[ExI] "Handle With Care" - NYT Article

[Stefano Vaj]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 6:40 AM, Olga Bourlin <fauxever at sprynet.com> wrote:
> Rachelle Hollander, a philosopher who directs the center, said the new
> technologies were so powerful that "our saving grace, our inability to
> affect things at a planetary level, is being lost to us," as human-induced
> climate change is demonstrating.

There are two main objections to the suggestion that the inability to
affect things at a planetary level is a "saving grace", a myth the
echo of which is not unheard of even in the H+ and/or singularitarian
world:

- Firstly, the cat is out of the bag. Unless we are willing to
exterminate a significant percentage of the world population and
regress all or most of it at a pre-industrial level, there is no way
that "nature" can get back in the place of technology and planning.
But even there, it would remain unclear how far back we should go.
After all, the anthropic removal of a substantial part of the world
forest, the alteration of hydro-geological balances, the extinction of
some species and the selection of others with the related impact on
the earth ecology started all with the neolithic revolution.

- Secondly, and more importantly, where do they pick their blind faith
that the "mother nature" does, or at least would, cater for a static,
irenic, happy planetary balance, and that our species would be forever
the darling of it? For all we know at this stage, perfectly natural
processes might be at work that would evolve changes of scenario
incompatible with our survival, and while "do not touch what you do
not understand", or "if it works, don't fix it" may be sound
principles in everydaty life, geo-engineering may well be our only way
out of them; or unintended consequences of our presence and activities
may have already protected us from very undesirable developments.

Within current obsession with existential risks - a trend which has
some undeniable advantages for the penetration of transhumanist ideas
- it is remarkable that even for prophets of doom like Martin Rees,
who believes this to be our "last century", the anthropic risks count
for a very small percentage amongst the most likely causes of imminent
extinction for our species.

Stefano Vaj

Stefano Vaj