[extropy-chat] Bluff and the Darwin award

[Russell Wallace]

On 5/16/06, KAZ <kazvorpal at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I'm relatively new to the list; what are your own specific reasons for
> believing we are in danger of doom if we don't advance in technology at a
> specific rate?
>

On general principles, there is necessarily some deadline, simply because
nothing lasts forever; men are mortal, and so are nations, civilizations,
species and worlds. As far as specifics go, if you look at history, the
conditions supporting free inquiry and rapid scientific and technological
progress are a strange aberration, occurring in only a very small minority
of times and places; there is no reason to expect them to persist for long,
and indeed we see today that with each passing year the web of laws and
regulations chokes a little tighter, the idea that an individual's life is
society's to control becomes a little more entrenched.

None of which, of course, establishes that the deadline must fall on any
specific, predicted date; we can't foretell the future, trends can change;
the fall of the Soviet Union, for example, was a very large reprieve. But it
does at the least suggest that we would be very unwise to assume the
deadline is so far in the future we needn't hurry.
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