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It's a lunatic position. Consider the die-hard environmental activist who decides the best way to save the planet is to create a collection of deadly infectious
by photochemsyn 5y ago
It's a lunatic position. Consider the die-hard environmental activist who decides the best way to save the planet is to create a collection of deadly infectious pathogens, distribute them to every major city on the planet, and so reduce the human population by 75%, creating a glorious utopia for everyone to enjoy.
Several books and movies have employed this plot, 'Cobra Event' comes to mind.
Consider the psychology of the megalomaniacal individual who knows what's best for everyone based on their own personal views and experiences, who takes no input from anyone else, because everyone else in the room is an idiot who doesn't understand the genius of their position...
This might lead to arguments like "who's more of a lunatic, the woman who releases the virus that ends the insane human population explosion on Planet Earth, or the woman who doesn't? I'd argue the latter."
To quote William Gibson, roughly: "It's like they're all running around with luminous messages scrawled on the inside of their foreheads."
- stevemadere 5y agoIs there a Kickstarter for that project? Asking for a friend.
- photochemsyn 5y agoI imagine once we start seeing serious migration levels due to global warming, some idiot genius will come up with something. On some days, I look up at the stars and think "You know it's shit like this, why we don't have alien visitors. Intelligence is apparently a dead-end evolutionary tree." I hope I'm wrong about that.
- sugarpile 5y agoIf your goal is preservation of Earth and not the human species then yes, that may be a sound action. > who knows what's best for everyone based on their own personal views and experiences, who takes no input from anyone else, because everyone else in the room is an idiot who doesn't understand the genius of their position... We're talking about von Neuman here. If I was to find myself in conflict with an assessment of his I would default to assuming I was likely wrong. From a statistical point of view anyone who wouldn't do the same is wrong to do so and ego, personality, or some other "thing" is likely getting in their way. It's not a big deal to cede to him imo.
- photochemsyn 5y agoTo summarize my point, being a brilliant physicist and mathematician in no way qualifies one as a brilliant diplomat or foreign policy strategist. Would you want John von Neumann to do brain surgery on you, for example?
- ichydkrsrnae 5y agoThe Cobra Event was buried and lost by having a title not unlike 500 other novels by more recognizable authors like Ludlum, Clancy, etc. Too bad too, because it's a great read. How long will that plot really be fiction? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cobra_Event https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cobra_Event