Humanity Sucks: Zen & the Art of Transhuman Evolution, or Darwin Meets the Buddha at Woodstock

by Ron Garland

Published 21 years ago and still one of the best books of the 21st Century.   It foreshadowed the dangers of the religious fundamentalists and Donald Trump.   Humanity Sucks presents four basic propositions in a quasi-legal format arguing that 1) Humanity Sucks; 2) We got this way through evolutionary processes, such as natural selection; 3) To improve, we must take control of these evolutionary processes and use genetic engineering, bionics and biochemical interventions; and 4) the Ultimate Goal of this directed evolutionary process should be the Zen Ideal of the One, or in modern materialistic terminology---a SuperOrganism or Global Brain. While addressing the serious subject of the future of our species, the book is presented in an irreverent and humorous manner including forty Ashleigh Brilliant cartoons and numerous multi-media recommendations involving movies, videos, and music.

212 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2001

Reviews

[David]

It was...ok? I guess? I'm really interested in the concept he wanted to talk about, but he never actually talked about it. The book is full of quotes from other sources, music you should listen to, and movies you should watch, but at no point did I ever connect with this book.

Which, given the subject, is ironic.