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What is the alternative? Hide the research papers in a cabinet and never talk about it? How long would it be before another team achieves the same result? Tryin

What is the alternative? Hide the research papers in a cabinet and never talk about it? How long would it be before another team achieves the same result? Trying to keep it under wraps would only increase the chance of this technology being abused, but now unbeknownst to the general public. Basically, are you proposing to ban some fields of research because the result can be abused? Anything can be abused. From the social care system to scientific breakthroughs. What the society should do is to control the abuse, not stop the progress. Not even because of ethics, where the opinions diverge, but because stopping the progress is virtually impossible.

ctoth 3y ago
Look up the history of biotechnology, and the intentional way that it has been treated and one might reasonably say suppressed for some examples of how this has been managed previously. Yes, sometimes you can just decide, "we're not gonna research that today." When you start sitting down and building the thing that fits on the head, that's where you say "nope, we're doing that thing we shouldn't do, let's not do it." There is actually a line. You can actually decide not to cross it.
Aerbil313 3y ago
The alternative was to never pursue and invent organization-dependent[1,2] technology in the first place. The dynamics of the macro-system of {human biology + technology + societal dynamics} are so predictable and deterministic that it's argued[3] if there were any entity that is intelligent, replicating and has a self-preservation instinct instead of humans (aliens, intelligent Von Neumann probes, doesn't matter) the path of technological progress which humanity is currently experiencing wouldn't change. That is, the increasing restrictions on the autonomy of individuals and invasion of privacy with the increasing convenience of life and a more efficient civilization. Ted Kaczynski pretty much predicted the current state of affairs all the way back at 1970s. [1] Thankfully the world is not infinite so humankind cannot continue this situation for too long. The first Earth Overshoot Day was 31 December 1971, it was August 2 this year.[4] The effects of the nearing population collapse can be easily seen today in the increasing worldwide inflation, interest rates and hostility as the era of abundance comes to an end and resources get scarcer and scarcer. It's important to note that the technological prowess of humanity was only due to having access to basically unlimited energy for decades, not due to some perceived human ingenuity, which can save humankind from extinction-level threats. In fact, humans are pretty incapable of understanding world-scale events and processes and acting accordingly[5], which is another primary reason to not have left the simple non-technological world which the still non-evolved primate-like human brain could intuitively understand. 1: Refer to the manifesto "Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences". 2: Organization-dependent technology: Technology which requires organized effort, as opposed to small scale technology which a single person can produce himself with correct knowledge. 3: By Kaczynski, in the book Anti-Tech Revolution. Freely available online. 4: Biological overshoot occurs when demands placed on an ecosystem by a species exceeds the carrying capacity. Earth Overshoot Day is the day when humanity's demand on nature exceeds Earth's biocapacity. Humanity was able to continue its survival due to phantom carrying capacity. 5: Just take a look at the collective response of humanity to climate change.

ctoth 3y ago

Look up the history of biotechnology, and the intentional way that it has been treated and one might reasonably say suppressed for some examples of how this has been managed previously. Yes, sometimes you can just decide, "we're not gonna research that today." When you start sitting down and building the thing that fits on the head, that's where you say "nope, we're doing that thing we shouldn't do, let's not do it." There is actually a line. You can actually decide not to cross it.

Aerbil313 3y ago

The alternative was to never pursue and invent organization-dependent[1,2] technology in the first place. The dynamics of the macro-system of {human biology + technology + societal dynamics} are so predictable and deterministic that it's argued[3] if there were any entity that is intelligent, replicating and has a self-preservation instinct instead of humans (aliens, intelligent Von Neumann probes, doesn't matter) the path of technological progress which humanity is currently experiencing wouldn't change. That is, the increasing restrictions on the autonomy of individuals and invasion of privacy with the increasing convenience of life and a more efficient civilization. Ted Kaczynski pretty much predicted the current state of affairs all the way back at 1970s. [1] Thankfully the world is not infinite so humankind cannot continue this situation for too long. The first Earth Overshoot Day was 31 December 1971, it was August 2 this year.[4] The effects of the nearing population collapse can be easily seen today in the increasing worldwide inflation, interest rates and hostility as the era of abundance comes to an end and resources get scarcer and scarcer. It's important to note that the technological prowess of humanity was only due to having access to basically unlimited energy for decades, not due to some perceived human ingenuity, which can save humankind from extinction-level threats. In fact, humans are pretty incapable of understanding world-scale events and processes and acting accordingly[5], which is another primary reason to not have left the simple non-technological world which the still non-evolved primate-like human brain could intuitively understand. 1: Refer to the manifesto "Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences". 2: Organization-dependent technology: Technology which requires organized effort, as opposed to small scale technology which a single person can produce himself with correct knowledge. 3: By Kaczynski, in the book Anti-Tech Revolution. Freely available online. 4: Biological overshoot occurs when demands placed on an ecosystem by a species exceeds the carrying capacity. Earth Overshoot Day is the day when humanity's demand on nature exceeds Earth's biocapacity. Humanity was able to continue its survival due to phantom carrying capacity. 5: Just take a look at the collective response of humanity to climate change.