The Last Generation
(excerpt from GWYD section 8.1):
If you believe that any of the technologies we have talked about are possible (and there certainly are some good reasons to think so), then it would seem that we can look forward to a very interesting future. It may be that we are destined to be a race of immortal beings with powers that we would previously have described as godlike, or maybe we will just create the machine creatures that will replace us, or even something in between as our technology becomes more and more a part of us. Alternatively, we may still be heading for some sort of end of the world scenario, in which we, and all of our works, will come to some cataclysmic end.
Every technology we have talked about holds immense promise for bringing us all a much better life, however, every technology also seems to have some end of the world scenario associated with it. This could be because any power can be used for good or ill, or it could just be the way we tend to think.
There have been many ‘end of the world’ scenarios before, and we have survived them all without even breathing very hard. Here is just a small sampling:
- A couple thousand years ago, there were people predicting that all civilization was doomed by the military practice of the time of salting the Earth of a defeated nation, so that no crops could be grown there again. The theory was that eventually all farm lands would be salted, through ongoing warfare, and then everyone would starve.
- The year 1000 AD brought the first millennium crisis, with people believing that Christ was sure to return and Armageddon would follow.
- In 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted overpopulation and mass starvation was just a decade away, and it has continued to be thought to be “just a decade away” by many others, ever since.
- In the 1970′s with global temperatures having fallen steadily for 40 years, some concerned environmental scientists predicted the start of a new ice age, and told people that global cooling (yes cooling), caused by our modern industrial practices, was going to freeze us all – unless we shut down all the factories.
- In the 1980′s we were going to be annihilated at any moment by a nuclear war between super powers, perhaps started by computer error or a computer hacker.
- There was another millennium scare in 2000, and this time, there was the millennium bug with computer date stamps not registering properly past Y2K – it was certain to threaten modern civilization with a massive global computer shutdown.
However we have not survived the entire list of imagined world ending disasters – not by a long shot. Just for fun, here are a few additional possible scenarios: (This is the short list. Many more available at www.exitmundi.nl):
- cosmic ray burst
- super volcanism
- drastic climate change
- another big bang
- deadly new mutant animal species
- super virus or bacteria
- black hole
Now here is an interesting thing about all the scenarios we just listed: they could all be natural occurring phenomena. At any time, we could all be killed by a completely natural disaster according to the plot line of any of these scenarios. However, most people do not seem worried about the world suddenly coming to an end through natural forces.
Now take a look at the list again, but this time put the words “New technology causes…” in front of each of them. Do the scenarios now seem more likely? To a lot of people, the prospect that science could cause some of these things seems far more likely, and/or worrisome, than the idea that they might occur without a human cause.
Now take a look at the list again, but this time, put the words “New technology saves us from…” in front of each. Does that make you feel better? Most people don’t seem to think about the fact that we create science to shelter us, and to serve our needs, and that this should make a scenario where science saves us, more likely than one in where science accidentally destroys us.
The point we are trying to make is that there is no particular logical reason to believe that such a disaster will occur soon, let alone that we will somehow cause it with our science. However, the idea that this might be the case seems to be in a lot of people’s heads. Most people seem to believe that the idea of science causing such a disaster is more likely than it occurring naturally. The only explanation we can find for this bias is that certain idea-organisms have reasons to want us to resist technological change.
These idea-organisms will continue to promote disaster scenarios to slow our technological progress. More such scenarios are always in the works. Some people point to prophecies that foretell our immediate doom, saying that the Mayan calendar predicts a “new cycle” in 2012 and that our technology will destroy us then. Some predict that the “real” millennium computer bug will happen in 2038 when the UNIX date time format runs out of space. Global warming has us burned, flooded, or frozen (pick the one that scares you most) sometime in your lifetime. And there is the nanotech earth eating goo scenario.
This all seems very scary doesn’t it? But you can probably always find a prophecy to say whatever you are scared of, if you just look hard enough. For example:
If you believe in prophecy and are afraid of nanotechnology, have you ever considered this registered trademark of The Sherwin-Williams Company? Perhaps they should never be allowed to use nanotechnology in their paint factories…
If we were to allow this to happen, after being so clearly warned by this obviously prophetic logo, wouldn’t our faces be red?
(We know, the joke isn’t as funny in black and white, but color printing costs being what they are, what are you gonna do?)
It is always more interesting to say that the world is about to end than it is to say that the world will continue on and be just fine. It will always grab more attention. It will always produce more newspaper headlines and teasers spots for later news programs. (“There are three common household products that are probably in your home right now, and could suddenly cause the end of the world! Tune in at 11 O’clock to find out what they are.”) Such fears are exactly the kind of thing that Collective Identities use to gain control. The message they send is that you will be safer if control of such dangerous matters is left to some Higher Power.
But why should we believe that the Collective can protect us from ourselves? We know that a free market works to give us the things we want, and that the Collective almost always does a worse job. When it comes to deciding what technologies will be pursued, the free market has a record of producing things that benefit individuals, while large collective entities, in competition with each other, have given us things like atomic weapons and genetically engineered diseases. There is no reason to believe that central control will not do more harm than good.
It may be true that as individuals get more powerful, a single very upset person might one day have the power to destroy everyone and everything. However, a Collective is more likely to create the technology that would make that possible, and keeping someone from using it, once it is created, will be a real trick. Also consider that the only people who ever seem to be willing to commit such acts of murder/suicide are those infected with the urgent cause of some Collective Identity.
If we allow collective Higher Powers to decide what technology is developed and what is suppressed, it is more likely to create harmful dangerous technology, and suppress good uses for advanced technology, such as giving us all longer healthier lives. This could actually make the difference between you living to see some incredible future world, or dying of old age just decades before things really get interesting.
If we can control the future in any way, reducing collectivism’s drag on scientific progress is probably our best bet. As a person living in the early part of the 21st Century, you may well be part of a truly unique generation of human beings on the planet Earth. But which unique generation are you a part of?
You might be part of the last generation that has to die, or the first generation of immortals.
Whether you let the development of new technology be influenced by individual hopes and dreams, or controlled by some collective mindset, could well make the difference of whether or not you get to witness the future of mankind.
We can’t tell you if the future will be hell on Earth, or heaven, or something more mundane in between. All we can say is that we think it would be a real bummer for you to die of old age just before it becomes clear what is actually going to become of humanity. And it would be especially annoying if the only reason you were not saved was because some group of people, hosting idea-organisms based on writings that are thousands of years old, denied your right to life by slowing the progress of medical technology.
Do your best to stick around. You don’t want to miss the punch line, do you?
If I were to come up with one, I would have to get everyone (or some large fraction of the population) to follow my plan. That might be done by being very convincing and letting people act freely, or it might involve having people with guns forcing other people to act according to my plan. The more I need people with guns to subvert free human behavior, the higher the enforcement costs are, and the less likely the plan could ever produce any net benefit above and beyond these costs.
In predicting a global crisis there will always be some level of uncertainty. The less the level of uncertainty about impending doom, the greater the expected value of implementing my plan and the more obviously right my plan will be to everyone else – thus causing voluntary compliance and reducing enforcement costs. At some level of obviousness, it is no longer just “my plan” – other people will have thought of it independently. At some higher level of obviousness, it is no longer even a “plan” – it is just what any normal sane rational person automatically does.
So I don’t need to have a plan. The overall belief of everyone – expressed in the feedback of a market of free action – will provide a probabilistically best possible solution. The only thing that might prevent the best possible course of action is some smaller set of people implementing their chosen courses of action on others through threat of violence – rather than through free behavioral feedback like boycott/shunning anyone whom they believe to be acting poorly.
Where it is all carrot and no stick, free human behavior and trade among everyone acts to produce a prediction market with as good a guess at the future as any smaller group can ever expect to have.
Or, put another way:
Plan your own actions. Planning the actions of others just causes trouble.