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What sort of society will be able to meet the challenges of the future?

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unrealist42
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Posted 07/06/09 - 01:57 PM:	#11
thewatcher wrote: Even if that freedom entails the ability of any misanthropic loner to destroy the earth and/or wipe out the human species? I am not claiming that the centralization of technology will necessarily be pleasant... What concerns me is that it might be the only option if the species is to survive. If I am mistaken in this regard, I would be happy to hear why. Centralization itself is extremely dangerous to future society. Consider....a small elite manipulating society to its own ends...this in and of itself will breed huge dissent. If dissenters are repressed or ignored then they will resort to a series of ever escalating actions to make themselves heard. Massive destruction and casualties will engender harsher repression measures which will generate more dissenters as more and more people's lives are disrupted by repressive activities. Eventually the people will remove their support entirely and the entire enforced from above structure will collapse. You only have to look at the recent devolution of the Soviet States or the oligarchies of South America to see that in action. If society and its people are to survive in the future then it is necessary that control be devolved to the lowest level possible and society be governed from the bottom up. Inclusion rather than exclusion is the key to the future. If everyone has a place where their voice will be heard then they will not feel compelled to resort to more drastic measures. In any case, one lone misanthrope can still destroy everything regardless of any controls over technology. But it is not him/her we need to worry about. It is the ability of society to give them the motivation to do it that we need to discuss. If you alienate people you will create aliens with no compelling reason to let anyone live when they themselves must die. If you consider that over 50% of the people in the US over the age of 50 live by themselves then alienation is already something we should be very very concerned about...

thewatcher
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Posted 07/07/09 - 03:02 PM:	#12
unrealist42 wrote: Centralization itself is extremely dangerous to future society. Consider....a small elite manipulating society to its own ends...this in and of itself will breed huge dissent. If dissenters are repressed or ignored then they will resort to a series of ever escalating actions to make themselves heard. Massive destruction and casualties will engender harsher repression measures which will generate more dissenters as more and more people's lives are disrupted by repressive activities. Eventually the people will remove their support entirely and the entire enforced from above structure will collapse. I would think that having a monopoly on technology, especially at the level we are talking about, would allow for social control of a sufficiently thorough sort as to prevent this sort of uprising. I mean, in principle, it would be possible to have a total or near-total surveilance society, in which just about everyone is being watched just about all the time. How many cameras already exist in Western cities? How many more are being installed? How many satelites orbit overhead, looking and listening? How many more advanced drones are being created to facilitate this effort? How can one dissent let alone violently when one is constantly being watched and listened to? unrealist42 wrote: You only have to look at the recent devolution of the Soviet States or the oligarchies of South America to see that in action. You would do better to look at their successes than their failures. The Stasi in the former DDR managed to turn their country into a paranoid, spy-infested hell in which it is estimated that is many as one in 4 citizens was an informer of some kind. Now, picture that level of organization combined with dramatically more advanced technologies and a dramatically better understanding of social organization. I think that, in this, you would have a recipe for the perfect totalitarian state. unrealist42 wrote: If society and its people are to survive in the future then it is necessary that control be devolved to the lowest level possible and society be governed from the bottom up. Inclusion rather than exclusion is the key to the future. If everyone has a place where their voice will be heard then they will not feel compelled to resort to more drastic measures. There are plenty of well organized, wealthy, comfortable and democratic societies around today. And yet there is still terrorism, both domestic and international. What sort of inclusion would solve for this sort of threat? How do you keep the loan misanthrop from wrecking havoc? In any case, one lone misanthrope can still destroy everything regardless of any controls over technology.[/quote] How do you figure? While the "lone gunman" or "mad bomber" can inflict enough harm to make the evening news, sometimes racking up body counts into the hundreds, such a person is only capable of so much. World-killing or species killing technology would seem do be much more of a threat in the hands of such a person.

Willowz
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Posted 07/08/09 - 08:05 AM:	#13
How about creating a "new" society? Like the one in Walden Two by B.F Skinner? "During the 1960s and 70s, this novel went on to inspire approximately three dozen actual communities."...Some of them exist to this day: "Comunidad Los Horcones in Mexico, and Twin Oaks in Virginia."
This song will prepare you for a good smile.

thewatcher
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Posted 07/08/09 - 10:44 AM:	#14
Willowz wrote: How about creating a "new" society? Like the one in Walden Two by B.F Skinner? "During the 1960s and 70s, this novel went on to inspire approximately three dozen actual communities."...Some of them exist to this day: "Comunidad Los Horcones in Mexico, and Twin Oaks in Virginia." What sort of new society did you have in mind? Walden Two is definitely a good example of how different communities can be inspired by works of literature/philosophy.

unrealist42
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Posted 07/09/09 - 12:30 PM:	#15
thewatcher wrote: I would think that having a monopoly on technology, especially at the level we are talking about, would allow for social control of a sufficiently thorough sort as to prevent this sort of uprising. I mean, in principle, it would be possible to have a total or near-total surveilance society, in which just about everyone is being watched just about all the time. How many cameras already exist in Western cities? How many more are being installed? How many satelites orbit overhead, looking and listening? How many more advanced drones are being created to facilitate this effort? How can one dissent let alone violently when one is constantly being watched and listened to? You would do better to look at their successes than their failures. The Stasi in the former DDR managed to turn their country into a paranoid, spy-infested hell in which it is estimated that is many as one in 4 citizens was an informer of some kind. Now, picture that level of organization combined with dramatically more advanced technologies and a dramatically better understanding of social organization. I think that, in this, you would have a recipe for the perfect totalitarian state. This has been attempted before as you say, albeit with a lower level of technology. It would be easy to subvert the whole scheme from the inside. The more power becomes hidden the easier it is to subvert and no amount of technology is going to change human nature. In any case, who would the watchers be and who would be watching the watchers and to what end would these people be working and how could anyone be sure of anything. There are plenty of well organized, wealthy, comfortable and democratic societies around today. And yet there is still terrorism, both domestic and international. What sort of inclusion would solve for this sort of threat? How do you keep the loan misanthrop from wrecking havoc? In any case, one lone misanthrope can still destroy everything regardless of any controls over technology. How do you figure? While the "lone gunman" or "mad bomber" can inflict enough harm to make the evening news, sometimes racking up body counts into the hundreds, such a person is only capable of so much. World-killing or species killing technology would seem do be much more of a threat in the hands of such a person. [/quote] There have been 'terrorists" for millenia. They are by no means a new phenomenon. Even our modern wealthy, comfortable and democratic societies still manage to exclude many from wealth comfort or democratic participation and until this changes terrorists will not go away. Besides, many of the so-called terrorist of today are nothing but gangsters and should be treated as such. Anyone with a few thousand dollars worth of equipment and a little research on the internet can do home brew genetic engineering and there are places in this world where there are many virulent strains of virus and bacteria. For example, Anthrax is endemic in the southwestern US and Mexico. It is found everywhere there in the soil. And who is to say that this misanthope cannot be a wealthy madman.

thewatcher
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Posted 07/09/09 - 01:20 PM:	#16
unrealist42 wrote: This has been attempted before as you say, albeit with a lower level of technology. It would be easy to subvert the whole scheme from the inside. The more power becomes hidden the easier it is to subvert and no amount of technology is going to change human nature. In any case, who would the watchers be and who would be watching the watchers and to what end would these people be working and how could anyone be sure of anything. Technology allows for an unprecedented degree of information consolidation. Just look at search engines. There are already a wide and growing number of publicly accessible and highly efficient means of consolidating and organizing huge quantities of information for review by increasingly smaller groups. In principle I should think it would be quite possible for a small elite to maintain an effective level of watchfulness over even a very large population. And it is odd that you say that we cannot change human nature. Assuming humans have a nature (which is something of an open question), who is to say it cannot be changed? I am given to understand that various degrees of subliminal advertising are already commonplace in the West. Likewise, mind altering substances and technologies continue to advance as our understanding of brain physiology and psychology increases. It is easy to envisions scenarios in which such things are used to alter humans to fit this or that social model (to say nothing of more invasive approaches like genetic engineering and mind-machine interfaces). unrealist42 wrote: Anyone with a few thousand dollars worth of equipment and a little research on the internet can do home brew genetic engineering and there are places in this world where there are many virulent strains of virus and bacteria. For example, Anthrax is endemic in the southwestern US and Mexico. It is found everywhere there in the soil. And who is to say that this misanthope cannot be a wealthy madman. I agree that this problem has already begun to become an issue, as is evident from the proliferation of state WMD programs and the first halting steps made by terrorists to produce and use biological weapons (I have already mentioned the Japanese case). Nonetheless, the fact remains that this problem is likely to get worse. Anthrax is far from a species killing disease (it is treatable, hard to weaponize and hard to spread). More lethal diseases are hard to get a hold of and difficult to handle once you do get them. The bigger danger, by my lights, would be the proliferation of the capacity to reengineer a benign strain of virus or bacteria into something capable of producing death on a global scale. This, in turn, would require the proliferation of far more advanced genetic engineering technology than is currently easily accessible or, indeed, extant.

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