[Mr. Nobody]

The next step is already here. We are becoming creatures of and for societies and perhaps consciousness is an evolutionary curiosity, discharded many millenia from now when we live and act as one super organism not unlike the you out of your biological cells.
Independant and true freedom (neither in action nor in thought) never existed. All is subject to evolution and as long as creative thinking and autonom consciousness serves us in the game of adaptation, we will retain it, but will we need it in the future? Are we not evolving into a human ant hill where every member has a destinct role and fulfills his duties for the survival of the hive (culture) and is dispensible