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[Togo1]

First you've identified 'potential for destruction' as something that increases with scientific knowledge.

Secondly you've identified that 'potential for destruction' may someday exceed our 'capability to manage it'.

But what about that capability? Is it static? Or does it change? More to the point, does it change in proportion to, or as a result of, scientific knowledge? Because if it does, then assertion #2 doesn't follow. It may even be the case that our capability to manage disaster increases faster than our capability to destroy ourselves, that scientific knowledge helps avoid[/] catastrophe, and that without it we are, in the long run, doomed die at the hands of an unlikely but ultimately inevitable event.


On a different note, it's worth pointing out that this arguement, if accepted, would not just apply to scientific knowledge, as covered in Assertion #1, but any action whatsoever. After all any action, any human endevour, has at least the potential to cause catastrophe, so logically speaking it is not science we should be restricting, but rather humans doing anything at all.

[Ormond]

Hi Togo,

First you've identified 'potential for destruction' as something that increases with scientific knowledge.

Yes, or more specifically, the power that flows from knowledge. More power equals more potential for both good and bad outcomes.

Secondly you've identified that 'potential for destruction' may someday exceed our 'capability to manage it'.

I would argue that we're already in essentially that position with nuclear weapons. Seventies years after their invention nobody seems to know how to get rid of them, and given humanity's very long history of war, it seems only a matter of time until we have that one bad day.

But what about that capability? Is it static? Or does it change?

Yes, good point, the management capability should increase with more knowledge too, agreed. The problem is that as we create more existential threat scale powers, the management capability doesn't need to be just good or getting better, it needs to be perfect. As example, we have to manage nuclear weapons successfully every single day until we figure out how to get rid of them. Due to the scale of their power, room for error has been erased.

More to the point, does it change in proportion to, or as a result of, scientific knowledge? Because if it does, then assertion #2 doesn't follow.

No, sorry, it doesn't work that way. It isn't enough that management powers increase in proportion, when we're talking about existential threat technology, the management powers have to become perfect.

On a different note, it's worth pointing out that this arguement, if accepted, would not just apply to scientific knowledge, as covered in Assertion #1, but any action whatsoever.

You're over reaching here. By typing this post I am taking an action. It's not a threat to humanity, only to a tiny handful of bored readers.

After all any action, any human endevour, has at least the potential to cause catastrophe, so logically speaking it is not science we should be restricting, but rather humans doing anything at all.

Argument by exaggeration, respectfully declined.

[Steve3007]

I accept the argument that we are racing towards a cliff but I don't understand what, if anything, is being proposed as a solution to that existential threat. I agree that increasing knowledge gives us greater and greater capacity for construction and destruction and that if that capacity continues to increase then sooner or later there will be one moment of madness when we destroy ourselves. Although I suspect we probably won't destroy the entire human race or all life on Earth. I think it's more likely that we'll just reduce our numbers and abilities back to pre-industrial levels and then go through the whole cycle again.

But, in the absence of a global dictatorship with global effectively enforced laws I don't see how our natural accumulation of knowledge can be limited. What exactly are we going to teach ourselves about our relationship with knowledge that is going to convince every technologically and educationally advanced society on Earth to voluntarily stop learning how Nature works?

[The Truth]

Actually, I think the thesis of the OP is seriously flawed. I challenge anyone to name anything developed within the last fifty years that has the potential to destroy humanity. Even nuclear weapons stockpiles are at their lowest levels since the late 1950's. It would seem that humanity is moving away from self-destruction, not towards it.

[Steve3007]

You don't have to confine yourself to thinking just about nuclear weapons. The more general point is that as knowledge progresses we will inevitably accumulate the power to both create and destroy on bigger and bigger scales, more and more easily. Sometimes we are creative. Sometimes we are destructive.

Imagine a graph with time along the X axis, acts of creativeness in the positive Y direction and destructiveness in the negative Y direction. The graph would meander around, sometimes moving up, sometimes moving down. But as time went on those upward and downward movements would get larger and larger. But there is an asymmetry. It's possible to move upwards any distance at all and still eventually move down again. But if you move downwards to the point where you destroy all civilization, then all movements stop from that point onward. You will never move up again. As the spikes in both directions get bigger and bigger, eventually there will be a sufficiently large downward spike to end it all.

It's a bit like the (effectively) random fluctuations of the price of shares in a company on the stock market. If the movements are, for all intents and purposes, random then, if you buy at a given price theoretically, if you can afford to wait for long enough, the price will eventually spike up above the price at which you bought, and you can sell for a profit. But in practice, if the company goes bust before that happens the game's over. No amount of waiting will get you your money back.

[The Truth]

You don't have to confine yourself to thinking just about nuclear weapons.

So setting aside nuclear weapons, name anything developed within the last fifty years capable of destroying humanity. If humanity is indeed on a path to destruction, then please provide some evidence of this claim. Otherwise all you're doing is running around like chicken little, proclaiming that the sky is falling.

I've provided some evidence in the form of the shrinking stockpiles of nuclear weapons to show that humanity is on a path away from self-destruction. And I could provide further evidence in the form of greater access to education, and healthcare, and the global decrease in poverty, to show that humanity is proceeding away from self-0destruction. All I'm asking is that someone provide some evidence that we're on a path towards it.

[Steve3007]

The Truth:

So setting aside nuclear weapons, name anything developed within the last fifty years capable of destroying humanity...

I don't think I can, with any certainty. So, if I can't, then we can both agree that we have no solid evidence that humanity is going to destroy itself this afternoon. Phew.

But what I am doing, as you are, is trying to identify trends, or patterns, in order to make predictions about the future. Clearly there's a lot of uncertainty in this process. You've mentioned trends such as the decreasing stockpile of nuclear weapons and the greater access to education.

Obviously decreasing stockpiles of a particular weapon of mass destruction is one factor pushing the graph I was talking about in an upward direction. Perhaps it's not so clear cut with education? Education allows more and more people to take part in the process of construction and destruction. So perhaps it simply makes the graph swing more violently up and down.

Anyway, you could well be right and I'm just agreeing with the OP to see what it feels like.

[Ormond]

Hi again Steve,

I accept the argument that we are racing towards a cliff but I don't understand what, if anything, is being proposed as a solution to that existential threat.

Completely fair question, thanks. My theory so far, perhaps flawed, is that readers will have to see there is a threat before they'll have much interest in talking about solutions. As you can see, this is more than a bit difficult because our "more is better" relationship with knowledge is very old, and has in recent years been very successful.

As a place to start on solutions, I'm hoping we might remove our "more is better" relationship with knowledge from the blind dogma category where it currently resides. I'm hoping we might subject this blind dogma to the same ruthless relentless investigation that philosophers would apply to any other blind dogma.

We might also redirect some major research dollars away from basic science which won't pay off for a long time if ever to more closely examining the foundation of our modern culture, our relationship with knowledge. As just one example, we appear to be spending billions on things like uncovering atomic particles such as the Higgs Boson. Why not put that aside for a bit and invest in investigating our relationship with knowledge instead?

I've had this conversation many times, and there is a familiar pattern. Readers will typically consider possible solutions for about 2 minutes, fail to find one, and then declare that because they can't solve this problem nobody can. It doesn't seem to matter how educated they are, as I've seen big shot PHD scientists do the same thing.

I assure you I can't personally solve this problem, and I doubt you can either. If the problem was that small, it wouldn't be worth writing about. But we have to start somewhere, and so that's what I'm attempting to do.

Truthfully, after years of watching readers fiercely resist this theory (for understandable reasons) I'm coming to the conclusion that reason alone will be insufficient to address such a longstanding dogma. I suspect we're going to need some kind of big crisis to wake us up, as is often the case.

All I'm suggesting is that we develop more knowledge, knowledge about our relationship with knowledge. Those who resist such learning are the real Luddites here.

Although I suspect we probably won't destroy the entire human race or all life on Earth. I think it's more likely that we'll just reduce our numbers and abilities back to pre-industrial levels and then go through the whole cycle again.

Yes, this seems reasonable.

But, in the absence of a global dictatorship with global effectively enforced laws I don't see how our natural accumulation of knowledge can be limited.

Ok, fair enough, but again, the fact that I don't have the answer and you don't either is essentially meaningless.

What exactly are we going to teach ourselves about our relationship with knowledge that is going to convince every technologically and educationally advanced society on Earth to voluntarily stop learning how Nature works?

Please note that I have not suggested that everybody on Earth stop learning everything and anything. This is a common mischaracterization of my position, perhaps due to poor writing on my part. I'm simply suggesting the time has come for us to learn how to manage knowledge like we attempt to do with all other forces of nature. "More is better" is a simplistic, immature, childlike relationship to have with anything. It's time to grow up.

What might we teach ourselves? Well, for one thing, the fact that we already have enough knowledge and resources to turn the Earth in to a garden of eden where there is peace and some prosperity for all. It's not lack of knowledge that keeps us from doing this now, it's lack of will.

[Aristocles]

It's not lack of knowledge that keeps us from doing this now, it's lack of will.

Similar to my original disagreement with the power reference in the OP, I disagree the current world being deemed to be of a lesser standard is via lack of will. I see any such lessening of what is best, most consistently, as a lack of knowledge of what is best.

In other words, the only knowledge racing toward a cliff, is either a result of ignorance of what is best (lack of power to do otherwise) or simply the race off a cliff being the best from available alternatives. The further suggestion the racing off a cliff is from lack of will appears to needlessly overcomplicate the "knowledge" scenario.

[The Truth]

The Truth:

So setting aside nuclear weapons, name anything developed within the last fifty years capable of destroying humanity...

I don't think I can, with any certainty. So, if I can't, then we can both agree that we have no solid evidence that humanity is going to destroy itself this afternoon. Phew.

But what I am doing, as you are, is trying to identify trends, or patterns, in order to make predictions about the future. Clearly there's a lot of uncertainty in this process. You've mentioned trends such as the decreasing stockpile of nuclear weapons and the greater access to education.

Obviously decreasing stockpiles of a particular weapon of mass destruction is one factor pushing the graph I was talking about in an upward direction. Perhaps it's not so clear cut with education? Education allows more and more people to take part in the process of construction and destruction. So perhaps it simply makes the graph swing more violently up and down.

Anyway, you could well be right and I'm just agreeing with the OP to see what it feels like.

Believe me, I fully understand the OP's argument, but someone needs to step in and point out that there's a counter-argument to the OP's position. For example, what are the odds that humanity becomes interplanetary in the not too distant future? Then the probability of species-wide annihilation becomes far less likely. This may be just as unlikely as the self-destruction scenario, but the point is that while either outcome is possible, we can't be described as being on an inescapable path towards either one.

Personally, I think that this is all part of the natural process of evolution, and life tends to go, where life tends to go. Perhaps humanity is self-destructive, and perhaps it's not. We'll just have to wait and see.

Neither do I think that it's a matter of will. I think natural tendencies and natural selection will win out over time, and what will be, will be.

[Ormond]

You don't have to confine yourself to thinking just about nuclear weapons. The more general point is that as knowledge progresses we will inevitably accumulate the power to both create and destroy on bigger and bigger scales, more and more easily. Sometimes we are creative. Sometimes we are destructive.

Yes, that's it Steve. The thesis doesn't depend on nuclear weapons, they are just the easiest example. Genetic engineering, nano-bots, artificial intelligence are other examples, but one's that are harder to see, predict, etc. And then there's all the technologies we haven't thought of yet.

Sometimes we are creative. Sometimes we are destructive.

And sometimes we make mistakes, the most likely threat.

But if you move downwards to the point where you destroy all civilization, then all movements stop from that point onward. You will never move up again. As the spikes in both directions get bigger and bigger, eventually there will be a sufficiently large downward spike to end it all.

Yes, what makes this a revolutionary era where the old "more is better" dogma begins to fail is the scale of the emerging powers. With smaller powers such as we have had in the past, we could make mistakes, recover, learn the lesson, and proceed from there. But at some point the scale of the powers becomes such that the room for error is erased.

I'm not predicting a crash is inevitable. We may be able to adapt to the new environment just as we've done many times before. But it's difficult to adapt if we don't realize we are in a new environment.

It's kind of like our relationship with food. In an era of scarcity, more is better makes sense. In an era of abundance what used to be a good thing can become a bad thing, with obesity epidemics etc.

[Togo1]

But what about that capability? Is it static? Or does it change?

Yes, good point, the management capability should increase with more knowledge too, agreed. The problem is that as we create more existential threat scale powers, the management capability doesn't need to be just good or getting better, it needs to be perfect. As example, we have to manage nuclear weapons successfully every single day until we figure out how to get rid of them. Due to the scale of their power, room for error has been erased.

Only if management capability can only take the form of prevention rather than cure. For example, if we develop a killer strain of polio that could wipe out most of humanity if released, ceasing research at that point would be more dangerous than continuing, and developing a better understanding of the disease.

On a different note, it's worth pointing out that this arguement, if accepted, would not just apply to scientific knowledge, as covered in Assertion #1, but any action whatsoever.

You're over reaching here. By typing this post I am taking an action. It's not a threat to humanity, only to a tiny handful of bored readers.

Sure and my research into precipilocation (finding your own hands in the dark) isn't likely to wipe out humanity either. But it's still knowledge. Presumably the reason why you're emphasing 'blind' adherence to a 'more is better principle' is because you agree that some types of ever increasing knowledge are fine and dandy?

The point I'm making is that 'science' isn't the right descriptor for what we're talking about. It's specifically knowledge that poses an existential threat to humanity that is the issue, which may or may not be scientific knowledge, and isn't true of most knowledge that is scientific.

After all any action, any human endevour, has at least the potential to cause catastrophe, so logically speaking it is not science we should be restricting, but rather humans doing anything at all.

Argument by exaggeration, respectfully declined.

Not at all, it's just following your conflation of science with potentially dangerous science. Not all knowedge is scientific knowledge, and the same restrictions should be put on that as on the scientific. For example, Apple is presently arguing against hacking an iPhone precisely because it doesn't want to research and discover how to hack it's own product. It sees that as dangerous knowledge that it doesn't want anyone to have. Similarly mathematical research into encryption could potentially create an algorithm rendering most modern encryption obsolete. If treated in the wrong way that could potentially start World War III. If we construct a giant power plant that could explode and render much of the globe radioactive or posioned etc. then that would also be dangerous. If we're going to restrict science as a potential threat, then we should restrict any human endevour to the same extent.

Which means either we end up with the exaggerated scenario you were referring to, or it means that what we're talking about is a very small extent, restricting really just a very small subset of human activity, including a very small subset of science.

[LuckyR]

Side stepping the OPs thesis, I will agree that over time, though technology and science have led to a steady march of improvement for humans in general, in the past technological missteps were limited enough such that the vastness of the planet averaged out the negativity such that problems were localized. We are reaching a point where human caused negatives are large enough and numerous enough that the planetary ability to compensate is being exhausted. Thus I fear a tidal wave of medium sized disasters much more than a single or very few planet wide super disasters.

[Ormond]

Thus I fear a tidal wave of medium sized disasters much more than a single or very few planet wide super disasters.

Good point. What process do you see preventing the tidal wave of medium sized disasters triggering the civilization crushing disaster?

As example, if the 2007 financial collapse had not been just barely stopped from spinning out of control in to a global depression, it may have very well led to a new world war as happened in the 1930's. If we add a tidal wave of other disasters on top of that one, what's the end result likely to be?

The 2007 financial collapse is a good example of knowledge development run amok. Do we need a stock market? Yes. Do we need ridiculously complicated financial instruments that no one really fully understands? No.

This illustrates the principle, some knowledge is good, but more is not always better. This seems a reasonable principle to apply to knowledge, as it appears to be true of just about everything else.

[LuckyR]

Thus I fear a tidal wave of medium sized disasters much more than a single or very few planet wide super disasters.

Good point. What process do you see preventing the tidal wave of medium sized disasters triggering the civilization crushing disaster?

As example, if the 2007 financial collapse had not been just barely stopped from spinning out of control in to a global depression, it may have very well led to a new world war as happened in the 1930's. If we add a tidal wave of other disasters on top of that one, what's the end result likely to be?

The 2007 financial collapse is a good example of knowledge development run amok. Do we need a stock market? Yes. Do we need ridiculously complicated financial instruments that no one really fully understands? No.

This illustrates the principle, some knowledge is good, but more is not always better. This seems a reasonable principle to apply to knowledge, as it appears to be true of just about everything else.

At this point (since the decline of: A- governmental resources and B- science based political discourse), the only thing I can see that stands in the way of civilization eventually becoming crushed under the tidal wave is either: pure societal momentum, luck or a change in the two effects above A and B.