I can't help thinking down the road 10 or 20 years. What happens when everybody has super powerful nano (or whatever) weapons? We're going to stop everybody? What about when you can whip up something in your kitchen sink that will eat a hole in the planet? This is similar to the line of thought that got Bill Joy so worked up a couple years ago.
I think some people in or behind this administration are wondering about this too, and I speculate that their answer to the question is: we've got to completely lock the world down right now! Total information awareness. If this needs to include mind implants or mind control rays or putting everyone inside some safe matrix like reality simulation or any other horrible distopian sci-fi idea then so be it. Whatever works to save the world!
Sounds noble, in a weird way, but it won't work. You can't get control of such a complex system by applying more force. What we should be doing is making friends. Leading by example. Raising everyone's standard of living. Genuinely trying to make the world better for everyone (arabs, blacks, jews, christians, women, the poor, the uneducated, the mean, the greedy, the beautiful, the ugly all alike...)
We're all going to need to police ourselves and our neighbors in these dangerous times. But people won't be proxies for the evil one world globo cop US government if they sense that this government isn't really acting in their interests. We get help now by bribing people, but that only works because it's still relatively hard for someone to get a hold of really dangerous weapons. As soon as the bar is lowered, then our strong arm tactics will cease to work. We're going to get bit in the ass. Hard.
i guess its a race as to whether technology will save us or enslave us.
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I think some people in or behind this administration are wondering about this too, and I speculate that their answer to the question is: we've got to completely lock the world down right now! Total information awareness. If this needs to include mind implants or mind control rays or putting everyone inside some safe matrix like reality simulation or any other horrible distopian sci-fi idea then so be it. Whatever works to save the world!
Sounds noble, in a weird way, but it won't work. You can't get control of such a complex system by applying more force. What we should be doing is making friends. Leading by example. Raising everyone's standard of living. Genuinely trying to make the world better for everyone (arabs, blacks, jews, christians, women, the poor, the uneducated, the mean, the greedy, the beautiful, the ugly all alike...)
We're all going to need to police ourselves and our neighbors in these dangerous times. But people won't be proxies for the evil one world globo cop US government if they sense that this government isn't really acting in their interests. We get help now by bribing people, but that only works because it's still relatively hard for someone to get a hold of really dangerous weapons. As soon as the bar is lowered, then our strong arm tactics will cease to work. We're going to get bit in the ass. Hard.
- jim 12-21-2002 9:39 pm
i guess its a race as to whether technology will save us or enslave us.
- dave 12-21-2002 10:21 pm [add a comment]