Re: Exponential difference in power

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Mar 21 2003 - 07:36:25 MST

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    On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 01:30:35PM +0100, Max M wrote:
    > Anders Sandberg wrote:
    >
    > >>Should we work even harder, and take more chances, to make shure
    > >>that it is a rich and peacefull world before the technology get's to
    > >>advanced?
    > >
    > >What kind of chances do you think of?
    >
    > I considder preemptive strikes for democracy and freedom as taking a
    > chance.

    Note that such preemptive strikes are not just in the range for
    nations any more. Many of the tech-enabled ideas we toss around for
    bettering the world (with or without the acceptance of leaders)
    could be implemented by private groups. If we leave out direct
    coercion there is still plenty of interesting things to do, from
    internet and education access in the third world to safe
    information repositories to hacking the great firewall of China to
    World Sousveillance Day.

    One thing that the current was has almost managed to blot out is
    that things are not about nations any more. Note how a complex and
    diffuse nation - network war has been replaced with an
    old-fashioned, understandable nation - nation war. Even the
    protestors have been extremely nationalist. It is almost as if
    everybody was trying to avoid the uncomfortable realization that it
    isn't nations that truly matter, but other networks - economies,
    ethnicities, companies, terrorist groups etc. We do not have any
    good ideas of how to handle that kind of complexity, which means
    that most people try to look only at the nations.

    -- 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
    asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
    GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
    


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