to overcome tribalism, we could address our thorniest shared problems. AI can magnify both humanity's best and worst traits. The degree to which we unite in AI's use will dictate whether it amplifies our collective happiness or magnifies our shared suffering.

This is what The Unity Imperative looks like:

Mike Brooks w/ Megal Alla/original work
The Unity Imperative illustrates how greater unity increases societal happiness while lowering existential risks. Conversely, extreme division increases societal suffering and existential risks. This simple yet powerful concept underscores the critical importance of unity for our collective future in an increasingly complex world.
Source: Mike Brooks w/ Megal Alla/original work

To begin harnessing AI for good, we the people can transform our political landscape through a Unity Pledge: a commitment for politicians to prioritize reducing polarization. By supporting only those who honor this pledge, we create a powerful incentive for unity. This grassroots approach could transform our political dialogue from divisive and counterproductive rhetoric to collaborative problem-solving. By reducing polarization, we can repurpose that same time, money, and energy towards improving lives.

Founding father John Adams warned us about the dangers of polarization:

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

A United Call for Collective Action

The Unity Imperative awakens us to a profound truth we all know in our hearts: Love is the Highest Good. This timeless wisdom transcends all barriers. It resonates within every human and unites us all at our core.

Unity flourishes through love, the transformative power that connects us with others and inspires us to treat our neighbors as ourselves. By embracing our deep interconnectedness, we fulfill both our evolutionary drive to survive and our spiritual calling to expand our compassion. Love becomes our bridge across differences, our light through darkness, and our strength to overcome our greatest challenges.

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly." —Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our shared purpose, then, is to overcome the barriers within us that prevent us from loving our neighbors (i.e., everyone) as ourselves. By widening our circles of compassion, we ensure our collective future.

Choosing Unity: Our Existential Imperative

Humanity stands at an existential fork in the road. To fulfill our purpose, we must choose free will to create the unity necessary to manifest humanity's highest potential - or risk our very survival if we don't.

The greatest liberty we could ever know is freedom from fear and hate, coupled with the freedom to love. Love and freedom, far from being at odds, find their fullest expression in each other. In this way, greater unity becomes both our imperative and our path to greater freedom and love.

As the band U2 teaches in passionate anthems such as "One" and “Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way,” love empowers us to transcend our divisions. This understanding echoes the timeless truth Jesus shared: "a house divided will not stand.” This warning reveals an even more powerful truth in its converse: a house united will not fall.

This is the essence of Our Unity Imperative. It's an urgent call to action born from the timeless truths we've always known, yet never fully embraced. My Fellow Human Beings, now is our time to Level Up!

If these are truths you already know, please share them. By spreading this message, you become part of a movement that could create the brighter future we've always imagined.

That makes me think...What if, with the power of AI, we could actually create the world that John Lennon could only imagine?

United We Stand, Together We Thrive!

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