I'm open to suggestions of better ways to distribute power
How about simply distributing it as widely as possible, in such a way that no one person or small group has overwhelming power? Of course, this requires a great reduction in the scale of our organizations, which I think would be a good idea for other reasons as well.
I think one of the big holes in this article is the idea that information == knowledge.
This is an excellent point, but I don't think the article misses it. Note how he talks about the possibility of restricting education to combat the threat (and dismisses it as totalitarian). Unfortunately, neither universal education or restricted education will reduce the risk significantly. As Noam Chomsky put it, when asked why humanity is under threat now when it wasn't in the past, "the means. The means of violence are greater."
You are right, though, it is the Script-Kiddie problem. The risk level just keeps going up and up. How much risk is enough? When do we start to at least try to develop our technology with a bare minimum of sanity?
I think that even some of the nastiest scenarios are survivable.
Two points:
1) Death of the planetary ecosystem is not survivable. Not in any meaningful way, at least.
2) So, what, we just kill off 98% of people, and that won't be so bad? I mean, sure, it'll probably be better for the planet in the long run, but I for one don't want to take on that kind of karma. I think Mother Nature will get around to slaughtering us off en masse eventually (all population graphs look the same), but I think the psychic damage done to the species if we do it to ourselves would be pretty nasty.
The only way to stop this threat is to stop the motivation.
This is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, in order to address the roots of the motivation to violence, we would have to fundamentally restructure our entire society from the ground up. The motivation for violence is built in to any system which relies on exploitation to achieve power.
Fortunately, this restructuring is already taking place, in the form of a global paradigm shift of unprecidented scope. First we change our minds and hearts, then we can change our social structures.
we have to start thinking about making our society more content.
Unfortunately, this, though a good idea, will not be nearly enough. For one thing, under the current structure of our society, the only way to make some people content is by the exploitation of other people, which increases their motivation to violence. For another thing, increasing the standard of living may cause contentment in many, but if it is done at the cost of individual liberty, there will always be those wackos out there who value their freedom enough to fight for it (which is a silly idea, by the way, killing people won't make you free, but many people believe so).
The blind contentment of cattle may be enough for some, but it will never be enough for all, at least, not without massive compulsory drug administration.
Having said all that, I think you are definitely on the right track. Addressing the motivation and the means for massive violence will require the fundamental restructuring of our society, but I say, that's a heck of a lot better than extinction of the species! Let's start restructuring!
Responsible usage and control have worked for us so far.
Yes, but the risk level has been steadily increasing. It has only been in the last half-century that we've had the credible power to cause our own extinction. This doesn't seem like long enough to conclude that it is safe.
New technologies threaten to up the risk level yet again. Is it not high enough yet for you? Good God! Did you know that during the Cuban missile crisis, the world was literally saved by one man, a Soviet submarine captain and perhaps the greatest hero of all time, who refused to push the button and set it off dispite being ordered to do so by his superiors? Is that a close enough call for you? Or would you like to see the next one even closer?
No, this argument is dangerously complacent. The risks posed to the very existence of our species by the technology we already posess are unacceptably high. We need to be aware of the ways in which new tech are increasing those risks to even higher levels. This is total insanity. Something needs to keep it in check. Technological development must be tempered with wisdom, or we're pretty much screwed. We may very well be screwed already.
It is this small margin of error upon which you are apparently willing to bet the life of the entire planet. Some attacks are much harder to defend against than to launch.
Furthermore, how will all that structure, people, and money protect us from itself? It is clearly just this which is the greatest threat to the survival of the planet, through the rampant expansion of the structure.
Nice to see somebody with faith in positive outcomes, of course, and I mean no disrespect, but I think you are being dangerously naive.
There is not any such thing as technology that is inherently Dangerous.
Actually, I would argue that all technology is inherently dangerous. Technology is power, and power is dangerous.
This doesn't mean that all tech is bad (in my view) but it does raise some serious questions about the wisdom of advancing technology to the point that we have done, and are about to do. Increasingly advanced technology is increasingly dangerous. How much risk are you willing to tolerate? Isn't being on the brink of nuclear holocaust for 50 years enough for all you adreneline junkies, or do you just have to push it one step further?
I like tech. But its development needs to be tempered with wisdom, which is not happening. This is why tech is threatening us with extinction.
Tech is also addictive. Once you let the djinn out of the bottle, it's hard to get it back in. How many of you would uninvent nukes, if you had the chance? Sorry, Charley, too late for that one.
THey reduce rights a bit at a time, in a kneejerk response to something, and you never get them back, because anyone who tries to roll it back gets accused of being immoral, or encouraging crime.
This is, unfortunately, quite true.
However, I also see a ray of hope. Not everybody is fooled. In fact, there are growing numbers of people who won't listen to what the propaganda machine says about anything, just on geeneral principle. This is the so-called Second Superpower that people were arguing about last week. They are a second superpower, but their power lies along a different axis from that of conventional superpowers. It is the power of new ideas, the power of rising consciousness, the power of the people.
The times, they are a-changin'! Ideas of peace, love and freedom are spreading. These new meme-organisms are more highly-evolved than their Orwellian predicessors, because they work better for people, in a more sustainable and beneficial way. This article is an example (though hopelessly naive), in its extolling of the virtues of openness and cooperation. More and more of this sort of thing is spreading through the population, not just "hippies", but across all socioeconomic classes, even the academic elite and the ultra-rich. It is unstoppable, and it might just be in time to save us all.
I don't like everything in the Patriot act either but to say that it constitutes a strong trend towards an Orwellian 1984 is not very well grounded in history.
What is interesting about this is not whether our societies are getting more or less totalitarian. Tyrants have been around for a long time (at least 10000 years).
What is more interesting is the growing perception that the society is becoming more totalitarian. This is part of a global paradigm shift of unprecidented proportions and speed.
To give an example which has been much discussed, the war in Vietnam was going on for years before there was significant protest. With this war, protest started before it even began.
I am not interested in arguing about whether the protest is right. What is interesting about it is its magnitude and scale, which is historically unprecidented. Whether or not the political situation is actually getting worse, the fact is that people have an expectation that it get better. They expect our society to conform more to ideals of peace and freedom. When it does not, they react with outrage. Witness all the ranting about 1984 on slashdot, for example.
What this means is that the expectation of peace and freedom is increasing very rapidly. This is part of a much deeper paradigm shift, which is questioning deep, underlying values of our culture which haven't been seriously questioned since the time of Jesus. The idea that it is right for Man to conquor and rule the world by force is being questioned, by many people.
In my view, this paradigm shift is the only hope for our species. As the article points out, distructive tech is advancing rapidly, and poses new and even greater dangers of extinction of the species (which has already been a serious threat for some time). If we continue with our old paradigm, if we continue unchecked expansion and destruction, we probably won't last long.
But the tide is turning. A new paradigm is emerging. You can mock it if you like (and many of the die-hards of the old paradigm do), but it is spreading like wildfire, and there is a chance, just a slim chance, that we might be able to pull back from the precipice before it is too late.
why is it that the governments of the world are still able to move in the directions outlined in those works?
One reason for this, already discussed, is that there's not much most people can do.
But there is another, deeper reason. These kinds of works create a storyline in the cultural consciousness. We then develop our culture in such a way as to enact that story. It doesn't matter whether we like the story, the fact that it has been inserted in our consciousness means that we will create it as a reality.
Fortunately, there are other stories which we are simultaneously enacting. The tide is turning.
It is silly to call Joy a Luddite. It is silly to call anyone a Luddite who argues in favor of limiting technology. You can have some tech and not others, you know, you don't have to develop it all just because you can.
As for the Djinn being out of the bottle, it most certainly is. The seeds for the destruction of the world were planted at least 10,000 years ago! However, as Led Zeppelin said, "there's still time to change the road you're on." I sure hope this is true. The brick wall in the road we're on now is coming up pretty fast. Can't you see it? It's that huge red thing right there in front of us. Yeah, that's the one.
We'll be extremely lucky to last 10 years, let alone another century. But there is hope. Shift paradigms now, or suffer the consequences!
Wow, I never read this article before, it is very good and very important. Some points about it:
It's already way too late for this sort of thinking, though it is good that it is coming up. If we continue with our current course at the rate we are going, I would estimate our chances of extinction at much higher than 50%. We passed that turning point a long time ago.
I used to think that leaving Earth was the answer, but that won't work. If we fail here, we will fail elsewhere. We stand or fall here on Mother Earth, and if she dies we die with her.
The clear and present danger of extinction has been there for some time. For instance, during the Cuban missile crisis, the world was literally saved by one man, a Soviet submarine captain and perhaps the greatest hero who ever lived, who refused to push the button and set it off when ordered to do so by his so-called superiors. The Djinn has been out of the bottle for quite a while now.
The idea that we can use these technologies safely and sanely is a joke. Look around. Would you call any of this safe and sane? Ha! Automobiles alone are a genocidally insane technology, and almost everybody has one of those.
There is one hope, and one hope only. Joy alludes to it near the end of the article when he starts talking about the Dalai Llama. There is a paradigm shift of unprecidented proportions taking place all over the globe. The Dalai Llama is part of it. If we are lucky, we will be able to complete the crossover before THEY manage to immanentize the eschaton. We have very little time left. I give us less than a decade before we pass the last point of no return, but this is just a guess. Fortunately for the human species, things are happening very fast now.
I am not a Luddite. Neither is Joy. I like tech. I do, however, think that it is the merest sanity to try to use tech in a way which benefits our species rather than threatening to destroy it. This should be pretty obvious. This is called tempering tech with wisdom. This will mean developing some tech and not others. There are things we wish we could uninvent. We should not invent more of them. It should be pretty clear that any species which evolves an imminant threat to its own survival is not likely to last long. Duh.
You can help with this problem! Take part in the paradigm shift, change your consciousness before it is too late!
"Do not overestimate the power of this technological marvel you have created. The power of this station is no match for the power of the Force." (or something like that) --Darth Vader
Slashdot Mirror
"You are in a desert, and you see a tortoise lying on its back..."
How about simply distributing it as widely as possible, in such a way that no one person or small group has overwhelming power? Of course, this requires a great reduction in the scale of our organizations, which I think would be a good idea for other reasons as well.
Who decides?
This is an excellent point, but I don't think the article misses it. Note how he talks about the possibility of restricting education to combat the threat (and dismisses it as totalitarian). Unfortunately, neither universal education or restricted education will reduce the risk significantly. As Noam Chomsky put it, when asked why humanity is under threat now when it wasn't in the past, "the means. The means of violence are greater."
You are right, though, it is the Script-Kiddie problem. The risk level just keeps going up and up. How much risk is enough? When do we start to at least try to develop our technology with a bare minimum of sanity?
Two points:
1) Death of the planetary ecosystem is not survivable. Not in any meaningful way, at least.
2) So, what, we just kill off 98% of people, and that won't be so bad? I mean, sure, it'll probably be better for the planet in the long run, but I for one don't want to take on that kind of karma. I think Mother Nature will get around to slaughtering us off en masse eventually (all population graphs look the same), but I think the psychic damage done to the species if we do it to ourselves would be pretty nasty.
This is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, in order to address the roots of the motivation to violence, we would have to fundamentally restructure our entire society from the ground up. The motivation for violence is built in to any system which relies on exploitation to achieve power.
Fortunately, this restructuring is already taking place, in the form of a global paradigm shift of unprecidented scope. First we change our minds and hearts, then we can change our social structures.
we have to start thinking about making our society more content.
Unfortunately, this, though a good idea, will not be nearly enough. For one thing, under the current structure of our society, the only way to make some people content is by the exploitation of other people, which increases their motivation to violence. For another thing, increasing the standard of living may cause contentment in many, but if it is done at the cost of individual liberty, there will always be those wackos out there who value their freedom enough to fight for it (which is a silly idea, by the way, killing people won't make you free, but many people believe so).
The blind contentment of cattle may be enough for some, but it will never be enough for all, at least, not without massive compulsory drug administration.
Having said all that, I think you are definitely on the right track. Addressing the motivation and the means for massive violence will require the fundamental restructuring of our society, but I say, that's a heck of a lot better than extinction of the species! Let's start restructuring!
Yes, but the risk level has been steadily increasing. It has only been in the last half-century that we've had the credible power to cause our own extinction. This doesn't seem like long enough to conclude that it is safe.
New technologies threaten to up the risk level yet again. Is it not high enough yet for you? Good God! Did you know that during the Cuban missile crisis, the world was literally saved by one man, a Soviet submarine captain and perhaps the greatest hero of all time, who refused to push the button and set it off dispite being ordered to do so by his superiors? Is that a close enough call for you? Or would you like to see the next one even closer?
No, this argument is dangerously complacent. The risks posed to the very existence of our species by the technology we already posess are unacceptably high. We need to be aware of the ways in which new tech are increasing those risks to even higher levels. This is total insanity. Something needs to keep it in check. Technological development must be tempered with wisdom, or we're pretty much screwed. We may very well be screwed already.
It is this small margin of error upon which you are apparently willing to bet the life of the entire planet. Some attacks are much harder to defend against than to launch.
Furthermore, how will all that structure, people, and money protect us from itself? It is clearly just this which is the greatest threat to the survival of the planet, through the rampant expansion of the structure.
Nice to see somebody with faith in positive outcomes, of course, and I mean no disrespect, but I think you are being dangerously naive.
So what odds would you give, eh? Good enough to gamble the existence of the entire species on?
"You wanna roll those dice, Casper?"--Buccaroo Banzai
Actually, I would argue that all technology is inherently dangerous. Technology is power, and power is dangerous.
This doesn't mean that all tech is bad (in my view) but it does raise some serious questions about the wisdom of advancing technology to the point that we have done, and are about to do. Increasingly advanced technology is increasingly dangerous. How much risk are you willing to tolerate? Isn't being on the brink of nuclear holocaust for 50 years enough for all you adreneline junkies, or do you just have to push it one step further?
I like tech. But its development needs to be tempered with wisdom, which is not happening. This is why tech is threatening us with extinction.
Tech is also addictive. Once you let the djinn out of the bottle, it's hard to get it back in. How many of you would uninvent nukes, if you had the chance? Sorry, Charley, too late for that one.
This is, unfortunately, quite true.
However, I also see a ray of hope. Not everybody is fooled. In fact, there are growing numbers of people who won't listen to what the propaganda machine says about anything, just on geeneral principle. This is the so-called Second Superpower that people were arguing about last week. They are a second superpower, but their power lies along a different axis from that of conventional superpowers. It is the power of new ideas, the power of rising consciousness, the power of the people.
The times, they are a-changin'! Ideas of peace, love and freedom are spreading. These new meme-organisms are more highly-evolved than their Orwellian predicessors, because they work better for people, in a more sustainable and beneficial way. This article is an example (though hopelessly naive), in its extolling of the virtues of openness and cooperation. More and more of this sort of thing is spreading through the population, not just "hippies", but across all socioeconomic classes, even the academic elite and the ultra-rich. It is unstoppable, and it might just be in time to save us all.
What is interesting about this is not whether our societies are getting more or less totalitarian. Tyrants have been around for a long time (at least 10000 years).
What is more interesting is the growing perception that the society is becoming more totalitarian. This is part of a global paradigm shift of unprecidented proportions and speed.
To give an example which has been much discussed, the war in Vietnam was going on for years before there was significant protest. With this war, protest started before it even began.
I am not interested in arguing about whether the protest is right. What is interesting about it is its magnitude and scale, which is historically unprecidented. Whether or not the political situation is actually getting worse, the fact is that people have an expectation that it get better. They expect our society to conform more to ideals of peace and freedom. When it does not, they react with outrage. Witness all the ranting about 1984 on slashdot, for example.
What this means is that the expectation of peace and freedom is increasing very rapidly. This is part of a much deeper paradigm shift, which is questioning deep, underlying values of our culture which haven't been seriously questioned since the time of Jesus. The idea that it is right for Man to conquor and rule the world by force is being questioned, by many people.
In my view, this paradigm shift is the only hope for our species. As the article points out, distructive tech is advancing rapidly, and poses new and even greater dangers of extinction of the species (which has already been a serious threat for some time). If we continue with our old paradigm, if we continue unchecked expansion and destruction, we probably won't last long.
But the tide is turning. A new paradigm is emerging. You can mock it if you like (and many of the die-hards of the old paradigm do), but it is spreading like wildfire, and there is a chance, just a slim chance, that we might be able to pull back from the precipice before it is too late.
One reason for this, already discussed, is that there's not much most people can do.
But there is another, deeper reason. These kinds of works create a storyline in the cultural consciousness. We then develop our culture in such a way as to enact that story. It doesn't matter whether we like the story, the fact that it has been inserted in our consciousness means that we will create it as a reality.
Fortunately, there are other stories which we are simultaneously enacting. The tide is turning.
So, what technology protects us from nukes, exactly?
As for the Djinn being out of the bottle, it most certainly is. The seeds for the destruction of the world were planted at least 10,000 years ago! However, as Led Zeppelin said, "there's still time to change the road you're on." I sure hope this is true. The brick wall in the road we're on now is coming up pretty fast. Can't you see it? It's that huge red thing right there in front of us. Yeah, that's the one.
We'll be extremely lucky to last 10 years, let alone another century. But there is hope. Shift paradigms now, or suffer the consequences!
It's already way too late for this sort of thinking, though it is good that it is coming up. If we continue with our current course at the rate we are going, I would estimate our chances of extinction at much higher than 50%. We passed that turning point a long time ago.
I used to think that leaving Earth was the answer, but that won't work. If we fail here, we will fail elsewhere. We stand or fall here on Mother Earth, and if she dies we die with her.
The clear and present danger of extinction has been there for some time. For instance, during the Cuban missile crisis, the world was literally saved by one man, a Soviet submarine captain and perhaps the greatest hero who ever lived, who refused to push the button and set it off when ordered to do so by his so-called superiors. The Djinn has been out of the bottle for quite a while now.
The idea that we can use these technologies safely and sanely is a joke. Look around. Would you call any of this safe and sane? Ha! Automobiles alone are a genocidally insane technology, and almost everybody has one of those.
There is one hope, and one hope only. Joy alludes to it near the end of the article when he starts talking about the Dalai Llama. There is a paradigm shift of unprecidented proportions taking place all over the globe. The Dalai Llama is part of it. If we are lucky, we will be able to complete the crossover before THEY manage to immanentize the eschaton. We have very little time left. I give us less than a decade before we pass the last point of no return, but this is just a guess. Fortunately for the human species, things are happening very fast now.
I am not a Luddite. Neither is Joy. I like tech. I do, however, think that it is the merest sanity to try to use tech in a way which benefits our species rather than threatening to destroy it. This should be pretty obvious. This is called tempering tech with wisdom. This will mean developing some tech and not others. There are things we wish we could uninvent. We should not invent more of them. It should be pretty clear that any species which evolves an imminant threat to its own survival is not likely to last long. Duh.
You can help with this problem! Take part in the paradigm shift, change your consciousness before it is too late!
"Do not overestimate the power of this technological marvel you have created. The power of this station is no match for the power of the Force." (or something like that) --Darth Vader