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Stupid Bags of Water by Justin Haas Those aliens on Star Trek had it right when they simply referred to us as “bags of water”. The human race isn’t as special or almighty as we sometimes like to think. Sure our larger brains keep us on top for now, but they still have some major flaws. For instance there is nothing preventing our brains from thinking up something horrible that will be the end of them. Who knows what would happen, maybe dolphins could evolve to the point that they’d be able to use a larger portion of their brains than we do ours. We are far too stupid to maintain our dominance on the Earth. The commercials for the "Jamaican" tarot card reader Cleo are clear signs of this. If people are paying enough money for her to afford those commercials, just so she can take a guess (educated at best) about their futures, then they've had a breakdown in their common sense. (Hopefully only a temporary insanity not a permanent one) If the bad accent (How many real Jamaicans say "All y'all"?) isn't a dead give away that something fishy is going on, then I don't know what is. Still, people continue to send them their hard earned cash. Another omen is an actual sign, a billboard. In large black letters it says "1-800-DNA-TYPE" with the subtext "Who's the father?". If there are enough people to need the 5 identical billboards just in the St. Louis area, then we're already starting to lose control of ourselves. It's very plausible we’ll create something that we can’t control, and like a modern tale of Frankenstein, we’ll be destroyed by our creations. Maybe we’ve already created the device of our destruction and it’s lurking, waiting to fulfill its destiny. There is no need to look further than inventions that already exist. The most dangerous of those creations are nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, but weapons are not the only dangers we’ve created. There was a time in our history when most modern buildings contained cancer-causing asbestos, lead pipes, and air conditioners or refrigerators containing CFCs. Some of these inventions cause direct harm to human beings, while others cause major ecological disaster. The deciding factor in whether human beings survive or become extinct is the environment. The ecosystem is so fragile that our constant tampering will eventually shatter the balance, and in many ways already has. For instance, the wolves in the northeast United States have been hunted to near extinction. This causes a domino effect. The deer have lost their natural predator, causing there to be more deer in the state of Pennsylvania, than ever before. With so many deer, much of the vegetation is being overeaten, so there isn’t enough of a root system to hold the soil system in place causing erosion. If something is not done to slow global warming, the polar ice caps will melt. This would submerge massive amounts of currently inhabited land, including most of the world’s low lying fertile farmland, causing widespread famine. Displaced people from flooded places would cause overcrowding. There are many other ecological problems that must be solved if we are to evade extinction. The ozone layer already has a humongous hole over the South Pole. Nonrenewable resources like oil and natural gas will run out in the near future; on a cosmic scale, they’ll be gone in an instant. Oil tankers leak into the ocean causing widespread biological havoc. Landfills are quickly filling up despite efforts to recycle. If that wasn’t enough, future technologies like genetics, nanotechnology, and robots pose all new dangers. Imagine a war, where all the weapons were microscopic and could seek and destroy anything with a certain genetic make up. The soldiers, all would have the same face, body and mind, created to be the perfect fighters, not born. All of them cloned, to form an army with an endless supply of people. If someone said something that was disagreed with by someone in a high position, their own clone could replace them, a clone with special modifications that would assure loyalty to those in charge. Then there would be nothing to stop them from removing all the opposition. All of these dark possibilities probably won’t happen, but just one of them would be enough put an end to the human race. If not in the technical sense, then in the sense that they’d remove our free will, the thing that makes us human. We'd be incredibly lucky to have a future like the people in The Matrix. At least they didn't know that they were slaves to the master race of robots. There are far worse alternatives like a nuclear holocaust or a plague that erradicates us all. There is still time to avert oncoming disaster. We should set our scientific focus on environmental problems we face, instead of dangerous areas like cloning and advanced weapons. Another focus could be a renewed vigor in exploring space, even this though comes with danger as nearly every science fiction movie has shown. Maybe humanity will be the supreme rulers of the Earth for billions of years, till the sun expands and engulfs the planet, or maybe the world will end tommorow. The date of our destruction can be pushed further and further back if we put a conscious effort into it. All the amazing things we've done, such as building the pyramids, decoding the human genome, harnessing the power of the atom, both good and bad, suggest that we can do anything to which we put our minds.
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Wired 8.04:
Why the future doesn't need us.
Wired 8.04: A Tale of Two Botanies
Wired 8.07: Rants & Raves
Executive Bios: Bill Joy
Valley to Bill Joy: 'Zzzzzzz'
Debating Humanity's Demise
Why the future needs Bill Joy
cluebot.com | Why Bill Joy is Elitist, Myopic, and Wrong
Special Focus on Bill Joy's Hi-Tech Warning - The Center for the
Study of Technology
Bill Joy Hopes Reason Prevails
In Search of Cyber Humanity
Oh Joy, Another Futurist Rant
Pop!Tech: Praises and Protests
The Rise of Dot-Communism
Sep/Oct 00: Not by Reason Alone
ZDNet: Printer Friendly - Rage Against The Machine
HotWired: Unabomber's Manifesto: Index
Hans Moravec home page
Peek at new book: ROBOT by Hans Moravec
Background 2: Accidents, Malice, Progress, and Other Topics
The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil The Kurzweil Companies http://www.kurzweiltech.com/companies_static.html
Social Life of Information Home Page
Foresight Institute
Can Robots Rule the World? Not Yet
BBC News | FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT | Robots rule OK?
ABCNEWS.com : WNT: What if Machines Get Too Smart?
Privacy's Yin and Yang
Promise and peril of technology:
The future is already written
Bill Joy, Killjoy? by Robert Wright The Future Needs Us: A Rejoinder to Bill Joy - Terry van der Werff - Global Future Global Future Reportô March 14th, 2000 Dr. Terry van der Werff, CMC Speaker Consultant http://www.globalfuture.com/wired-joy.htm |
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