# Michio Kushi Warned About 2033 — And Two Types of Humans (1984) **Channel:** The Ancestral Mind **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK3OkAGqI_0 **Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/DK3OkAGqI_0 ## Chapters - 0:00 — The 2033 Projection and Bionation - 7:19 — Psychonation and Mind Control Risks - 13:07 — Why the 2033 Warning Mattered - 16:15 — Two Paths for Human Development - 21:26 — Wisdom, Choice, and Human Meaning ## Transcript **[0:00]:** Then the year of 2033 computers stopped. **[0:10]:** 2033 **[0:15]:** which they thought this is end of civilization. In 1984 I described the future in which humanity might divide into two very different forms of existence. One would become increasingly artificial. Its body supported by machines. Its behavior influenced by chemicals. And eventually perhaps even its memories and intentions altered by technology. The other would attempt to preserve and develop the natural qualities of human life. I believed these two directions could determine the future of civilization. And in my lecture I described a computer projection that ended at the year 2033. But disturbing part was not the date itself. It was the sequence of changes that supposedly led toward it. Because the question was no longer simply what machines could do for human beings. It was something much more fundamental. What happens when human beings begin treating their own bodies, thoughts, and identities as things that can be replaced? **[1:43]:** To explain why this troubled me I must tell you about a man I had known for almost 40 years. And what happened when we met again. When I was 17 I entered college in Japan. Among my classmates was a young man whose initials were K. He became one of my closest friends. We studied together, lived in the same dormitory and experienced the difficult years surrounding the war. Later, we both attended the University of Tokyo. But after graduation, our lives moved in opposite directions. He entered the chemical industry. I continued my studies, encountered George Ohsawa, and eventually devoted my life to macrobiotic education. For decades, we followed separate paths. Then, after approximately uh 35 to 38 years, we met again in Boston. I asked him what he had been doing. His answer astonished me. He had become chairman of Japan's Artificial Internal Organs Industry Association. He was helping lead an industry devoted to replacing the functions of human organs with artificial technology. **[3:28]:** I had spent my life teaching what I understood as natural human development. And my closest friend had spent his career developing technological substitutes for the human body. Two friends, two approaches, two visions of the future. Neither of us believed we were working against humanity. We both believed our work could help people. But as he explained the direction of his industry, I began to see a much larger problem. He described research into artificial hearts, kidneys, and increasingly complicated biological functions. He also discussed ambitious possibilities for replacing other parts of the body. But some of these ideas were technological aspirations, not achievements that had actually been demonstrated. Nevertheless, the direction was unmistakable. Researchers were attempting to make more human functions accessible to artificial replacement. And I wondered what might happen if this became an organizing principle of civilization. In my lecture, I gave this process a name, bionation. **[5:08]:** Bionation meant the increasing artificialization of the human body. A natural function becomes impaired. Technology offers a substitute. That substitute becomes more sophisticated. Then another function becomes accessible to artificial intervention. A heart, a kidney, a joint, a sensory function. Gradually, the range of possible interventions expands. Such technologies can relieve suffering and save lives. But my concern went beyond their immediate medical use. I wondered whether society might eventually regard the human being primarily as a collection of functions that could be maintained, modified, or replaced. The body would become a technical problem. And technical problems would demand technical solutions. But what about the life being lived inside that body? What about the way a person eats, rests, works, thinks, and relates to nature? Would these questions become less important as technological intervention became more sophisticated? That was the contradiction I saw. Civilization was becoming more capable of changing human functions. **[6:54]:** But greater capability did not automatically mean greater wisdom. And in my lecture, bionation was only the first stage. The second stage went further because replacing an organ changes the body. But influencing a person's behavior changes the way that person lives. **[7:19]:** I call the second process psychonation. By this, I meant the increasing use of artificial interventions to influence psychological functions, behavior, attention, emotion, patterns of thought. In 1984, I spoke about chemicals and electrical methods that could alter aspects of mental experience. My concern was the possibility that these interventions might expand into increasingly ordinary areas of life. There is an important distinction here. Appropriate mental health care can be necessary and beneficial. The existence of effective treatment does not establish that society is attempting to control everyone's mind. But I was asking a philosophical question about the direction of technology. What happens when external systems acquire more power to influence human behavior? Who decides how that power should be used? And what remains of personal autonomy when decisions are shaped by forces an individual does not fully understand? Consider the difference between helping a person make a decision and making that decision for him. **[9:00]:** In the first case, knowledge increases freedom. In the second, control may replace freedom. This distinction mattered deeply to me because I believed human development should increase a person's capacity for conscious responsibility, not merely the ability of external systems to regulate his behavior. But even psychonation was not the deepest stage I described. I imagined a third possibility, uh, something much more disturbing, not simply influencing what a person feels, but changing the memories and convictions through which that person understands who he is. I called this ultra psychonation. In my lecture, I imagined a future in which artificial interventions could reach into memory itself. Unpleasant experiences might be erased. New memories might be introduced. Personal convictions might be altered. Even fundamental ideas about love, peace, religion, and human purpose might become objects of manipulation. These were speculative possibilities in 1984. I was not presenting evidence that such total control had been achieved. **[10:44]:** But consider the philosophical problem. What is a human identity? It is not only the body. It is also the history a person remembers. The experiences that shape his judgment, the relationships that influence his values, the aspirations he develops over time. Now imagine that those things could be deliberately rewritten. A person might continue looking the same, speaking the same language, performing the same daily activities. But how much of his inner life would remain his own? If someone else could determine what you remember, what you believe, and what you desire, then the question of freedom would become impossible to avoid. This was the real danger I wanted people to contemplate. Not that technology would automatically destroy humanity, but that the ability to influence the human mind might advance more quickly than our understanding of how that power should be governed. And there was another development, I believed, would intensify this transformation, robotics, machines increasingly capable of performing tasks that once required human labor. **[12:29]:** And alongside them, advances in genetic engineering and reproductive technology, different technologies, different scientific purposes. But within my interpretation, they raised a common question. How far could the transformation of human existence go before our definition of humanity itself began to change? And now, with these stages understood, we can return to the year that made my lecture so unsettling. **[13:07]:** In 1984, I described an account of futurists and researchers using computers to project the development of civilization. According to the story I related, historical trends were entered into a model and extended into the future. The projection passed through a series of stages, the electronic age, the age of increasing artificialization of the body, then the artificial influence of psychological functions. And finally, what I called ultra psychonation. The timeline I described placed psychonation around 1980, **[14:06]:** psychonation around 2000, and ultra psychonation around 2020. Then the projection reached 2033 and according to the account I gave the computation stopped. Those involved interpreted that result as suggesting the end of civilization under the conditions being projected. I considered it a warning. But we must distinguish the account from a demonstrated prediction. My lecture did not provide enough information to independently establish the model, test its assumptions, or prove that civilization would end in 2033. And a computer producing a particular result does not make that result inevitable. The significance of the story was the question it raised. Uh, what happens if technology advances while humanity neglects its responsibility to determine how that technology should be used? A machine can calculate according to the information and assumptions given to it. But it cannot establish the moral purpose of civilization merely by performing calculations. That purpose must still be considered by human beings. **[15:46]:** And this was why the possibility of two different human futures concerned me more than any single date. Because the year 2033 was not the beginning of the problem. In my account, it was the point reached after decades of transformation. The real question was what humanity had been becoming all along. **[16:15]:** Now we arrive at the central argument of my lecture. I spoke of two human species, but I was not reporting the discovery of two distinct biological species already living on Earth. I was describing two possible directions of human development. One direction placed increasing emphasis on technological intervention, the replacement of physical functions, the artificial influence of behavior, the possibility of manipulating memory and identity, and progressive transformation of human life through sophisticated systems. The other direction was what I sought through macrobiotic philosophy. The cultivation of human capacities through daily living, through our relationship with food and nature, through gratitude, through responsibility, through the development of consciousness. I believed that genuine human progress required more than sophisticated machines. It required a deeper understanding of life. This was not merely a disagreement about technology. It was a disagreement about what development should mean. My friend saw progress in the increasing ability to replace functions that had been lost. **[18:06]:** I saw another kind of progress in developing our relationship with the natural conditions of life. We could agree that suffering mattered. We could agree that humanity deserved a better future. But we approached that future differently. And this is what made our reunion so memorable. After nearly four decades, the two friends who had studied together were now working along two very different paths. Neither had set out to become a symbol. Yet the contrast between us expressed the very question I was trying to explain. Should human progress be measured only by what we can manufacture or also by what we can become? When I spoke about macrobiotics, many people assumed I was speaking only about diet, brown rice, vegetables, uh cooking. But to me, macrobiotics concerned the whole of daily living. The way we wake in the morning, the way we prepare a meal, the way we treat our parents, the gratitude we feel toward nature, the responsibility we accept for our choices, and the kind of society those choices gradually **[19:54]:** create. I believed ordinary life was the foundation upon which human consciousness developed. The idea was not simply to survive. It was to cultivate greater harmony, responsibility, and understanding. Uh some of the medical claims I made in that period about diet and the treatment of serious illnesses were not supported by reliable clinical evidence. They should not be used to replace effective medical care. But the broader philosophical question remains variable. Can a civilization become increasingly powerful while becoming less thoughtful about the way it lives? Can it develop remarkable machines while neglecting gratitude, compassion, and responsibility? Can it learn to control more of its environment without learning to understand itself? These were the questions behind my warning. And they were the reason I believed the future could not be left to technological development alone because knowledge is powerful. But knowledge must be guided by purpose. And purpose requires reflection. **[21:26]:** Let us return to my old friend KM. We were still friends after our meeting. He believed he was helping humanity. I believed I was helping humanity. We had followed different paths, but we had not stopped respecting one another. And this is important because the future of civilization should not be decided through hatred of those who think differently, nor through blind acceptance or rejection of technology. It requires the wisdom to ask what a particular development accomplishes, whom it helps, what freedoms it protects, and what consequences it may create. Medical technology can preserve life. Scientific discoveries can improve our understanding. But technological power cannot by itself tell us what makes a life meaningful. That remains a human question. And in my lecture, I wanted people to recognize the urgency of that question. I spoke about building an ark of Noah, not a literal wooden vessel, but a movement intended to preserve the qualities of life. **[23:04]:** I believed civilization was in danger of losing. It was an image of invitation, a call to examine the direction in which we were moving, because I believed humanity had alternatives. The future was not simply something that happened to us. It was also something shaped by our decisions. And that is why I described two directions, two ways of approaching human development, two visions of what civilization might become, not because I knew with certainty which future would prevail, but because I wanted people to understand that a choice existed. And now, consider the meaning of 2033 once more. I did not establish that year as a scientifically proven deadline. I presented it as part of a disturbing projection about the direction of civilization. But the deeper warning did not depend upon the precision of that date. It depended upon the question behind it. What happens when humanity becomes powerful enough to transform itself, but has not yet developed the wisdom to decide what that transformation should serve? **[24:45]:** We may create more sophisticated machines. We may alter more biological functions. We may discover new ways to influence human thought. But these abilities will never remove our responsibility to examine their consequences. The greatest danger is not simply that technology will change human life. Change has always been part of human history. The danger is that we may stop asking what kind of life those changes are intended to create. And so when I spoke in 1984 about two human species, I was describing a crossroads. One direction placed growing confidence in technological transformation. The other sought the development of human qualities through a conscious relationship with life. The question was not whether humanity could stop every technological change. It was whether humanity could learn to guide change with wisdom. Because the future of civilization does not depend only upon what our machines become capable of doing. It also depends upon what human beings choose to value. **[26:19]:** And perhaps the greatest warning of all is this. We may eventually learn how to replace almost everything in the human body. But if we forget what makes human life meaningful, what exactly will we have preserved?