First pages
(C) copyrighted material
Helpless Earth
Reckless Science
Yuval Kanev
*******
Prelude
Which scientist openly admitted he had risked the entire human society?
Which scientist said, "I am sorry?"
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Which scientist said, "I am sorry?"
Part A - The enterprise
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Insider report
Bill Joy was a fluent reader by the age of three.
Eventually, he co-founded a high-tech company in Silicon Valley and contributed significantly to computer science.
Eventually, he co-founded a high-tech company in Silicon Valley and contributed significantly to computer science.
Quite unexpectedly, in the year 2000 he published a controversial essay that infuriated scores of scientists around the world.
The stirring critique challenged cherished values and threatened broad self-interests.
The title was no less unusual:
“Why the Future Doesn't Need Us.”
Indeed, Joy composed a lengthy thesis that outlined the “Pandora's boxes” of genetics, robotics, and nanotechnologies.
He was deeply concerned about research programs, typically very promising commercially, that endangered humanity's survival like weapons of suicide.
Implicitly and explicitly, he blamed leading scientific elites for downplaying the dangers of their research projects, or (maybe worse) taking appalling risks of which they were well aware.
The question he raised was plainly dramatic:
"Can we doubt that knowledge has become a weapon we wield against ourselves?"
Practically, Joy proposed to restrict the search for knowledge, and relinquish the most hazardous types of breakthrough science.
But if he hoped to shake the status quo, he proved to be rather naive.
The sensation he created was rather short lived.
He did not inspire a lasting social issue nor a substantial constraint on the customary liberty of science.
The public and private agendas of scientific advance, along with the admired public image of scientists, little changed, if at all.
By and large, scientists carried on in the same old ways, which was not a big surprise.
Ground breaking research programs had long been business as usual, at times rewarded with gold medals.
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Rising alarms
Wild rabbits inflicted heavy damage on Australian agriculture for a long time.
In the 1950s, professor Frank Fenner played a key role in an official project, which exposed the rabbits to a lethal disease and drastically reduced their numbers.
Later on, Fenner highly contributed to the worldwide eradication of a devastating human disease, smallpox, officially announced in 1980.
Eventually, though, his broad concern with global problems culminated in despair.
Like others, he noticed the huge quantities of modern machines that pollute the air and disrupt the climate. But his calculations showed a chilling consequence – or maybe better said a “scorching consequence” – which he disclosed publicly shortly before his death.
Cheryl Jones covered a unique interview with Fenner in “The Australian” on June 16, 2010. That day, many readers were surprised to learn that the admired scientist supported the most radical claims of the most pessimistic camps:
Global warming will escalate, mitigation efforts will fail, and humanity will eventually face annihilation.
However, though the interview seemed quite sensational, not every reader was actually surprised.
Some might have long followed the periodical Doomsday Clock reports.
Some might have carefully read a famous book by Martin Rees, who studied the global dangers of contemporary technologies and gave a sobering estimate:
The risk of apocalyptic catastrophe in the 21st century is at least 50%.
Rees, former president of the Royal Society, did not answer a pretty simple question:
Will modern civilization survive or not?
But based on Rees, at best, the odds are even, like the odds of a flipped coin landing on heads or tails.
“Why the Future Doesn't Need Us.”
Indeed, Joy composed a lengthy thesis that outlined the “Pandora's boxes” of genetics, robotics, and nanotechnologies.
He was deeply concerned about research programs, typically very promising commercially, that endangered humanity's survival like weapons of suicide.
Implicitly and explicitly, he blamed leading scientific elites for downplaying the dangers of their research projects, or (maybe worse) taking appalling risks of which they were well aware.
The question he raised was plainly dramatic:
"Can we doubt that knowledge has become a weapon we wield against ourselves?"
Practically, Joy proposed to restrict the search for knowledge, and relinquish the most hazardous types of breakthrough science.
But if he hoped to shake the status quo, he proved to be rather naive.
The sensation he created was rather short lived.
He did not inspire a lasting social issue nor a substantial constraint on the customary liberty of science.
The public and private agendas of scientific advance, along with the admired public image of scientists, little changed, if at all.
By and large, scientists carried on in the same old ways, which was not a big surprise.
Ground breaking research programs had long been business as usual, at times rewarded with gold medals.
-2 -
Rising alarms
Wild rabbits inflicted heavy damage on Australian agriculture for a long time.
In the 1950s, professor Frank Fenner played a key role in an official project, which exposed the rabbits to a lethal disease and drastically reduced their numbers.
Later on, Fenner highly contributed to the worldwide eradication of a devastating human disease, smallpox, officially announced in 1980.
Eventually, though, his broad concern with global problems culminated in despair.
Like others, he noticed the huge quantities of modern machines that pollute the air and disrupt the climate. But his calculations showed a chilling consequence – or maybe better said a “scorching consequence” – which he disclosed publicly shortly before his death.
Cheryl Jones covered a unique interview with Fenner in “The Australian” on June 16, 2010. That day, many readers were surprised to learn that the admired scientist supported the most radical claims of the most pessimistic camps:
Global warming will escalate, mitigation efforts will fail, and humanity will eventually face annihilation.
However, though the interview seemed quite sensational, not every reader was actually surprised.
Some might have long followed the periodical Doomsday Clock reports.
Some might have carefully read a famous book by Martin Rees, who studied the global dangers of contemporary technologies and gave a sobering estimate:
The risk of apocalyptic catastrophe in the 21st century is at least 50%.
Rees, former president of the Royal Society, did not answer a pretty simple question:
Will modern civilization survive or not?
But based on Rees, at best, the odds are even, like the odds of a flipped coin landing on heads or tails.
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Inflated image
Science news takes many forms and fascinates countless millions.
Sometime ago, I had a look at a reputable online source that gave compelling reports on a range of topics:
Lung transplantation… ancient people's height… colors observed by birds… hazardous gases... the blood moon… a fish given engineered nutrition… plastic pollution… and robots propelled by thinking.
The fluent passages showed a heart warming picture:
Research reveals the fundamental truths of the physical and biological world around us.
Scientists discover essential facts about contemporary and past human life.
Scientists develop innovative technologies that are vastly beneficial to our advanced society.
And, of course, scientists expose and attempt to mitigate the immense dangers to the environment.
To my mind, this remarkable list of science news looked almost like a public relations stunt.
Throughout the entire collection – viewed on August 4, 2018 – there was no explicit or implicit reference to any of the disturbing issues that surround science.
Perfect silence met perennial problems like hazardous technologies, dangers to humanity, and a growing range of global catastrophic threats.
Quite notable was the tendency to overlook "dystopian" topics and promote "positive" thinking.
Surely, you can google around and see for yourself if, or to what extent, a certain editorial agenda shapes the gratifying science news you get.
But of course, that is not always the case.
The positive bias is remarkably evident when it comes to pollution.
Science news regularly covers current scientists who identify the dangers, raise the alarms, and offer solutions.
Somehow, the awkward part of the truth is oddly missing.
Needless to mention, it was past scientists who developed, tested, authorized, promoted, and received substantial rewards for the promising technologies, which eventually induced myriad types of global pollution.
Of course, if you suspect an old media tradition of partisan narratives and assorted half-truths, then you might echo the old question of Shakespeare's Hamlet:
Is there something fishy in the regular science news columns?
Apropos, I recently looked at some well-known websites that cover pollution. The singular impact of modern scientific technologies on the colossal escalation of global pollution emissions was barely mentioned, if at all. Could that be merely episodic, or rather intriguing?
If you watch a TV program on the environment, you may casually come across a scientific authority affirming that pollution is “human-induced.”
Nothing more specific. Nothing like technology-induced, business-induced, or regulation-induced.
And nothing that would touch on the embarrassing chronology:
No type of pollution ever threatened humanity's survival before the modern breakthroughs in science and technology.
You may wonder, then, if the choice of words in fact frames the key issues.
Quite naturally, when you hear from a scientist that pollution is “human-induced,” you may readily gather that the bad guys are “reckless humans,” while the good guys are “responsible scientists,” which is silly at best.
Regardless of the biased connotations – or perhaps precisely because of them – the "human induced" rhetoric is quite popular among the champions of "progress" who thrive in the circles of the "well educated."
As it seems, the general inclination is to downplay the role of science in the global mess we are all stuck with, and even more so, the role of scientists in the global mess we are all stuck with.
Somewhat strangely, this trend is consistent with traditional ways of producing media content.
Even when touching on the negative outcome of scientific progress, mainstream media tend to cover specific dangers, such as nuclear weapons, engineered pathogens, or, say, fossil-fueled engines.
Looking at things from a broader perspective is not a preferred option.
Rarely enough, readers come across a phrase like “the dangers brought by science.” And even more rarely, if ever, “the dangers brought by scientists.”
Small wonder many believe that scientists are above criticism.
They somehow seem to forget that global problems might reflect the activities or inactivities of scientists.
Needless to add, such people would rather not question the ethics, power, privileges, integrity, and competence of scientists.
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Black swans
It is rather difficult to visualize how people lived three hundred years ago.
Starting in the 18th century, a succession of scientific inventions and discoveries was changing human life across the board for better and worse.
Today's ordinary things like engine-powered machines, injectible vaccines, electrical appliances, computer processors, and nuclear reactors were non existent at the onset of the 18th century.
Today's global threats like industrial co2 pollutants, artificial pathogenic viruses, synthetic hormone disruptors, and fission bombs were non existent at the onset of the 18th century just as well.
Such new global threats, which no 18th-century scientist anticipated, are hard to comprehend.
Presently, humanity confronts scores of extinction scenarios that tend to grow.
The risk of total human self-extinction is critically high and might well increase.
In fact, a single accident, mistake, or deliberate decision might trigger total human self-extinction anytime, even next week, as simple as that.
How did scientific progress of the most intelligent species result in such a risky state of affairs?
The coming chapters explore a few answers like these:
* Due to a genetic paradox, humans could develop powerful sciences they could not control.
* Scientists misled by false presuppositions and taken-for-granted expectations further misled public officials, lawmakers, military brass, entrepreneurs, media reporters, and intellectuals.
* Factually, state leaders largely ignored the existential danger of the entire applicable scientific endeavor.
* The U.N. Assembly commonly ignored the existential danger of the entire applicable scientific endeavor.
* The Nobel Prize diplomas routinely ignored the existential danger of the entire applicable scientific endeavor.
* Heavy dependency on scientists routinely disrupted adequate control of scientific developments.
* Lack of international cooperation, huge commercial interests, and legal complexities routinely disrupted adequate control of scientific developments.
* Defective scientific logic obscured by opaque scientific jargon routinely disrupted adequate control of scientific developments.
* Eight billion humans were covertly forced by small powerful elites to take part in patently foolish gambling.
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The case of an old city
Following a futile siege of Troy, the Greek army built a huge hollow sculpture of a wooden horse, hid some troops inside, moved it close to the immense walls of the defiant city, and feigned a retreat.
Not long after, the Trojan leaders swallowed the bait. The wooden horse was brought in, and then the concealed troops sneaked out and opened the main gates to the whole Greek army, which swiftly devastated the city.
Briefly given in the Odyssey, this story has been told and retold countless times, traditionally in verse accompanied by music.
For some, though, it was merely a peculiar piece of dubious history.
Others were prompted to examine specific issues of ingenuity and stupidity.
Based on Barbara Tuchman, the fall of Troy was a prominent case of elite debacle, covered in her 1984 historical work:
The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.
This book delved into decisions and policies of state leaders in different circumstances, and was met with some professional criticism.
Still, it drew readers’ attention to curious questions:
Could some elites tend to take unwarranted risks?
Could excessive power breed not only straight corruption – which is widely maintained – but also defective thinking?
Could foolishness strike regardless of IQ level?
Indeed, such questions seem to carry distinct weight in the current state of affairs, when powerful politicians, entrepreneurs, or scientists might bring about the flourishing or demise of humanity.
More than a decade before the release of The March of Folly, the social psychologist Irving L. Janis published an influential work:
Victims of Groupthink.
Janis studied defective logic shaped by social factors in certain over confident and inflexible groups. He called it “group thinking,” or more contemptuously “groupthink.”
Could “groupthink,” then, have something to do with current political, scientific, and business elites?
Given a few global indicators, such as the Doomsday Clock setting, this question seems to merit serious attention, to say the least.
Interestingly, Janis was influenced by George Orwell, who coined infamous terms like “blackwhite” and “doublethink,” pointing to the twisted thinking of an unbridled elite.
As if to broaden the issue, Gorgias of Sicily, (in an article concerning the Trojan War) suggested a linguistic insight on the basic development of twisted thinking, faulty thinking, absurd thinking, and similar achievements of the human mind:
Words are like drugs.
Ages later, a striking example of eggheads drugged by their own words was given by Friedrich Nietzsche, who flatly mocked his peers, the admired minds popularly believed to pursue fundamental truths.
According to Nietzsche, when one manages to see the sheer conviction upon which this or that philosophy is based, one can only say:
“The ass arrived, beautiful and most brave.”
The Latin words he actually used, taken from a famous Christian song, seem somewhat more spicy:
“Adventavit asinus, pulcher et fortissimus.”
Just to remove any doubt, Nietzsche fully supported his scornful dismissal of celebrated minds with an array of astute arguments.
Perhaps the most comprehensive review of stupidity-at-the-top was offered by the Renaissance humanist Erasmus Desiderius, who used his subversive wit to address the world he knew, and maybe just as well – given some persistent evidences – the contemporary world all of us know.
According to his 16th-century classic, The Praise of Folly, planet Earth is ruled by no other than the Goddess of foolishness.
All humans worship this goddess, all are happy, and all are fools. But the question remains: who are the greatest fools of all? As to this particular issue, members of leading cultural elites are meticulously listed by Erasmus: great philosophers, famous writers, respectable educators, commerce magnates, and theologians who are officially licensed to eradicate any sign of heresy. In short, the greatest fools of all are precisely those considered the wisest of all.
Whether this very model fits some contemporary elites is, of course, up to anyone to decide.
According to my old dictionary, folly could mean foolishness, stupidity, ridiculousness, madness, absurdity, inanity, and insanity.
The extensive list of the agents of folly is much longer. Prominent examples, aside from straight fools, are donkeys, simpletons, dolts, idiots, imbeciles, buffoons, ninnies, and dummies – not to mention goons, loons, jackasses, noodles, schmucks, simps, palookas and poops.
To be sure, this is just one hint on the vast subject of folly.
Historically, the defective functioning of the human brain – the brain of the most intelligent species – so the story goes – has been a spectacle observed in traditional folklore dating back millennia.
It has further been discussed by philosophers, historians, novelists, theologians, poets, logicians, comedians, psychologists, and military theorists, not to mention kindergarten nurses.
Whether it's a problem to be solved, a weakness to be exploited, a vice to be ridiculed, or just a plague, depends on the point of view.
Whether some significant progress has been achieved in this respect is hard to tell.
If someone is eager to write a compendious treatise on the subject, I would recommend a title like this:
“The March of Folly from the Tree of Knowledge to the Tsar Bomba – the most powerful H-bomb ever detonated.”
The brutish Tsar Bomba, by the way, was largely designed by Andrei Sakharov, a proud Nobel Prize winner, honored for his unparalleled contribution to the “peace” of humankind.
Reminder:
Starting in 1901, the Nobel Prize was awarded to foremost scientists in view of their accomplishments for the great benefit of humankind.
Somewhat oddly, after hundreds of outstanding scientific accomplishments for the great benefit of humankind, 1947 saw the launch of the Doomsday Clock.
Comment:
"And only on this solidified, granite-like foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself hitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will, the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as its opposite, but—as its refinement!"
Friedrich Nietzsche.
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Startling forecasts
"And only on this solidified, granite-like foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself hitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will, the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as its opposite, but—as its refinement!"
Friedrich Nietzsche.
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Startling forecasts
A bit surprisingly, one of his well-known books explores the impacts of breakthrough scientific discoveries and technologies on the dwindling safety of life on planet Earth.
If you look for a concise and authoritative work on the catastrophic dangers of nuclear explosives, industrial pollutants, engineered viruses, self-replicating robots, artificially-intelligent computers, molecular machines, and worldwide communication networks, this is a kind of classic.
If you are concerned with the present existential threats of terror, world war, mega accident, cataclysmic error, risky research, and hazardous knowledge, this work can hardly be overlooked.
And if you seek a balanced treatment of science – by a devoted scientist, of course – this book addresses both the positive and negative impacts of contemporary hard science.
True, the Nobel Prize ceremonies annually celebrate outstanding contributions for the benefit of humanity. But as far as science is concerned, “benefit” is not usually the whole story.
Science has long been compared to a double-edged sword.
And yet, the symmetry is questionable, if not optimistically misleading.
Presently, for instance, the positive effects of science on medical care are remarkable.
However, the negative effects on humanity's survival are undeniable, as evidenced by various indicators, such as the current position of the Doomsday Clock.
A devoted scientist like Martin Rees is clearly not an adversary of the entire scientific endeavor. (How could he be?) Nor does he reject the basic premise of the rationality of scientific pursuits. Indeed, some call him an eminent defender of science in the face of its chilling impacts.
Still, he gives a stark picture of how global catastrophic threats induced by applied scientific advancements grew, grow, and will grow.
Moreover, he observes an awkward polarization:
“Almost any applicable discovery has a potential for evil as well as for good.”
If you conclude that the evil potential of scientific advancements keeps growing, you may not be surprised by Martin Rees' professed pessimism. Indeed, the title of his book seems to speak for itself:
Our Final Century.
One of his best-known warnings – intricately phrased and occasionally misquoted – amounts to a chilling forecast:
"I think the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that our present civilisation on Earth will survive to the end of the present century."
Other well-known forecasts are no less appalling.
While Frank Fenner suggested a 100% chance of human self-extinction, Ray Kurzweil “optimistically” implied that the ghastly chance is lower than 50%.
Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg circulated a famous group forecast of a 19% chance of total human extinction in this century due to various technology-related factors.
It follows that the chance of a catastrophe of "merely" a few billion human fatalities is far higher than 19%.
If you need another tip, the chance of an old-style Russian-roulette player to smash his own head is around 16%.
Moreover, large-scale catastrophic events are typified by a peculiar catch:
Even a small chance indicates a big threat.
That is based on formal criterions (briefly reviewed in the References section ahead.)
Indeed, given such criterions, one may reasonably argue that taking even a 1% chance of human self-extinction – or even any non-zero chance – is outrageous.
To conclude, it is difficult to see how the human species will survive in view of the following summary:
