Reply #65: You're cynical about problems being solved by technology, yet hopeful...

[Silent3]

...about "a world-wide movement of environmental, social rights, aboriginal rights and spiritual groups growing by 60% a year"?

You point to the mixed blessings of technology, always having a bad side along with the good side, but what about human beings themselves, with or without technology? People can be pretty terrible to each other, an irresponsible about the impact of their action regardless. Technology only makes a difference because it often has a multiplying effect on evil and stupidity.

We're not going to be saved by a popular uprising of Wise People leading us into a future of where somehow we're all made to wait for the development of every technology until some Spiritual Council of Elders (or whatever else it is that you think will spring forth from this movement you imagine) decides we're sufficiently mature enough to handle it. I'm sorry, but the entire notion strikes me as incredibly simplistic and naive.

I'm not saying I think we're without hope. In fact, for all of the "Oh, how terrible humanity is!" crap we have to put up with hearing, as if humans are unique in the whole world full of living thing when it comes to trashing the planet, in many ways we could be the planet's best hope. We may fail to use our intelligence wisely, but at least we have that intelligence and that gives us a chance of seeing the problems we're causing and fixing them, as well as fixing problems that aren't our fault as well.

The first photosynthetic organisms were an ecological nightmare as far as the rest of the life on the planet was concerned. The oxygen they produced was a deadly poison for most of the life on the planet. Did those primitive plants slow down, take stock of the effect of their actions on the rest of the planet, and choose a wise path of careful, limited growth? Did they cease photosynthesis until the figured out how to deal with the oxygen "problem"?

Nope. And not long the photosynthetic organisms devastated so much of the rest of life on the planet the did a damn good job of killing a lot of themselves off too. They sucked up so much carbon dioxide that the reverse of the greenhouse effect occurred. The entire planet froze over from pole to pole, with even the oceans freezing solid.

We're not the first species to make a mess of the planet. We are, however, the first species that has a chance of figuring out the mess we're making and doing something about. We're also the first species that might be able to see a large asteroid or comet on a devastating impact trajectory and doing something about it. And we have a better chance of that now than if we'd shunned or slowed down rockets and computers and fusion and all the rest of technology until some group of humans of supposedly advanced wisdom held us back until they decided we were "ready".