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I think it is not so much a question about morality, but about our societal structures. In the past few centuries, human history has been driven by technologic

I think it is not so much a question about morality, but about our societal structures. In the past few centuries, human history has been driven by technological advances. But the major defining development of the 21 century will not be technological, but social. Society will either radically change for the better, or for the worse.

humanrebar 13y ago
What was the defining development of the 20th century? I can think of many big ones that weren't technological in nature, for example the causes of the world wars.
- captainmuon 13y ago
  There were too many to pick out a single one - ubiquotious electrification, running water, modern logistics, modern medicine (esp. antibiotics)... The thing with the political developments is that they were IMHO dependent on previous technological and economical developments. Fascism was only possible in a modern nation-state. In a feudal world, the peasants didn't care much which king ruled over their land, they didn't identify much with their nation. That changed when everything grew closer together. I think new means of communication and transportation greatly helped with building a national identity (and later were used for propaganda). The rise of capitalism and the bourgeois/civil society were also neccessary factors. Why do I say this was driven by technology? Because the begin of modern capitalism is inseparable from the industrial revolution. In the end of course it's not just a causal chain, but a very complicated development. Anyway, what I was trying to say is that when people have hopes for the future, they often think of great technological breakthroughs, continuing the progress of the 20th century. A cure for cancer, fusion energy, robots and AI, .... I think the biggest breakthroughs will be on another field: How can we make a global economy that is not so riddled by crises? How can we distribute wealth better? Can we build a society without money? How do we make better descisions as a society (E.g. the political system in the US is clearly broken right now)? How do we ensure the freedom and libery of everybody? How do we prevent wars? etc. etc. There were a bunch of ideas in the last few centuries in this field, some better, some not - constitutional monarcy, the republic, democracy (parlamentary, or council), socialism, communism (the dozen or so ideas and sytems that called themselves such), social market economy, the stuff they're doing in china right now, and so on. In the last few decades, the consensus seemd to be that these are mostly ideologies, and ideology is dead and capitalism+western democracy has won. Now, we are seeing our system fail slowly, too, and we seem pretty helpless about it. It won't help to throw ever new technologies at it. But I think by learning from the mistakes of past societies, but also from what they got right, we should be able to gradually develop a new kind of society that ensures prosperity, freedom, fairness and peace. I hope this was not too incoherent to understand :-)

humanrebar 13y ago

What was the defining development of the 20th century? I can think of many big ones that weren't technological in nature, for example the causes of the world wars.

captainmuon 13y ago
There were too many to pick out a single one - ubiquotious electrification, running water, modern logistics, modern medicine (esp. antibiotics)... The thing with the political developments is that they were IMHO dependent on previous technological and economical developments. Fascism was only possible in a modern nation-state. In a feudal world, the peasants didn't care much which king ruled over their land, they didn't identify much with their nation. That changed when everything grew closer together. I think new means of communication and transportation greatly helped with building a national identity (and later were used for propaganda). The rise of capitalism and the bourgeois/civil society were also neccessary factors. Why do I say this was driven by technology? Because the begin of modern capitalism is inseparable from the industrial revolution. In the end of course it's not just a causal chain, but a very complicated development. Anyway, what I was trying to say is that when people have hopes for the future, they often think of great technological breakthroughs, continuing the progress of the 20th century. A cure for cancer, fusion energy, robots and AI, .... I think the biggest breakthroughs will be on another field: How can we make a global economy that is not so riddled by crises? How can we distribute wealth better? Can we build a society without money? How do we make better descisions as a society (E.g. the political system in the US is clearly broken right now)? How do we ensure the freedom and libery of everybody? How do we prevent wars? etc. etc. There were a bunch of ideas in the last few centuries in this field, some better, some not - constitutional monarcy, the republic, democracy (parlamentary, or council), socialism, communism (the dozen or so ideas and sytems that called themselves such), social market economy, the stuff they're doing in china right now, and so on. In the last few decades, the consensus seemd to be that these are mostly ideologies, and ideology is dead and capitalism+western democracy has won. Now, we are seeing our system fail slowly, too, and we seem pretty helpless about it. It won't help to throw ever new technologies at it. But I think by learning from the mistakes of past societies, but also from what they got right, we should be able to gradually develop a new kind of society that ensures prosperity, freedom, fairness and peace. I hope this was not too incoherent to understand :-)