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The term comes from Nick Bostrum's article on The Vulnerable World [1]. In it he defines a black ball like this "a black ball: a technology that invariably or
by ALittleLight 4y ago
The term comes from Nick Bostrum's article on The Vulnerable World [1]. In it he defines a black ball like this "a black ball: a technology that invariably or by default destroys the civilization that invents it". Nuclear weapons don't invariably destroy civilization because we could just imagine that we keep using them as is - that's not impossible. Also, Bostrum considers nuclear weapons explicitly and calls them a gray ball.
1 - https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf
- tablespoon 4y ago> "a black ball: a technology that invariably or by default destroys the civilization that invents it" I think I see the issue, and I think that summary leaves an important facet out that the paper talks about. It would probably be better as "a black ball: a civilization-destroying technology that cannot be regulated, so invariably or by default destroys the civilization that invents it"