In a world with inequality running wild it is not too crazy to think of the eventual split of human species into two or more subspecies. The idea is not new, for sure. In his first novel, The Time Machine 1895, H. G. Wells speculated that class divisions would eventually sunder humanity into two separate species, the Eloi and the Morlocks. What have changed in 125 years?

1. Francisco J. Jariego
SFRA Annual Conference, The future of Inequality, June 2021
Exploring
the
likelihood of
a techno-
split of
the human
species
@fjjariego

2. HG Wells, The Time Machine, 1895

3. The Gilded Age, 1870 – 1900+
HG Wells was an outspoken
Socialist from a young age.
The Time Machine reflects…
His political views, his
view on life and
abundance, and the
contemporary angst
about industrial
relations.
Also influenced by
theories about social
degeneration

4. What’s the role of natural selection in our modern civilisation
Charles Robert Darwin, 1809-1882 Sir. Francis Galton, 1822-1911 J.B.S. Haldane, 1892-1964

5. +1

6. What have changed in 125 years?

7. The Double Helix of Inequality and
Well-Being, and…
The elephant in the room

8. The Gilded Age, Season 2?

9. BBC News, Oct 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stm
Social inequality
might soon be
programmed into
our DNA

10. Speciation, what we know
Darwin's finches or Galapagos finches. Darwin, 1845. Gregor Mendel, 1822 - 1884

11. Beyond natural selection
• Selective Breeding
• Eugenics
• Ectogenesis
• Synthetic Biology
• “Cyber” Technologies (Cyborgs)
• New isolationism
New Enablers New Selective Pressures
• Social: Wealth Inequality / Mating
selection / Healthier children /
Government intervention / Migration
Flows
• Health (epidemics) & Aging
• Appetite for Transhumanism
(aesthetic & aspirational)
• Geostrategy & the military
• Space travel
• Climate Change

12. Toward the bifurcation of humanity: Techno-Split
Gregory Scott
• Engineering the Human
Germline, 2000
• Redesigning Humans: Our
Inevitable Genetic Future, 2002
• To upgrade is human (TED Talk)
George Church
• Synthetic biology, 2012
• Multigenic traits can have
single gene variants (often
rare in populations) with
large impacts.
Lee M. Silver
• Remaking Eden: How
Genetic Engineering and
Cloning Will Transform the
American Family (1998)
• Challenging Nature: The
Clash of Science and
Spirituality at the New
Frontiers of Life, 2006
Oliver Scott Curry
• Human species 'may split in
two’
• Academic research investigates
the nature, content and
structure of human morality.

13. Science Fiction has (partially) explored some scenarios
• Gattaca, a future society driven by eugenics. Children are
conceived through genetic selection to ensure they possess the
best hereditary traits of their parents
• Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain: speciation-in-progress with
"Sleepless“ individuals genetically modified to not need sleep,
who have greater potential for intelligence and accomplishment
than ordinary humans Sleepers"
• Robert Heinlein, Methuselah's Children. Selective breeding by
financially encouraging those with long-lived grandparents to
marry each other and have children. By the 22nd century, the
"Howard families" have a life expectancy exceeding 150 years.
• Frank Herbert, Dune. Selective breeding by a powerful
sisterhood, the Bene Gesserit, to produce a supernormal male
being, the Kwisatz Haderach

14. Possible Paths / Scenarios
New pressures + new enablers
speed up evolution, and a new
human species evolves on either
this planet or another.
Stationary State: Settled life,
human populations densely
packed across the Earth,
individuals unprecedentedly
mobile (+ broad crossbreeding)
Cyborg-Transhumanism: Mixing
with machines. A long foresight
and debated scenario. (There
must be something)
Techno Split: One or more
(partially coexisting) species
Unique Species: Broad
Levelling Effect of Technology
Borg
Route
Stasis
Homo
Sapiens,
2021
Speed Up

15. Year 20XX: An offer you cannot refuse?
Your government is offering young people a subsidy to participate in a programme
to improve the pool of genes of the nation. Other countries in the world are already
running similar programmes, and there is a clear concern they might gain a
competitive advantage in a not to distant future.
Successful programmes in the past, like COVID-19 vaccination in 2021, have proven
it is possible to offer a massive population the benefits of a coordinated health
measure (with clear wealth implications).
Participation is completely voluntary.
What do you do?

16. References
• Peter Turchin, The Double Helix of Inequality and Well-Being, 2013
• Seidel, Homi Kharas and Brina "What's happening to the world income distribution? The elephant chart revisited“ 2013
• Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Income Inequality, A Word In Data, 2013-2016, https://ourworldindata.org/income-
inequality
• Safran, R. J. & Nosil, P. (2012) Speciation: The Origin of New Species. Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):17
• David Warmflash, MD, Nathan H Lents, Ph.D. “Future of Human Evolution” Visionlearning Vol. BIO-5 (4), 2017.
• Moore, Andrew. ‘The Future of Our Species.’ EMBO Reports 9, no. S1 (1 July 2008): S1–3.
https://doi.org/10.1038/embor.2008.111.
• Ward, Peter. ‘What May Become of Homo Sapiens’. Scientific American. Accessed 16 June 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamericanhuman1112-106.
• Transhumanist Declaration, https://humanityplus.org/transhumanism/transhumanist-declaration/
Images
• Morlock taking an Eloi child, from the book “Kaibutsu Gensō Gashū” illustrated by Tatsuya Morino
• Eloi and Morlock, bogatyrkhan, Devian Art
• Cyrus Field, Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Russell Sage, seated on bags of "millions", Mayer Merkel & Ottmann lith.,
N.Y.; Published by Keppler & Schwarzmann - Library of Congress, public domain
• Hominin, Britannica

17. indieresearch.net