From: Cliff Stabbert (cstabbert@the-beach.net)
Date: Wed May 21 2003 - 12:05:30 MDT
Hi, you wrote:
S> On Monday 19 May 2003 12:08 pm, Cliff Stabbert wrote:
>> Humans as a practical matter, never mind their potential, have
>> proven not to be bright enough. What is changing, ever more
>> rapidly, is how much damage humans in very small groups or
>> individually can do. A psychopath with biotech or nanotech is
>> dangerous in a fundamentally different way than a psychopath with a
>> knife or gun.
S> Sigh. Must everything come down to the current trend to motivation
S> by fear of danger from some random terrorist/psychopath/boogie man?
S> It is really getting quite old and I believe it seriously harms the
S> quality of our thinking and especially our envisioning of a future we
S> hope to arrive at and implementing the same.
S> The all-pervading fear and "fighting terrorism" is much more of a
S> dnager than terrorism itself.
I agree, and don't like the arbitrary use of the "terrorist" label
and the overzealous U.S. government "response" to terrorism (trading
real liberty for illusory safety).
In any case, I didn't have "terrorists" specifically in mind, although
I suppose that applies as well. What I was aiming at was the increase
in existential risk as ever more powerful technologies become ever more
widespread -- e.g., nukes in the hands of smaller nations such as
North Korea (whose leadership could be described as psychopathic), DNA
sequencing in the hands of The Mysterious Anthrax Guy, etc.
-- Cliff
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