Phrossack
Armored Fish and Armored Men
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2008
- Messages
- 6,045
Exactly. Right now we've proven barely able to handle nuclear weapons, and unable to handle global industry and consumerism at all. I dread the day we start asteroid mining. Because the startup costs would be high, and relatively few people would be involved, it would be trivially easy for wealthy individuals to dominate the industry and monopolize all of the trillions of dollars in wealth, at which point they become like gods and rule the economy and political systems forever. Alternatively someone nudges an asteroid closer to Earth to cut down on travel time there, and accidentally or deliberately nudge it straight into us.Yes!
I think maybe we can consider our social systems and norms as a technology itself, one that needs to be improved to allow us to advance and increase in intelligence along with cybernetics and genetic engineering. Maybe if we don't mature as a society at the same pace as the other technologies, we will wipe ourselves and everything out with us.
Point is, we have a few decades at the very, very most to change our ways or we all die, or worse.