How we're going to kill ourselves

[Frenetic Pony]

A random thought, so I'm putting it here.

Human's have evolved to submit towards some kind of authority (generally). This worked out pretty well back when things were simple, cavemen and etc. It probably worked out even better once basic agriculture was introduced, but I'm not that up onto history vs anthropolgy.

The point is, now that tendency is obsolete. It would be interesting to do a historical survey, or at least to see the results from one as such, on the general opinion of the authority to which a populace submits to and how it has changed over the centuries and millenia. People used to think Pharaoh's were gods, today most democratic first world countries see their representatives as charlatan idiots who are only better than the evil, no good, bastard charlatan idiots of the other party.

The point is, people's opinion of their leaders seems to have gone down as the complication of technology has gone up. And frankly, I think the average persons inclinations in this matter are perfectly correct. The more advanced our technology becomes, the more inefficient our genetically programmed tendencies become in producing a society that works at the top of its potential capacity.

Now comes the scary part, and that is that we continue to develop ever scarier and more powerful technology while how we govern ourselves, and consequently what this technology may be used for, falls ever further behind. Take nuclear weapons. About as glaring a thing as any sane human on the planet does not want to do is build twenty plus thousand of the things and place them so that at a moments notice they can be launched all over the world, killing everybody. But that's exactly what our current model of governance did, coming close several times to the worst possible use of the technology imaginable.

And that's the obvious shit! Now lets think about the NON obvious stuff. For example, the internet. The vast majority of the worlds governments have recently proven and been proving they don't really know what the internet is, or how it works, but they're compelled to "govern" it anyway. Repeated attempts at crippling one of the largest, most useful tools ever invented are ongoing and barely being stopped. All because the world has grown too complicated to rule for any individual, or even a group, of the usual "authority" figures we are genetically programmed to deffer towards.

Now just imagine if the something as non obvious as the internet was potentially dangerous. Like say, the ability to produce efficient nano sized von nuemman machines? The point is, I'm wondering how long until some "well intentioned" "governance" ends up killing half (or all) of the world because a couple politicians thought it was a good idea.

[ikrase]

I think you are making the wrong assumptions. Also, I think that technology is making centralized government MORE important, not less.

[ekolis]

Now comes the scary part, and that is that we continue to develop ever scarier and more powerful technology while how we govern ourselves, and consequently what this technology may be used for, falls ever further behind. Take nuclear weapons. About as glaring a thing as any sane human on the planet does not want to do is build twenty plus thousand of the things and place them so that at a moments notice they can be launched all over the world, killing everybody. But that's exactly what our current model of governance did, coming close several times to the worst possible use of the technology imaginable.

Is that necessarily bad? Wiping out humanity might be good for the universe as a whole...

[krogoth]

Now comes the scary part, and that is that we continue to develop ever scarier and more powerful technology while how we govern ourselves, and consequently what this technology may be used for, falls ever further behind. Take nuclear weapons. About as glaring a thing as any sane human on the planet does not want to do is build twenty plus thousand of the things and place them so that at a moments notice they can be launched all over the world, killing everybody. But that's exactly what our current model of governance did, coming close several times to the worst possible use of the technology imaginable.

Is that necessarily bad? Wiping out humanity might be good for the universe as a whole...

or if we could do it without harming the rest of the critters on the planet, better again?