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Leave it to humans to optimize for the most Armageddon per $. There's a non zero chance each year that we trigger Armageddon. Given enough years it will happen
by eloff 5y ago
Leave it to humans to optimize for the most Armageddon per $.
There's a non zero chance each year that we trigger Armageddon. Given enough years it will happen with certainty. Yet nothing is done about it. I think our first mistake in thinking about the possibilities of other intelligent civilizations in the universe is to assume we are an example of one...
- nickpp 5y agoYou think nature isn't "making" such computations all the time? Say like a virus "deciding" how long to let a host live to spread it before finishing him/her off? We live pretending we are rational, intelligent beings but in the end we aren't very far from nature and its processes which created us.
- michaelscott 5y agoExactly, the "humans are killing machines" argument is false because all life is optimised competitively. We're definitely the best at it, but any species that evolved to our level would behave in the same way because it's fundamental to the way species evolve in general. I find it comforting and disturbing at the same time.
- bmitc 5y agoNature seems to make computations that allow for a balance because, usually, breaking out of that balance has detrimental effects. Humanity's technological progress has broken us out of balance, since we're able to steal more energy than we need from our environment. So yes, humans are obviously part of nature. That's of course where we get our primordial emotions from. But it's misleading to say we're just like other parts of nature, when that's clearly not the case. Our problem is technological progress greatly outpaces emotional development, which may or may not even be progressing. In many ways, technological progress degrades emotional development.
- pixl97 5y agoIf you think nature is in balance, you are using much too short of timelines for your comparisons.
- sudosysgen 5y agoI am in disagreement. When nature is in an unstable situation, it rapidly seeks equilibrium. Nature spends most time in equilibrium.
- grkvlt 5y agoi think i recall reading a RAND study or similar that calculated the most cost effective megadeath per dollar, and it turning out to be equipping a very large number of people (paid minimum wage) with a stout piece of 2x4 wood, and instructing them to hit communists over the head until ordered to stop. i think they may have made some simplifying assumptions about the delivery mechanism to get the 2x4 weilders and the communists in the same location, which is an obvious requirement for this to be effective, but it's better than hydrogen bombs if killing communists and saving dollars are all you care about #amirite