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Hawking Says Scientific Progress Is Major Source of New Threats To Humanity
HughPickens.com writes: BBC reports that according to Stephen Hawking most of the threats humans now face come from advances in science and technology, including nuclear war, global warming and genetically-engineered viruses. "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years," said Hawking in answer to a question during the BBC Reith Lectures. "By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race. However, we will not establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period."
During his lecture Hawking also answered a question on whether his synthesized electronic voice had shaped his personality, perhaps allowing the introvert to become an extrovert. Replying that he had never been called an introvert before, Hawking added: "Just because I spend a lot of time thinking doesn't mean I don't like parties and getting into trouble."
During his lecture Hawking also answered a question on whether his synthesized electronic voice had shaped his personality, perhaps allowing the introvert to become an extrovert. Replying that he had never been called an introvert before, Hawking added: "Just because I spend a lot of time thinking doesn't mean I don't like parties and getting into trouble."
Why do I care about the human race surviving?
Biologically it makes no sense, unless it's my gene pool out there in space.
.#!~~sdfs
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
The guy is a brilliant theoretical physicist and a celebrity scientist, but this in no way makes him an authority in the social implications of scientific discovery.
Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years," said Hawking ...
Pretty sure "the planet" will be fine no matter. Humans on the other hand ... It would also be disappointing for the huge, wonderful variety of plants and animals that share this planet with us to suffer because of our carelessness or apathy.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries.
From the invention to the bow and arrow to the trebuchet (piling on the plague bodies as ammunition) to the first nuclear bomb. Why? Because humanity continually builds tools that extend our reach, to give us abilities beyond our natural and current technological abilities.
Still, I think we will end on the mundane, the species exhausting resources on earth, rather than an extraordinary bang. Bangs we can survive, and even thrive. The exhaustion, otoh, comes from lack of planning and foresight. If anything describes us as a species, it's lack of foresight into macroscopic matters amongst the crowd.
These are merely the tools of our destruction. The source of that destruction is the same as it has ever been: the series of survival instincts and cultural behaviors built over the millennia that have yet to adapt to our current capabilities. Hubris, tribalism, greedy self-interest, and distrust of things that don't look like us, sound like us, or move like us prevent us from understanding what it means to live in a world where we could possibly feed, clothe, and house every single human being. Worse, if we had sufficient self-awareness, we'd realize that we're at a point that having a negative population growth would be the responsible thing to do, not only for the planet, but for the species. But instead we charge forward, taking what we can, giving little back, worrying about things we don't need and people we don't like.
I'm not saying it'd be a better world, but it might be the one that survives.
Life extension as punishment and torture. Put on your tin hat for a moment, and think up the worst possible thing you can do to a human. Then try to comprehend the fact that somebody, somewhere is actually doing it right now.
While I agree with your first point, as to the second point, I'd say the break between weapon and action began centuries ago with the development of artillery. Drones are really just part of a long chain of innovations that started with the invention of gunpowder. In fact, there were many who felt that firearms and cannon were dishonorable weapons, and a battle should be fought man to man on a field of battle, sword matched to sword.
At any rate, that robots would become our warriors was foreseen decades ago, and every advance in remote probes; whether they be in space, on land or in deep water, has always been as much about developing weapons technology as it has been about exploration. That is the way of science, discoveries that can benefit humanity greatly can also all too often be used as weapons.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Oh, we can genetically engineer these plants to make them more resistant to insects and disease? Great, do it and let's start shipping it ASAP! What's that, we need more time to test it for safety? Nonsense, looks good to me, just STFU and ship it or YOU'RE FIRED and I'll get someone else to do it!
That's the kind of thinking we have in this world and that's what's going to get us in trouble. Never mind what the impact of your decisions are 100 years from now, they want money NOW and who cares? They'll all be dead by then, it's someone else's problem. We, as a race, have to stop thinking like children with ADD, and start thinking about the bigger, longer-term picture. Sadly it may already be too late; GMO crops are already proliferating. Global warming is not being controlled and won't be for quite some time. These two things alone may have already doomed us. We won't know for a while, will we? Ironically I'm not as worried as you might think, because it's likely I'll be dead before anything sort of H.E.L.E. happens, so it will be someone else's problem -- but it doesn't mean I don't have sympathy and pity for the poor souls who will have to deal with The End, if that's what it comes to.
Welcoming your mod-downs to neg one troll; it just reminds me that there's no tag for plus five wise.
However, science is generally logical enough to recognize that such uses of technology are counterproductive.
How long did it take to recognize that lead in gasoline was a bad idea? More seriously for existential risks like the sort under discussion, it doesn't take science collectively as a whole to do something stupid, just a handful of people might engineer a bad virus. Or a pollution problem could arise that is a collective action problem like climate change. The Fermi Paradox is a real problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox and one of the easiest explanations for it is that civilizations wipe themselves out with technology.
Completely off topic, but am I the only one annoyed by the Slashdot quote today at the bottom of the page? Are they trolling, or did they purposely print that misquote? lol What would Ash say about this? ;-)
"Gort, klaatu nikto barada." -- The Day the Earth Stood Still
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
Every time I see a report about Stephen Hawking talking about the end of the human race because of this or that all I can picture is that he is now a senile old man bitching about kids these days and the world going to hell in a hand basket. It's just less apparent because of his physical situation / appearance.
And of course you genius AC is better positioned to enlighten us with the best opinion available. :/
Show us the way, oh Master.
Really? And the Dems are not?
Please site where Republicans are more interested in collecting information and preventing dissenters than Democrats.
I guess you haven't heard of the Supreme Court case being discussed right now in which the unions (they're Democrats from what I've been told) have been oppressing their members and making arguments that suppression of dissent gives them the ability to do more "good". Sweet.
Again, please give sources.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Science may recognize it, but scientists rarely have a say in the actual application of new technologies. At that point we have to put our faith in our governments and commercial interests, and neither of these groups have proven all that reliable at using technology responsibly.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Humanity will be quite capable of exterminating itself in space as well. What is needed is a spiritual and religious revival where men actually fear the eternal consequences of their actions again. Religion will be what saves us from this because only religion can provide the eternal carrot and stick necessary to not only make most people behave, but incentivize them to regulate with civility those who won't in ways that endanger the public.
I am perplexed by some of the responses to this article. Steven Hawkins is "unqualified to comment" on the future of our species? Why? Because "no one would care if he weren't in a wheelchair'?
Would that there were an automated Moron Filter. (Chrome/Firefox snap-in, anyone?)
I too am hopeful for the future of our species on this planet, but not optimistic. I agree with the expressed opinion that this is a particularly vulnerable and dangerous time for that future, as we have developed several ways to significantly imperil human life on the planet, but no means to expand to any other habitat. Until that changes, the chances of our species having a lasting presence in the universe would seem at significant risk.
Am I qualified to have an opinion? Cogito, ergo sum.
"By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race. However, we will not establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period."
Establishing just one colony in space that is self-sustaining and able to expand without Earth in the next century is extremely optimistic, even if humanity decided to focus its productive power on it like a global Apollo program. Given the scope of the task, I think millennia is a more reasonable timescale for such an endeavor. And as an aside, if we are able to focus on just one task, maybe world peace or an end to global warming would be better tasks?
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
Advances in computing have enabled oppression that would have been unimaginable not even a few decades ago.
Yes, because slaves in ancient Egypt or early USA were not really 'oppressed'. Nobody was monitoring their tweets, nobody was invoking 'protection from terrorists' while bodypatting them before they boarded their business class flights for holiday trips, they haven't to copy with uncertainty of their routers having hardware embedded backdoors done by NSA and there was no risk of them being caught in the city because of CCTVs monitoring.
Every time I hear people claiming how bad contemporary freedoms are, I really wish them being sent to middle ages or earlier and put into non-ruling class shoes. Spending few years as serf, not being allowed to own anything, move more than few miles from your place of birth, reading anything except Bible (if you even knew how to read in first place) and having your relatives raped by local lord on the whim without any chances of going to the court would probably put things into perspective.
It's obvious that technology is changing faster than man's ability to make wise choices is improving. The ocean is a mess, the climate is changing, pollution is a problem worldwide, and yet we still have shortsighted idiots running the show and those idiots do things like make war in countries which
have resources which are desired, rather than spending time and money in a concerted effort to find other means of supplying the energy needs of a country and its people. Basically humanity is engaging in the same set of behaviors over and over, and technology is the main variable which is truly changing. Humanity is like a naive child which is given increasingly more dangerous toys without limits being placed on the use of those toys.
If this doesn't cause concern in the mind of the reader, I submit that the reader isn't thinking on a very high level.
And every time I hear about people comparing "how good we have it now" to how bad it used to be, I really wish that they'd just admit that they've given up at being the best and that they've settled for "well, at least we're not North Korea".
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
There is nothing magical about the scientific brain. They are still human, and subject to all of the foibles of the human mind. Their minds are fully capable of falling down the rabbit-hole into the realm of nonsense and foolishness. They can develop any one of a multitude of obsessions, develop a narrow tunnel vision (individually or as a group) that can lead to folly. And considering the number of them with some degree or other of Asperger's, I would not want to live in the world that they might wander into.
Just a reminder for the GP, the USA is the only government to ever kill people using a nuclear bomb as a weapon. Killing 100s of thousands of innocent people in the process.
In spite of Albert Einstein pleading for the USA not to use it.
Really? And the Dems are not?
Please site where Republicans are more interested in collecting information and preventing dissenters than Democrats.
I guess you haven't heard of the Supreme Court case being discussed right now in which the unions (they're Democrats from what I've been told) have been oppressing their members and making arguments that suppression of dissent gives them the ability to do more "good". Sweet.
Again, please give sources.
I don't know about the republicans or the democrats, but I am pretty sure that whatever unions do, they aren't the government.
To quote the late, great Bill Hicks, "We're a virus with shoes"
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Both introverts and extroverts like being around people and doing interesting things. The main difference between introverts and extroverts is the way they recharge. Introverts recharge by being alone while extroverts recharge by being with people. This is a general statement that applies to most people.
I really wish that they'd just admit that they've given up at being the best
We don't live in a fantasy world. There are many hard limits keeping us from getting that perfect society. Not least of which is that we're a bit far from perfect ourselves.
It's a matter of leveraging existing stupidity.
It's often in the form of "easy" answers to complex problems. In Trump's case, it's mostly about locking out "foreigners," and "stronger" negotiation with our economic partners. Of course, he's exaggerating both the down-sides of each and his ability to manage or leverage them.
Table-ized A.I.
Could be lots of things :
- Genetically engineered airborne supervirus (think 12 Monkeys movie plot)
- Self replicating nano-bot swarm / grey goo
- Actual AI replacing humans
- Nukes
- New type of super-weapon (like a hydrogen bomb) that requires significantly less effect or difficult materials to create
This concept really isn't new; it's one of the ideas of why we haven't seen any evidence of life outside Earth (fermi paradox); that civilizations eventually destroy themselves via technology before they establish bases on other planets. Humans are certainly in that category right now; there's enough nukes out there in existence to do that. The point being made, is that scientific advancements will make it easier for a single individual to kill more other people (possibly wipe out the whole human race) than in any other point in history.
As long as we have a concept of individuality (meaning not a hive mind), there's a risk that some individuals will trigger the downfall of civilization as we know it, and kill all humans (fulfilling the wishes of Bender Rodriguez). This is especially true with the current social and political situations we have now. Whether it's a nutty eco-terrorist looking to wipe out all humans to return to a "natural" state, or a religious fanatic hoping to trigger the apocalypse, or just someone mentally ill - scientific progress will continue to increase the likeliness for a single individual (or a handful) to wipe out humanity. Pretty sure that was the point
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
First of all, in Total War, there are no innocents. The US Civil War, where Total War was essentially invented, demonstrated that in modern warfare, every member of society becomes a part of the war machine.
As to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Allies caused just as many death with conventional bombs. People concentrate on the nuclear devices dropped on those two cities, but don't seem to be aware of the massive conventional bombings of Japanese targets, in particular Tokyo, where somewhere between 75,000 and 200,000 people died.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I guess my objection was too vague... is it total extinction, 50% extinction or 100 million dead? They all sound like 'threats to humanity' to me, but the impacts on the human race are all vastly different. It's a term to pull heartstrings that doesn't mean very much. If we mean extinction events, none of the ones Hawking mentions sound even close.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Just a reminder for the GP, the USA is the only government to ever kill people using a nuclear bomb as a weapon. Killing 100s of thousands of innocent people in the process.
In spite of Albert Einstein pleading for the USA not to use it.
I don't know about "killing 100s of thousands", and I can't be bothered to check if that figure is correct, though I doubt it is, but it is astonishing, that many people still believe it shortened the war and saved the lives of Americans, when all along it was the advancing Red Army that caused the Japanese to surrender.
Velcro?
Did he happen to mention how close the LHC is to destroying the universe?
We're not talking about scabs but union members who dissent with the union actions.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
We don't live in a fantasy world, but there is no reason that we should stop trying to improve our world, just because it is a lot better than 100 years ago.
What are these hard limits you speak of? I don't know any, is there a reason we cannot evolve to be perfect. Will we ever get to a perfect world (whatever that is, I don't even have a definition of that) probably not, should we stop trying to improve our lives, just because we can't attain perfection, NO.
I agree with grandparent, that complaining technology has made our lives worse is a bit over the top. But that doesn't mean we should stop discussing it, and being careful that our rights are not eroded by it.
As a side note I personally wouldn't like to live in a world where the are no problems, everything get all that they want, how boring, what would you have to live for. That would not be my definition of a perfect world.
No one is saying that these things are worse than shackle-and-chain slavery.
We're just a bit concerned that after all this awesome forward progress, we seem to be setting up all of the pieces to slide back and then be locked in.
If you can't see how this can be used against the things we take for granted in the west then you are blind.
It's not that it's bad now, but when you need a data mined facebook to login to a Govt. website and all financial transactions are under the Govt. eye and the Gov't. is militarizing it's domestic "peace officers" and start going after people based on flawed heuristics and corruption is rampant and we've been throwing our civil liberties down the shitter for a decade and a half chasing some phantom menace and within 100 miles of a coast is a border inspection zone, and they force your company to surviell for them and if they find a problem with you it gets addressed in a FISA court and they want it all automated...
Well I'm just glad i was born in the last generation that could get chemistry sets, and not end up on no fly lists and have my assets.
How will "the people" overthrow an oppressive regime that will have a drone drop "collateral damage" onto a citizen with out any oversight. How? It's like all the foundations of a dystopia. we're not there yet, but damn, I can't believe how much we've lost in the past decade.
It's not about how bad it -is- it's about what we're setting it up for when we strip out all the ideals that have made the west, and America, what they are currently. The best place for a hard working person to show up and have a shot at a decent life.
The thing is when you look past the clickbait, it's actually a reasonable opinion not on the dangers of technology, but on the dangers of trying to keep our current social models without adapting to or acknowledging disruptive technology.
for example, the "OMG Hawkins fears skynet" was just clickbait for "Hawkins is worried that if we don't do anything about current inequality trends, most of humanity will be treated as disposable garbage when automation renders human labour obsolete"
The most dangerous of them all...
Required reading for internet skeptics
Is that why Japan signed a surrender treaty with the USSR? Oh wait, they never did.
Technology has not made our lives worse, but it hasn't necessarily made them better. Longer, perhaps, but longer does not always mean better.
A lot depends on what you value and your perception of the world. There are people living today who would commit suicide over having to live at a 19th Century level, let alone a 10th Century level of technology or culture. However, as we know, millions and billions of people lived in those periods over time, the great majority of which did not kill themselves.
There is nothing that describes how science does not necessarily improve our lives like the term "first world problems". People live and die, and feel miserable about not having things that 99.99999% of humans have never had or even known existed.
Ultimately, your attitude and ability to maintain perspective is probably your best chance at really feeling happy in this world. There *are* marvels and wonders out there, but we're so used to them, that you probably need to study history to really understand how good we have it.
Maxim 24: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a big gun.
Rather than directly answer your question, I'll address a side issue. The quest for perfection tends to generate very bad political movements. In an effort to end drunkenness, prohibitionists made many aspects of alcohol illegal, resulting in increased drunkenness and criminal organizations that have never been eradicated. The quest for human perfection was one excuse for the killing sprees of both Stalin and Hitler.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
How long did it take to recognize that lead in gasoline was a bad idea?
They knew it all along. Lead is a natural substance, you see, and good for your kids. Yes, they really did say that. So the threats are in fact behavioral issues: greed, irrational exuberance and risk behaviour, fanatical "genocidelism", fatalism and various other material and immaterial attachments.
The quest for perfection also leads to amazing and welcome improvements in society.
We now have governments and laws that say you can't own another human being, that lives have meaning for their existence, not their value to another. That all humans are equal. And just because there's murderers out there doesn't mean we might as well give up on not going on killing sprees ourselves.
Hitler wasn't looking for perfection, THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE PERFECT.
Stalin wasn't looking for perfection, HE WANTED RULERSHIP.
Both claims you made are complete and utter bollocks.
Indeed the problem comes not when you're looking to be perfect and trying to get there, but when you think you already ARE perfect.
Ever single time.
The guy is a brilliant theoretical physicist and a celebrity scientist, but this in no way makes him an authority in the social implications of scientific discovery.
Oh, I don't know. I'm sure keen to find out his picks for The Oscars.
You and I apparently come away with very different views of that phrase. I don't see it as an argument for standing pat, I see it as evidence of progress.
Things are generally better now in terms of peace, civil and human rights world wide than they've ever been before. Could they be even better, absolutely but at least the trend is positive.
If you based your view of the world on the news, trending topics or political vitriol you'd be convinced that we're headed to hell in a hand basket, that WWWIII is probably sometime next week and human rights are being trampled more than ever but that's demonstrably not true.
What, Total War was essentially invented during the US Civil War ?
We go to great lengths to claim we invented pretty much everything under the sun but there's a few thousand years of warfare that predates the Civil War that suggests humans were quite aware of how to engage everyone on both sides indiscriminately. About the best you can do is suggest that the late 1700s and early 1800 showed Europeans giving up on their brief dabbling in nice friendly fights and returning to what we as a species do best.
Galantai proposes an alternative to the Kardashev scale that focuses on survival of the species. The short version is that if we can survive the destruction of the planet we are at one level, survive solar system destruction at least another level up, without detailing the kinds of events that would make multiple star systems unlivable - there are levels above that. These are links to the Galantai scale stuff: http://www.centauri-dreams.org... http://mono.eik.bme.hu/~galant...
yes and of course
6. If violence wasnâ(TM)t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
8. Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it's on the far side of the airlock.
12. A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.
14. "Mad Science" means never stopping to ask "what's the worst thing that could happen?"
Please don't feed the trolls. They leave poop everywhere.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Extrapolate far enough into the future fantastic technologies, which become more and more potentially dangerous and eventually you can say it will blow up X.
House/Village/City/Country/World/Solar System/Galaxy/Universe/etc...
Scientific progress may provide the big new threats to humanity, but it's also provided more or less all the ADVANCEMENTS enjoyed by humanity as well, such as most of your kids not dying before age 2, or being able to survive that paper-cut infection. Dentistry.
I have no doubt that if you could mass the ongoing, sustained (and really compounding) science benefits to humanity vs the new dangers it's created, the benefits win handily.
In fact, taking the population as a handy shorthand, just now benefits outweigh risks globally by 7.125 billion points.
-Styopa
Maybe not directly, but Velcro is used by the military in many ways, one of which being to strap on body armour. The velcro enhances the utility of the body armour, which enhances the effectiveness of the weapon (a.k.a. the soldier).
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
I took him to mean total extinction, with no specific prediction of how or when.
Forgot the attribution, but someone summarized it as "every day, we get closer to the day when one person can wipe out Humanity."
It's related to the Fermi Paradox... where are all the other civilizations out there? One answer is that they all went extinct before they could grow big enough to detect. And many of them may have done it to themselves.
I can see the fnords!
It is extremely difficult to come up with a real extinction scenario. People have run the calculations already for full out nuclear exchange at the height of the cold war, and estimates run about 30% of world population. With viruses, virulence is inversely proportional to survivability outside the host, so there are plenty of island and other enclaves that would go untouched. Also viruses tend to mutate to a less virulent form as killing the host is actually bad for the viruses survivability. I could go on, but killing everyone on earth would be pretty damn hard.
love is just extroverted narcissism
We are better off than 100 years ago, but are we better off than 50 years ago? I'm not better off than my dad was, I earn more sure, I work longer, with poorer job security, my wife has to work ful-ltime too, but I'd rather be a boomer! Life was and is setup for the boomers, they grew up in boom, had lots of good jobs always on offer, free education, super, pensions. Now it's still all for the boomers as they retire with their massive nesteggs, sell their massively appreciated houses and retire with all the money. Then we have to work longer and harder to support the aging population?!
Did he also speculate that water is wet? Or that fire is hot?
Nothing against Steve here, but his observation is obvious knowledge. The more we progress in tech, science, etc. the more new and creative ways we'll find to kill each other. It's been that way since cavemen first discovered that you can sharpen a stick, and I don't expect it to change anytime soon either.
That said, we're finding equally new and creative ways to survive as well. From advances in medicine to sanitation and energy production, we're increasing our own survivability at a frankly alarming pace. And the numbers bear this out; birth rates are cratering in most civilized countries, but population continues to grow.
This signature is false.
What slaves in ancient Egypt?
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
... and then invent AI that immediately learns how to spread out faster than we figured out for ourselves.
What are these hard limits you speak of? I don't know any, is there a reason we cannot evolve to be perfect. Will we ever get to a perfect world (whatever that is, I don't even have a definition of that) probably not, should we stop trying to improve our lives, just because we can't attain perfection, NO.
An obvious one is our individuality. No matter how "perfect" we become, as long as we're separate from each other in thought, then there will be conflict of interests between us.
Another is our ignorance, especially of future consequences of complex actions and systems. I think we'll get much better at it, but it will still be possible to be surprised by things not working to expectations.
As a side note I personally wouldn't like to live in a world where the are no problems, everything get all that they want, how boring, what would you have to live for. That would not be my definition of a perfect world.
Doesn't sound that bad to me. I think I could make it work.
Those and smartphones. Smartphones are making kids dumb. Kids who are addicted to social networks, games, *tube, are loosing interest in activities requiring use of paper and pen like Mathematics, Physics. They are also spending less time in physical activities and more time sitting on the couch. Making them low hanging fruits for AI to outsmart them.
Why is it so important to preserve the human race? We keep wiping ourselves out: many great civilizations have perished because all the available land was used up for food. Now we are able to make our whole planet uninhabitable for ourselves, and quote a long way on our way to doing exactly that. We are unsustainable and we should therefore die out. And besides, after you're dead, what does it matter to you what happens to humanity?
-- Cheers!
robot army only makes sense if only one side of the conflict has it. otherwise, it's easier to just start a big bonfire and start throwing bucketfuls of money into it. he who runs out of money first, loses.
Every time I see a report about Stephen Hawking talking about the end of the human race because of this or that all I can picture is that he is now a senile old man bitching about kids these days and the world going to hell in a hand basket. It's just less apparent because of his physical situation / appearance.
Professor Hawking is somebody who has spent a lot of time thinking about things and has a very solid track record in doing it well, so I would say, on balance, that it is worth taking note of what he says. It doesn't mean that he is necessarily right, but compared to the words of the average AC on slashdot, I know whose opinions I am more likely to dismiss with a shrug.
Let's all drop everything and listen to what this person on the Internet has to say because this person is obviously smarter than someone who figured out how to apply Quantum Mechanics to a Relativistic problem!
The guy is super smart to be sure but that doesn't mean he's a font of all knowledge. None of his recent 'predictions', that AI might not be the best thing ever etc don't take a genius to realise but because hawking said it some people seem to want to take it as fact.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
We are better off than 100 years ago, but are we better off than 50 years ago?
Depends on definition of 'we'. I think, that, weighted by population, world is a lot better than 50 years ago. Enough to look at China - while it has its great firewall right now and monitors its citizen lives extensively, I still don't think it in any way compares with Cultural Revolution times in terms of 'oppression'.
Same for Eastern block - life under USSR directorate was a lot more oppressing that what is happening right now.
If we focus on Western countries in particular (so limiting ourselves to 20% or so of the world)... maybe you are right - I don't know about the living history enough, being raised in Eastern block. I still think that many people would consider mandatory conscription to fight in Vietnam War quite bad and 'oppressing' today.
I suppose that rather than reaching 100 or 50 years in the past, we should settle on 20 or 25 years. I would agree that period of 1989(end of cold war)-2001(WTC attack) is probably 'golden age' for freedom and things are going downhill from there. But I would consider these 12 years more as a statistical fluke rather than a rule...
What makes you think we cannot evolve that individuality away?
Sure, but then you're not human any more.
Why not? I see no reason that individuality is inseparable from being human.
I do.
Again, from the wonderful work of communism and fascism, we know that people can be detached from their individuality. Does that mean those people are, at that point, not human?
Yes.
If they are not human, would that not mean we can deny them human rights?
Remove the individuality and you already removed almost all human rights.
Going at it from another angle: how much individuality do you need to be classified as human? It's easy to say that if somebody doesn't have it, they aren't. But what if two people each have some individuality, but one has "more" individuality (however that is measured)? Would that mean the other person is "less human", and from there we can do the same thing as if he was a non-human - deny him rights?
We already have this figured out legally because there's a fair number of ways happenstance can do this via illness or injury. In the US, it can happen by being judged legally incompetent, which can happen due to mental illness or dementia. As a result, the subject loses some rights and has assigned another party to act on their behalf. Legally, they are still considered human, but they don't have rights or privileges associated with normal humans.
But to deliberately excise individuality as a normal mode of existence, is to remove a key aspect of being human. The law might still consider you human, say via the above sort of law, but I would not.
The US Civil War was among the first wars between industrial powers; the first war in which steam, telegraph and photograph played a significant role. Technology allowed for tactics that had never been able to be fully exploited before. Every general and every strategist in the rest of the world watched as the Union and the Confederacy used steam trains and telegraph outposts to coordinate supplies, troop movement, attacks, retreats and so on.
And then there is General Sherman's March to the Sea, that devastated Georgia, and presaged the kind of warfare that the next half century would bring. Sure, the Romans salted the fields of Carthage, but what the Union did to the Confederacy in the last year of the Civil War was a kind of war not seen before.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Go read up on the French Revolution, Napoleonic wars and in particular the Crimean War. If you want to say the Civil War was an exemplar of 'Total War' knock yourself out, if you want to say it was invented there you're fundamentally wrong. The generals were looking at what was going on in Europe which in turn were learning from other parts of the world (particularly lessons they were learning from the far east).
Saying the Civil War started it shows that you view the world through a US prism.
The closest to the Civil War is the Crimean War, which is essentially contemporary. The Napoleonic War was still essentially a conventional war; with the most unique aspect being the British Empire's naval blockade of the French Empire.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Most arms races are just big bonfires on which money is thrown, that is until the uneasy equilibrium falters. We've seen it many times, in particular in the arms race that lead to WWI.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Doesn't that presume that the robots on both sides are equally matched? That would seem very unlikely to me.
Just another day in Paradise
An obvious one is our individuality. No matter how "perfect" we become, as long as we're separate from each other in thought, then there will be conflict of interests between us.
Another is our ignorance, especially of future consequences of complex actions and systems. I think we'll get much better at it, but it will still be possible to be surprised by things not working to expectations.
The question is why could this not possibly change, over thousands if not millions of years? I agree is not going to change anytime soon, but what is the reason that it could never happen?
As a side note I personally wouldn't like to live in a world where the are no problems, everything get all that they want, how boring, what would you have to live for. That would not be my definition of a perfect world.
Doesn't sound that bad to me. I think I could make it work.
To me, I get the most joy out of things that I have put real effort into achieving. Imagine you where allowed to run a marathon in the Olympics, but you where the only one allowed to use a car. Yes you would win, but so what, you had a massively unfair advantage. But if you trained hard and managed to win in a fair competition, then you should rightly feel proud of your achievement.
The question was: could we, or are descendants live in a perfect world.
Our descendants may well not be human, eventually probably not, just like we are not amoeba, but that does not change the fact that they may live in a "perfect" world.
To me, I get the most joy out of things that I have put real effort into achieving. Imagine you where allowed to run a marathon in the Olympics, but you where the only one allowed to use a car. Yes you would win, but so what, you had a massively unfair advantage. But if you trained hard and managed to win in a fair competition, then you should rightly feel proud of your achievement.
And why couldn't you do that in the above society?
The question was: could we, or are descendants live in a perfect world.
No, the question was could we live in a perfect world? Including descendants that can be warped to an unimaginable degree, moves the goalposts. My point is that for many of the would-be utopias, you have to profoundly change the inhabitants in order for the utopia to work at all.
The society is where everyone gets what they wants, there can be no losers, no chance of failure, (by definition you would not get what you want). How can you win, if no one loses, or if you had no chance of losing, why is winning so great.
We could each live in our on individual matrix, where we are superman/woman. But if you never lost, or even needed to try, where would the joy in achievement be. And we would be unaware of actual reality, to me that would be very sad.
The society is where everyone gets what they wants
Well, if the society can't provide this (and really, I don't think it'd be that hard to provide), then you must not want it.
No it doesn't are descendants will be warped to an unimaginable degree, if we survive long enough.
I think we actually agree, in our given state we cannot, we will need to change, for me change is the only certainty in the universe, even if the universe stopped changing that would be a change. I do not know by how much we need to change to live in a perfect world, but we should strive to make our world better bit by bit, and eventually we may get there, if there is such a thing as a perfect world, but at least we may live in a better world.
Not sure what you mean here, if person A wants C to happen, and person B wants does not want C to happen, how can you have a society where both A and B get what they want?
And you are right I don't probably don't want that society since I stated before:
As a side note I personally wouldn't like to live in a world where the are no problems, everything get all that they want, how boring, what would you have to live for. That would not be my definition of a perfect world.
Fair enough. But we still have the problem of determining what is "better". For example, we currently are improving the living standards of almost the entire world's population at a pretty good rate, but there's a lot of people out there with the delusion that the wealthy are making everyone poorer and things are getting worse economically.
if person A wants C to happen, and person B wants does not want C to happen
Note that was my first complaint with the idea of utopias, conflicts of interest.
Got anything to back that up? I've studied the situation more than most, and I'm firmly of the opinion that the nukes caused the Japanese surrender, if only by allowing the Japanese a way to surrender while still saving some face. It's worth noting that the Red Army can't march from Siberia to Japan, and it didn't seem to be very good at all at amphibious assaults, considering the attack on the Kuriles. The only thing that saved the Soviets there was the Japanese surrender.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Prepare to get it in chunks over the next month.
What, you want it now? Tough.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
The Fermi Paradox is really pseudoscience. There are many big problems with it.
I'm not sure what you mean by this and your following statements. Your primary point seems to be that intelligent life might be less likely than we think. But that's not a criticism of the Fermi paradox but a possible resolution of it. Your point about signal detection is certainly correct if that were our only way of detecting civilizations. In particular, we see no ring worlds, or Dyson spheres or other large scale constructions despite systematic searches http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/infrared_astronomy/Fermilab_search.htm. We don't in general see any signs of large scale energy use. We've looked at around 100,000 galaxies and found zero full-scale galactic civilizations. See http://phys.org/news/2015-04-advanced-civilizations-earth-obvious-galaxies.html. The universe looks natural. And yes, there are many possible explanations for this, but we need to ask how likely they are. If there is a Great Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter then it doesn't go away simply because we've found a semiplausible alternate explanation.