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Scientific American's Fred Guterl Explores the Threats Posed By Technology
Lasrick writes "Fred Guterl is the executive editor of Scientific American, and in this piece he explores various threats posed by the technology that modern civilization relies on. He discusses West African and Indian monsoons, infectious diseases, and computer hacking. Here's a quote: 'Today the technologies that pose some of the biggest problems are not so much military as commercial. They come from biology, energy production, and the information sciences — and are the very technologies that have fueled our prodigious growth as a species. They are far more seductive than nuclear weapons, and more difficult to extricate ourselves from. The technologies we worry about today form the basis of our global civilization and are essential to our survival.'"
Do we have credible reports of someone actually being killed because of hacking? The media and politicians for the last few years have been hyping the hell out of the hacker menace and the "cyber" war but no one is even providing any body counts
I used to read SA cover to cover when I was in high-school in the early '70s - it was great! The magazine was looking at using technology to improve our future - a lot of which happened.
Now, it is a bunch of nay-sayers and nervous ninny's which will prevent the future instead of embracing it.
Apparently you're not getting the nature of the problem. This is an issue all over the planet. There are a number of human contributions to the ecosphere. Many of these things are antagonistic, as in the case of the Indian Monsoons, The smoke causes local dimming, reducing the amount of solar energy that gets to the ground (or in this case, the ocean.) The green house gases (and you need to appreciate how fast India's use of fossil fuels is growing and how fast their middle class is growing and they want to live like Americans) are being produced by Indians themselves. They want cars and night life and products that have to be shipped half way around the world. So they're producing more than enough local greenhouse gas to impact their own local climate and the climate of others around them. Poor Bangladesh is already in deep guano. Water is rising, and they live on a flood plain. A population half that of the United States lives in profound poverty and they will be displaced by the effects of Global Warming in this century... where do they go? The likely answer is away.
Anyway, you have these two growing forces pushing harder and harder in the opposite direction and for now canceling out. Alls well right? Not so fast, as the two sides push harder and harder, the probability of a catastrophic failure of the system grows exponentially, So, even though the system is almost completely unpredictable what starts to become clearly predictable it that they are going to be faced with severe flood or drought or both quickly alternating in a bistable environment, and the damage it will do to their society and their people will be simply shocking.
I know this is really hard for people to get, this is absolutely solid science. We understand the mechanisms, We are clear what will happen, we just don't know when. Mount Ranier in Washington State has the dark side. After hundred of years, acid from its vents slowly breaks down the rocks of which its made. Here's the problem. They've discovered catastrophic lahars from the mountain that wash right out to the sea every so often. Huge catastrophes, nightmares that beggar the imagination. Scientists know its coming, but they can't say when, Its already overdue. It could be any time. There are folks living at the base of the mountain and they think its all a big joke and the scientists are full of crap. Not all of them, but a lot of them. So there they live mooning the mountain gawd and taunting fate. The thing is, being smug about someone else's endangerment is pretty crass. Being so ignorant about you own endangerment, well that just make you foolish.