The first ultimate question is "How can we improve the human mind?"

Learning and technological advancement are causing all kinds of problems to the environment, animals and people. I believe the advice of hippocrittes, is still relevant today as it was when he was alive."First do no harm" The ultimate question, and the most pressing question should be "How can we stop doing harm? The answer to the question is to actually stop trying to improve things. To go back on improvement and be one with nature. Damages to the environment. A. The industrial/technological system is the main factor behind global warming. We know that global warming is man made and a result of the industrial-technological revolution is because of the amount of low isotope carbon-14 found in the atmosphere. Something that mainly comes from burning fossil fuels. http://ossfoundation.us...... B. More then 14,000 people die from drinking polluted water every day [1]. Nearly half a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water [2]. I've only mentioned the human element so far. This pollution is also causing extremely harmful affects on underwater ecosystems as well. The sources of this harmful phenomenon is mostly human caused and as a result of the industrial-technological system. If you look at the sources of water pollution in the cited article you will come to the same conclusion [3]. [1] http://environment.about.com...... [2] http://www.nytimes.com...... [3] http://en.m.wikipedia.org...... C. Air pollution The industrial technological system has harmed the quality of the air we breathe. Smog is something caused by pollutants from internal combustion engines of cars as well as industrial fumes from factories. [1] The health affects of smog are harmful to everyone but especially children, the elderly, those with bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma [2]. [1]http://en.m.wikipedia.org...... [2] http://web.archive.org...... 2. Harm of the industrial-technological society on Animals. A. Factory farming has reduced animals to mere cogs in the machine. Animals are out in cages that are extremely crowded . They live their whole lives barely able to move. [1] They are on many occasions force fed in a way that causes extreme damage and pain [2]. They are debeaked [3]. This is just a short list of the abuse these animals take to feed the industrial-technological system. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com...... [2] http://m.humanesociety.org...... [3] http://www.mercyforanimals.org...... B. I've already shown how underwater ecosystems are being destroyed by the industrial-technological system. Now let's move on to other ecosystems. Over 50% of plant and animal species live in the rainforest[1]. The majority of the deforestation occurring in these areas can be directly contributed to the industrial-technological system [2]. [1] http://www.nature.org...... [2] http://unfccc.int...... 3. Harmful affects to humans A. It's not just animals who are reduced to mere cogs in the industrial-technological society. Humans have almost lost all autonomy. We have been reduced to wage slave [1]. Are movement is extremely controlled. We must walk on the side walk follow green lights, stop at red ones. [1] http://www.whywork.org...... B. People do not have control over how they are governed. Mysterious people in far away lands decide if they have a right to get married, smoke a cigarette or do a drug. Experts design cities and humans have lost control over their environment. Computers make lots of decisions humans can't comprehend either such as how a new sewer systems get put in place. Some of it may seem petty but it's just a few examples of millions of how humans have lost most of their autonomy. C. Humans in third world countries are being severely harmed as a result of the industrial-technological system. The newly industrial societies use people almost as slave labor and the intense pollution obviously has a significant environmental affect.[1] http://m.wisegeek.org...... 4. Psychological affects on humans. A. Humans have a great need for the feeling of autonomy [1]. People have fought and died for their right to have autonomy. Often when people are suffering depression they claim to feel like they have no control over the direction of their life. Autonomy is an innate human desire that isn't going away despite the fact the more the industrial-technological beast grows the more us humans lose our autonomy. [1] http://m.psychologytoday.com...... Here is working links. The ones above do not work and I had no time to fix them. http://www.debate.org... Let's stop progress people!! I also want to point out that an advance in intelligence that causes an intelligence explosion could literally destroy mankind. According to one article; seeding super intelligence can cause control problems; "occupies the bulk of the book and is treated with the most technical jargon. The stakes, as he describes them, are the survival of the human race, and he argues that we should weigh the ethical and practical implications of superintelligence at least as carefully as we consider, say, the implications of thermonuclear warfare. And we have only one chance to influence its development before the superintelligence takes over. He imagines a scenario in which superintelligence has converted the entire explorable universe into a computing machine, solely to run simulations of people and torture them forever. Bostrom, who does not think small, estimates the number affected at 10 billion trillion trillion trillion trillion human souls but concedes, darkly, that "the true number is probably larger." http://www.psmag.com... We can see that not only are improve to harmful to the well being of very living creature on the planet, but could quite literally kill us all. We need to roll back the capabilities of the human mind, destroy progress and our external brains (computers).