Fragile thread of future hinges on elections

Before mailing your ballot, pressing a name on the computer screen or placing a checkmark next to your preferred candidate or political party on Nov. 3, be reminded that you are one of the few survivors of the thin thread of humanity that thwarted the perils of death and destruction for eons.

That thin thread of humanity has endured the complexity of childbirth, plagues, natural catastrophes and calamities, and many incessant wars that took the lives of billions. And here, at this moment, you’re alive at the end of that thread, to cast your vote that can affect the future of many others, not yours alone.

Man’s ambition and intellect have given him the ability to develop technology to build or destroy all things possible, the products of his creation and the environment that birthed and nurtured his existence. And now artificial intelligence is supplanting human intellect, advancing, unchecked, more rapidly than expected.

But will it lead to saving or destroying humanity? Will it replace the mental, emotional and ethereal needs of a human being, the crux of why we still exist after all those centuries that nearly eradicated life on this planet?

Or will we relinquish our lives to binary numbers and electronic manipulations, funded by unlimited resources, while losing touch with each other?

What’s at stake on Election Day? Will you allow that thin, fragile connective thread to remain intact, or allow it to be entangled with ephemeral religious and political activity that has done no favor for the survival of humanity? Pause and reflect: How will your decision to vote or not to vote affect the future of your progeny and fellow human beings?

James D. Cook, Schaumburg