Every attempt to compel humanity towards some higher degree of morality, or to accelerate this process, either through force or through law or by throwing money at the problem, fails. Our morality is increasing, but slowly. It is a developmental process. Steven Pinker's observation that violence has actually declined over the course of human history, despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, attests to this fact. U…
The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
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Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#32It is not a matter of morality. Suppose you have 100 billion robots, each programmed not to press a world-ending button. Some of them will press the button. It's a matter of statistics and the moral framework of the other robots doesn't even enter into the equation. That's exactly the situation we're in. Moral progress has always trailed behind our capabilities, and if I may say something heretical here, maybe it's a…
Although I am not advocating a technological slowdown (nor do I think one is even possible) -- I think a wiser people would inhibit technology "until we're ready." If the result of technological growth vastly outpacing our ability to responsibly handle its power is extinction, then it is easier to make an argument for the morality in technological caution.
Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#33Before the 1960's, there was no iron bars on windows, dead bolt locks, car, home and business alarms, and no security cameras in the home, business or city wide.
Those are the facts, especially for the atheists and agnostics.
Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#34That's a very simple question to answer, but you can only do so in hindsight. Did we exterminate ourselves with nuclear weapons? If we did, then we weren't morally developed enough to be entrusted with them; if we didn't, then we were.
And even in that, there's another bogus assumption, which is hidden behind the word "entrusted". No one entrusted the human species with nuclear weapons; there was no event in which God, or angels, or sufficiently advanced aliens, descended from on high, amidst clouds of incense or rocket exhaust, and bequeathed unto us the knowledge of what happens when you squeeze a ball of uranium very tightly. It may seem absurd to point this out, but only until you consider that "entrusted", in implying a higher power which did the entrusting, implies also a higher power which could reverse that decision; there being no such power, it is impossible to reason accurately about the morality of any technological development when such reasoning involves the implicit assumption that there is such a power.
[1] Those familiar with my comments on HN may be astonished to see me calling anything "windy", much less ridiculously so. In my defense I can only say that I reserve the use of that adjective and its adverb for cases of extreme provocation, the nature of which should be obvious to anyone attempting to wade through the text I've so described.
Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#35Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#36Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#37Marketing technological advances while aiming to help the poorest is I think the best way to show everybody how technologies can really help us, and not enslave us. Technologies must be designed with political goals too. You could naively say the iPhone is creating more political problems than it solves, and you'd be right. What Bill Gates does is creating incentives for research in the way the NASA did. And I think it's awesome.
I guess that's what makes Bill Gates smarter in the end. You'll moan about antitrust laws and go watch JOBS, but today the people who make difference are businessmen who knows their basics of science.
If you're unhappy about politics, don't tell Bill Gates, that's not what he does. His giant financial resources won't help solving political problems.
Maybe he could pour money into making some media communications projects about science and studies just like Al Gore did, but again, I doubt Bill Gates really has the proper connections to do this.
Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#38I think it is not so much a question about morality, but about our societal structures. In the past few centuries, human history has been driven by technological advances. But the major defining development of the 21 century will not be technological, but social. Society will either radically change for the better, or for the worse.
Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#39It is not a matter of morality. Suppose you have 100 billion robots, each programmed not to press a world-ending button. Some of them will press the button. It's a matter of statistics and the moral framework of the other robots doesn't even enter into the equation. That's exactly the situation we're in. Moral progress has always trailed behind our capabilities, and if I may say something heretical here, maybe it's a…
Am I missing something? If they are (a) robots, (b) each "programmed not to press a world-ending button", then none will.
Re: The Morality Apocalypse: An Open Letter to Bill and Melinda Gates
#40It is not a matter of morality. Suppose you have 100 billion robots, each programmed not to press a world-ending button. Some of them will press the button. It's a matter of statistics and the moral framework of the other robots doesn't even enter into the equation. That's exactly the situation we're in. Moral progress has always trailed behind our capabilities, and if I may say something heretical here, maybe it's a…