Mankind’s progress in the fields of science and technology appears to be exponential – accelerating at an increasing pace. Extrapolating this trend suggests that there will be a point in mankind’s future where, save for catastrophic events on a global scale, major technological breakthroughs will happen not over the span of centuries or decades, but years, months or even days.

On the other hand, biological evolution is linear and has not shown to be accelerating since the dawn of life on Earth. Its mechanisms still take tens or hundreds of millennia to show their effect, as they did in the early stages of life on Earth. It took 300,000 years, for example, for homo sapiens sapiens (the modern man) to differentiate itself from the early and archaic homo sapiens sub-species.

The mismatch between the rate of technological improvement (which is exponential) and that of biological evolution (which is linear) has a profound implication for mankind’s future as a technology-wielding species. It means that the next evolution of man will be driven by technology, not biology. Through our understanding and command of key technologies such as genetics, nuclear fusion, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and deep-space travel, we will shape our futures in ways that biology alone cannot. The ethical, philosophical and societal implications are profound, with tremendous potential benefits for mankind, such as increased longevity or immortality and the end of suffering, both physical and mental. Similarly, the downsides brought by inherent technological risks and societal upheavals will need to be carefully anticipated, assessed and mitigated.

Red Shift posits that this future is not only desirable, but also inevitable; and that, considering its potential benefits, it is our moral imperative, as the only sentient species, to accelerate it by actively promoting it, which is what this blog endeavors to do.