How many times have you read something on Wikipedia? I know personally that everything I have ever wanted to learn about, most often, has its own Wikipedia page. Go look up anything that comes to mind, and I bet that it's on there. But, Wikipedia, the largest and most complete depository for all of humanities communal knowledge, is only 6TB of data. Almost anything humans have discovered, made, done, or written, can be deposited on 6 one Terabyte external hard drives you can purchase at Walmart. It's incredible to me how far we have come as a species. Our modern way of life is built upon the work of our ancestors that have come before us. Whether it be Thomas Jefferson, the author of the the Declaration of Independence, or Michael Faraday, the father of the electrical era; whether it be Alan Turring who basically invented computer processing or Sir Isac Newton who revolutionized our understanding of physics and the nature of light, opening the eyes of man kind to the inner workings of the cosmos. 6TB is very impressive, but it is no where near all that is to be known. We know so much, but are blinded by our intelligence. We are still a young spices that knows very little, but we are arrogant enough to think we know all that is to be known. There are hundreds upon thousands of questions that remain to be answered. Are we the only intelligent life in the universe? What was the origin of life on our small, fragile earth? Can we ever hope to travel amongst the stars? These questions and many others are what await the future generations of our species. But I am filled with worry for humanity. Every day I see people who throw away their chance to know so much, to learn everything they could possibly contain within their small brains. I see people who just don't care about the world they live in or the people or animals they share it with. I see violence and hate penetrating our societies. I see groves of people who want to turn their backs on science, technology, and reason; the very things that have pushed our civilization, our species closer to the summit of greatness. I do not want to live in a world where people are isolated behind impenetrable walls of ignorance, of arms, of religious fundamentalism , of the threat of terrorism, of nationality. I want to live in a world where people do not see the differences among us but the similarities. We all are a species of hominid that was born in the plains of Africa. That took over every landscape of a small planet in the suburbs of the Milky-Way. That built testaments to our knowledge. That glorified knowledge and the persut of it. That walked on another world atop a massive controlled explosion. That has sent messages into deep space addressed to anyone who could listen aboard machines of such complexity that they would have been considered magic to those that have come before us. We are a young species who is just now beginning to understand the universe we were thrust into. We are one people, on one, fragile earth. There is no 'us and them' to nature or to the cosmos. We are one spices traveling around a average, main sequence, yellow star on a small, rocky world that has been our home and I hope will continue to be our home since our birth. Do not let the flame of human intelligence. vanish into the dark. Do not extinguish it with ignorance or violent, dividing actions. Instead fan the flames. Let's build upon our intelligence until there is nothing left to know. Let's continue our climb up the mountain of knowledge until we reach the peek of greatness. For then "We shall know the mind of God' - Stephen Hawking"
