This chapter focuses on human achievement as accomplished with the use of technology to explore humanity's most daunting challenges. While ancient Promethean myths echo a threat of the human use of technology, transhumanism offers a social construct to inform and mitigate many impending threats. The aim is to encourage life-long learning—ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge—through immersive and educational platforms for ethical leadership in a world of rapid change. Notably, there are counter arguments to an intervention of the human condition, which often expose themselves as biases of moral perception that, in due course, fall short. Yet, humans continue to be fueled by curiosity and a need for amelioration to transcend limits. What is lacking and most imminently necessary to deal with the exponentially increasing technology in our midst, and to society's varied perceptions and reactions, is straightforward knowledge and guidance in navigating towards the telos of our humanity.
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This chapter focuses on human achievement as accomplished with the use of technology as a means to explore humanity’s most daunting challenges. To begin this journey, it is essential to understand that advancing knowledge is the primary undertaking of leaders in many fields, including academics, who benefit from sharing information. That benefit can be based on an innate desire to raise intellectual awareness. When a society has knowledge, it prospers. However, to prosper the knowledge must be based on researched studies that can be tested to reveal what types of knowledge cause a society to prosper, in what locations in the world, and within what time frames. In addressing human achievement, three distinct points need to be made that offer insight into why limits placed before us are often echoes of antiquity, the inequality of knowledge and the need for a straightforward approach to knowledge.
First, cultural beliefs concerning knowledge are often influenced by antiquity. Religion, philosophy, science, and the arts provide a foundation for the varied cultures throughout the world. However, knowledge is not equitably imparted across populations and their demographics. There are often differing opinions that evoke struggles and constraints on what type of knowledge and how much knowledge people ought to have, and who provides it—academic institutions, religious institutions, governments, open source shared environments, and/or word of mouth. What is reliable and how is the information being funneled to the public in a highly politicized world?
Second, it is an observable fact that not all populations will have the same level of knowledge and available technology within the same time frame. Social structures are governed by diverse laws and rules that either support or prevent the advancement of knowledge. While we must work toward encouraging education and fostering technology for those in need, there are often rigidly uncompromising beliefs that denounce and prevent such advancements. Why are some populations benefiting from knowledge and technology and others are not?
Third, education has changed and will continue to change as diverse learning models shape environments for reaching as many people as possible through varied communication channels. The fluid interaction between providing information and accessing information is readily available with online education and virtual learning, which adds significantly to mentoring, and hands-on team-based experiential projects. Yet, who is delivering the content and how balanced and straightforward is it?