[ExI] bond villain?

[Adrian Tymes]

On Wed, Feb 1, 2023 at 8:05 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Somehow that comment isn’t the least bit reassuring.
>


> Nor is that one.
>

Or that one.
>
>

> Ooooookay then, Adrian.  I think I will go off and be depressed.
>

Reality can be scary, aye.  There's far more than enough to make many
people (not quite "anyone") go off into suicidal funks if they knew it all.

At the same time, there's far more than enough to make many people go off
into boundless euphoria if they knew it all.

It really is about how you choose to deal with it.  Being depressed -
refusing to contemplate the upside (the fact that the same things that
could empower tremendous evil can also, and more often do, empower
tremendous good) - is entirely your choice.


> I have long worried about computer virus generators taking down the
> internet, but now I realize there damn well is a biological equivalent
> virus generator, and some people damn well can figure out how to use it.
>

I haven't even gotten into the non-biological versions.  Have you seen how
Russian armies - when they care to, and have their act together - can
basically erase entire Ukrainian villages?  This, and partial efforts
toward this, are among their more infamous war crimes.  Imagine the same
thing done by a small army of drones, operating off some mothership well
camouflaged against aerial and satellite detection that recharges them and
supplies them with bullets (either manufacturing them or meeting up with
resupply), crawling through rural areas to empty out town after town (and
hitting the occasional truck convoy or train), crippling the agricultural
infrastructure keeping more-defensible cities fed.

And then there are more traditional approaches such as poisoning water
systems, which (being more traditional) have been well studied but are
often not capably defended against.

There are countless ways to wipe out or severely reduce the population of
the human race.  And yet, we're still here.  That's not luck; that's no
mere coincidence.  The true reason we still live isn't grim at all; if you
think it is, you've probably got the wrong reason.  The truth can lead to
happiness.

I'd repeat it, but you brushed it aside.  I hope you can still perceive it
- that this facet of reality has not become invisible to you.
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