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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Mike Dougherty via extropy-chat<br><br></span><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>>…The danger isn’t that a sentient machine will decide to subjugate humanity. The danger is that <b><span style='font-family:Roboto'>humanity has spent thousands of years building a highly fragile, hyper-connected global engine, and we are now handing highly potent, unbuffered acceleration pedals to individuals who still possess the cognitive architecture of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers….<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Mike that truth was very clear to me on my recent family history tour. Everywhere I went, I found evidence of how fragile we have allowed our society to become.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>We all know well the kinds of feelings John described whenever the power goes out, a kind of reverse of what happened to the Grinch when his heart grew three sizes that day. We get that. We heard of gas, water and power meters which run on software (all three of mine do.) We know our trading system cannot work without electronic communications (there just isn’t enough cash in circulation.) An extended power failure very well could be a mass casualty event, not even associated with a deep cold snap such as happened in Texas in February 2021. Any extended power failure anywhere could cause mass casualties.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>On that family history tour, I met and talked to people who had never owned and never used a computer. I saw (but did not meet) Amish people, in a buggies in Ohio, clopping around behind a horse, still using animals to pull a plow, still harvesting with hand tools. If a universal power failure covered the globe, the only change they would notice is there are no more cars going by. But even then, I drove for over an hour without seeing another car coming the other way. So… it would scarcely make any difference to them. They are already self-sufficient, and live more than an hour (car) drive from the nearest town, perhaps ten hours by buggy. They are not connected.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>But we are. Our entire society has grown so interconnected, so interdependent, so fragile, it is perfectly clear it will eventually shatter. Yet we do nothing to protect ourselves from the clear and present danger.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></blockquote></div></body></html>