Quadibloc
2019-10-31 22:27:15 UTC
A while back I read an article that played with a suggestion that we might use
CRISPR to modify humanity to make people more ethical and compassionate.
While that seems like an outrageous thing to do, perhaps matters are so desperate,
we might have to resort to it, since with technology progressing as it is, how
long will we live in a world where anyone can easily destroy the world?
Ah. An answer to the Fermi paradox, then.
I don't really think that if it's trivially easy for people to destroy the world,
that we would be able to engineer people whose wisdom and ethics are reliable
enough so that this is not a problem. Plus, if all the countries on Earth would
consent to participate in such a project, we would already have world peace.
Instead, I suspect this will push the world in the direction of political
structures that are effective at keeping dangerous toys out of most people's hands
- your typical totalitarian dictatorship.
John Savard
CRISPR to modify humanity to make people more ethical and compassionate.
While that seems like an outrageous thing to do, perhaps matters are so desperate,
we might have to resort to it, since with technology progressing as it is, how
long will we live in a world where anyone can easily destroy the world?
Ah. An answer to the Fermi paradox, then.
I don't really think that if it's trivially easy for people to destroy the world,
that we would be able to engineer people whose wisdom and ethics are reliable
enough so that this is not a problem. Plus, if all the countries on Earth would
consent to participate in such a project, we would already have world peace.
Instead, I suspect this will push the world in the direction of political
structures that are effective at keeping dangerous toys out of most people's hands
- your typical totalitarian dictatorship.
John Savard