RE: Why bother (was Re: Introducing myself)

From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Sun Apr 07 2002 - 12:34:43 MDT


> I'm not expecting a
> "next" world war. I do not believe we are always on the verge of
> not making
> it, or at the edge of a precipice, or any other doom clichae - eve of
> destruction, gotta get that one in. I recognize problems, but my outlook
> isn't the bleak one you seem to have. If I was really that down on the
> future, I would have packed it in decades ago.

It seems to me that we do not have an adequate knowledge base to make sound
rational judgments about such things.

We do not have a knowledge base about past technological civilizations, from
which we can induce the probability of the human race ruining itself via
nukes, biological warfare, etc.

Thus, I think, anyone's opinion on such matters is bound to be more
subjective and philosophical than empirical & objective.

-- Ben G



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