On 7/17/98, Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko wrote:
>... Don't know if facing a huge, disoriented,
>horrified, and demanding crowd then would me more enjoyable
>than watching today's clueless proto-conscious technosocium
>cheerfully trot towards this discontinuity...
>So far humans have been much better in bringing the imperatives
>of functional development into existence, than in understanding
>what they are doing - so maybe a certain degree of public
>cluelessness is even beneficial for technological progress
>at this point?
Regarding any one development, one might wish people were more or less clueless. But people's fear that people who bring them news of changes are being selective based on such considerations can be poisonous. I'd rather try to earn people's trust by developing a reputation for just being as honest and forthright as I can be about what changes I forsee.
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-2627