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Bill Joy On His Own Future, And The World's
geeber writes "There is an interesting interview with Bill Joy in the current edition of the Magazine in the New York Times. He is still obssesed with what he calls a 'civilization-changing event' brought on by the fast pace of research into dangerous technologies such as genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Another interesting tidbit: he has flirted with the idea of going to work for Google."
After all, it may be that self-destruction is not only our destiny as human beings, but our purpose.
All facetiousness aside, his mention of Bertrand Russell's opposition to nuclear weapons raises a good point. Sure, we risked barbecuing ourselves during the Cold War. But, arguably, the same weapons also prevented World War III, and are continuing to do so. You could say that we traded an unimaginable amount of economic power -- strategic nuclear-weapons programs are, after all, the most expensive investment the human race has ever made -- for the very security that Joy says we're recklessly neglecting.
At the end of the day, he'll just have to finish his manifesto and submit it for review by civilization at large. Even Ted Kaczynski managed to get that far.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Yes, knife can be useful but also dangerous.
Explosives can be useful but very dangerous too. In the wrong hands they're definitely more dangerous than knives.
Nuclear power can be useful but in general it's more dangerous (in the bomb form) than knives or explosives. It is, in fact, the first technology with which the human race could have committed a suicide.
To me it seems like that to Joy genetic engineering and nanotechnology are one more order of magnitude more dangerous than atomic power or any other existing human technology. Why? Because of the potential for self-replication. Atomic bombs certainly kill lots of people, but they cannot self-replicate and run out of our control.
In the end it boils down to the risk = probability * consequences. Even if the probability of us becoming victims to all-conquering grey nanogoo is vanishingly small, are the consequences so disasterous that the risk is eventually too high for us even experiment with the idea?
Incidentally, developers of the hydrogen bomb had to wrestle with the same equation. What if we lit up a hydrogen bomb in our atmosphere and, against all our calculations and predictions, nitrogen-nitrogen fusion would begin and our entire atmosphere would be consumed in one huge fusion burn.
The owls are not what they seem
The man is suggesting an end to the free flow of information that science is built upon. He talked about scientific "guilds" that would hold the sacred flame and hide it from everyone else in an effort to preserve the human race.
I'm sorry, but that would sound like the end of at least interdisciplinary science if not science itself. I think the rubuttal that you labeled "simplistic" is pretty accurate. Just because the results of science can be used for destructive aims is not a reason to return to the ages of hidden knowledge.
"I'm a loner Dottie, a rebel."
- Pee Wee Herman
This is Insightful? Does anyone other than one bitter crank who's pissed off about how his site gets indexed believe any of this is remotely true? Google searches "pure garbage," full of nothing but porn sites? Their support told him to "fuck off"? Oh, wait, that's what they "basically" told him. So, in other words, this guy just has an axe to grind and he's willing to make up whatever he wants so long as it fits his rant, and then other people will mod him up, "basically" because they're jealous of Google or something. Tell you what, pal -- why don't you start your own search engine? Then, when your engine gets really popular, you can throw huge parties and not invite anybody from Google, just to show 'em!
Breakfast served all day!
It's amazing to read an article about someone like Bill Joy, a truly creative thinker and someone who accomplished a lot
He accomplished a lot in *programming*, nothing else. See, that's the problem. Once someone gets famous for doing X, they think they can speak authoritatively on all subjects. But they can't -- they can just babble, just as Einstein did about socialism and pacifism, and Bill Joy is doing about science. While we can all hold opinions on everything, and even babble about them on Usenet and Slashdot (or indeed on blogs, the most self-indulgent waste of time possible), it would be considerably more productive if people limited their interactions with journalists to the subjects they have actually been educated in.
Once someone gets famous for doing X, they think they can speak authoritatively on all subjects.
This problem exists, but is not valid in this case.
See, I'd agree if the interview was with Britney or Tiger - their opinion on the future counts for nothing. But you're talking about Bill Joy. When a deservedly prominent computer scientist - or, for that matter, biologist, economist, etc. - talks about the future, I'll listen.