Will Science and Technology Destroy Human Civilisation?

[iceaura]

Especially the Abrahamic religions, which perhaps more than any of the others reinforce their members' atavistic tribal instinct by teaching them that they're slightly better than everyone else and it's their sacred duty to make them all just like them--whether they want to be or not. It truly does have much in common with drugs. It's "the opiate of the people," as Marx said, but he was a moron whose unworkable fairytale economic system was nothing more than an offshoot of Christianity. His motto, "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability," was based on a passage in the Book of Acts. Can you imagine a self-respecting Confucian or Hindu teaching that civilization can survive if what a man takes from it does not need to correlate with what he gives back?

Religions are solutions to the generalized Tragedy of the Commons, an inevitable and potentially lethal threat to almost any geographically located community of people larger than an extended family tribe. And Marx was dealing with that same issue in the new context of capitalist industry - hence similarities in his approach, and willingness to borrow from the solutions of the past.

By the "opiate of the people", read: something that eases suffering - a good thing, in its role. Something people want and need and should not be denied, when they are in pain. With "from each/ to each" find a criterion for evaluation of results, not a mandate for particular means.

And yes, I can easily imagine a Buddhist or Taoist or other recognizer of egalitarian principle (at least) agreeing with it, as far as it goes. Would any sensible person praise a setup built to waste ability on the one hand, and shortchange need on the other?

The inability of modern science or technology to handle that larger question of context, to formulate or establish a solution - an appropriate system of regulating means and ends - to Hardin's problem, is not a flaw of modern science or technology, not an intrinsic evil, any more than it was for a similar inability of older advances such as agriculture.

What's failing here is religion.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

What's failing here is religion.

Many cultural motifs do not transfer well across Paradigm Shifts. The short-term focus and simply organized life of small nomadic hunter-gather extended-family units did not serve well in the larger, stationary communities that arose after the Agricultural Revolution, with their huge assortment of possessions and their organized division of labor.

The rudimentary chain of authority and honor-system trading of the Neolithic villages, likewise, were useless in the cities that were then built, in which people had to live in harmony and cooperation with strangers. The Bronze Age, the Iron Age, each subsequent Paradigm Shift brought a wholesale realignment of human culture.

The Industrial Revolution made slavery economically impractical and disconnected an ever-larger segment of the population from working the land, just two of its many developments with which we are still struggling. The Information Age has barely begun, but many people are already befuddled, uncomfortable or downright hostile to the unprecedented speed of this latest Paradigm Shift.

And here stands Abrahamic religion, a Bronze Age system, remarkably unaltered through the passage of three subsequent Paradigm Shifts. It's amazing that it still resonates with people. What's not amazing is that it simply does not work in this era. Duh?

 

[Dredd]

Will Science and Technology Destroy Human Civilization?

If we can say that pollution is a child of science & technology, then we can say that the science & technology family is at fault.

However, there seems to be a good kid science & technology as well as an evil twin of that good science & technology.

 

[scifes]

this thread is too awesome i don't know where to start. so i'll just watch.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Fraggle Rocker,

...aren't you going to respond to my post?

jan.

 

[wynn]

Fraggle Rocker,

...aren't you going to respond to my post?

He is above that. :bawl:

 

[Gravage]

The primary force for violence and evil on this planet is religion. Religion--at least the monotheistic Abrahamic varieties which dominate the world--is anathema to civilization, because it reinforces our tribal instinct and discourages us from regarding each other as brothers. And religion is anathema to science, because it is based on an irrational belief in the supernatural.

If we observe science as threatening to destroy civilization, it is because religion wants to destroy civilization and revert us back to the Stone Age when it had more control over us, and because religion sees science as a way to achieve that goal.

Neither civilization nor science will be safe until we outgrow religion, one of our more most primitive and evil instincts.

I totally disagree that religion is the greatest evil, because if there was no religion it would be something else as the source of the evil, you have oil gas-energy, gmo-food control, it's always something. There is something inside humans I don't know genetically or psychologically or something else.
I know that I will be crucified, but I think science and high-tech would destroy civilization (but not the human race entirely), not really the politics. The main problem is scientists don't know when to stop and it's possible something might get wrong, really wrong, because humans entirely think of themselves as super-species thinking they know everything and know the result of everything, but you never know when this could return as the boomerang in their heads.
But what really makes humans evil is a mystery. It's not a religion, because if there was no religion it would be something else.
These are just my opinions, and I'm not excluding that they are totally wrong, but this is what I think right now.
I know that I should read Jared Diamond books like Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
Cheers.

 

[spidergoat]

I disagree that Nazis were the greatest evil because if it wasn't the Nazis, it would just be something else, the KKK or Al Quida...

 

[arauca]

The primary force for violence and evil on this planet is religion. Religion--at least the monotheistic Abrahamic varieties which dominate the world--is anathema to civilization, because it reinforces our tribal instinct and discourages us from regarding each other as brothers. And religion is anathema to science, because it is based on an irrational belief in the supernatural.

If we observe science as threatening to destroy civilization, it is because religion wants to destroy civilization and revert us back to the Stone Age when it had more control over us, and because religion sees science as a way to achieve that goal.

Neither civilization nor science will be safe until we outgrow religion, one of our more most primitive and evil instincts.

You really talk nonsense. Abrahamic religion is over 3000 years old and Cristian over 2000 years . this are facts we have evolved to be better human we can see it in the last 100 years . we have fed the hungry and provided clinics in the jungle . What have your kind have done. Tell me the great things your kind have done ...Pol pot , Mao Stalin and Hitler have done

 

[spidergoat]

Hitler was a Catholic. But luckily the Catholic Church did excommunicate Joseph Goebbels... for marrying a protestant.

 

[arauca]

Homo sapiens[/i] would finally grow up, but a mere two generations later the Christians, Jews and Muslims are ready to annihilate each other all over again.

You are wrong . Technology produced Gas chambers, on how efficiently to kill humans . Based on human selection people were murdered . The Spartan were not Abrahanic . The selection of races and murder Jews , was an intellectual idea not religious . Technology needs war so their weapons can be evaluated.

 

[spidergoat]

The Jews were targeted for religious reasons. The hatred of Jews in Christian Europe had a long history, way before the Nazis.

 

[arauca]

Hitler was a Catholic. But luckily the Catholic Church did excommunicate Joseph Goebbels... for marrying a protestant.

The elite educated in Germany collaborated to make and bring the deathly equipment to mass murder . An uneducated was a peon or a guard soldier , the intellectual designed and build the equipment foe mass murder , and probably if you would be there at that time you would not be any different , unless you had the gutz to live the country. And so was in the Soviet Union and with camarade Mao and Pol Pot and at the present we have the camarade moun face in North Korea

 

[arauca]

The Jews were targeted for religious reasons. The hatred of Jews in Christian Europe had a long history, way before the Nazis.

Did you know Napoleon protected the Jews , Beside Jews were part of the Proletarian uprising and were part to bring the Bolsheviks into power , and at the same time the labor movement in Germany had Jewish leaders , So to bring Germany out of the economical shamble , it was necessary to bring political stability by suppressing labor uprising. and so they quieted the labor leaders which was influenced by Jews international part of the Soviets.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Did you know Napoleon protected the Jews , Beside Jews were part of the Proletarian uprising and were part to bring the Bolsheviks into power , and at the same time the labor movement in Germany had Jewish leaders , So to bring Germany out of the economical shamble , it was necessary to bring political stability by suppressing labor uprising. and so they quieted the labor leaders which was influenced by Jews international part of the Soviets.

 

[arauca]

Sorry I don't see the relation by posting the picture to me, I was there at that time , I have seen the real thing,
I am saying the elite * educated German have used technology to destroy human, I am sure Mr. Nobel was not an uneducated peasant, Openmeire , Fermi and Von Braun were not uneducated , elite of the society. Yet in this forum we are pretending that education brings peace and religion brings destruction to humanity

 

[Aqueous Id]

Sorry I don't see the relation by posting the picture to me, I was there at that time , I have seen the real thing,
I am saying the elite * educated German have used technology to destroy human, I am sure Mr. Nobel was not an uneducated peasant, Openmeire , Fermi and Von Braun were not uneducated , elite of the society. Yet in this forum we are pretending that education brings peace and religion brings destruction to humanity

Evidently I completely misunderstood your post. If you were there, you have my undivided attention. Obviously you were young.

Now perhaps I understand a little more about your position. Let me return to this comment:

Yet in this forum we are pretending that education brings peace and religion brings destruction to humanity

If the Jews had been Christians, do you think the Germans would have hated them? This is a common idea for modern people to question.

It is also my thinking that in postwar times we notice that the educated people (the professionals and academics in Cuba, or 1970s Iran - and thereafter, and those in the Arab Spring rebellions) have the greatest chance of supporting human rights, liberty, and social justice.

I think this is the voice of the generation that came after you. And another generation later, the issue may not even be relevant.

Thanks for correcting me. I apologize for misreading your remarks. I fully support the reasons you have given for your position.

 

[arauca]

Evidently I completely misunderstood your post. If you were there, you have my undivided attention. Obviously you were young.

Now perhaps I understand a little more about your position. Let me return to this comment:



If the Jews had been Christians, do you think the Germans would have hated them? This is a common idea for modern people to question.

It is also my thinking that in postwar times we notice that the educated people (the professionals and academics in Cuba, or 1970s Iran - and thereafter, and those in the Arab Spring rebellions) have the greatest chance of supporting human rights, liberty, and social justice.

I think this is the voice of the generation that came after you. And another generation later, the issue may not even be relevant.

Thanks for correcting me. I apologize for misreading your remarks. I fully support the reasons you have given for your position.

I was of understanding age and my father been christian enlighten the family of was the evil, ( thank to him )

Yes there were hopes after 1960 were there was a struggle for improvement of civil right in the late 1960 , we have not learned about the tragedy of agent orange and defoliating land in Viet Nam . Technology was part of the tragedy the attitude us not much different if not worse, as comparing gas chambers ,( one situation is confined volume and the other open for human and animals )
Now we make more accurate weapons , but what about the collateral damage . Who are the designers ? I am sure, grade school graduated are not the one .
Yes based on my observation Science helps mass destruction of human by human . Science is rational were emotion does not have a stronghold .
Spirituality is associated with emotion and emotion is expressed in feeling for the fellow being, while science is emotionless.

 

[spidergoat]

Did you know Napoleon protected the Jews , Beside Jews were part of the Proletarian uprising and were part to bring the Bolsheviks into power , and at the same time the labor movement in Germany had Jewish leaders , So to bring Germany out of the economical shamble , it was necessary to bring political stability by suppressing labor uprising. and so they quieted the labor leaders which was influenced by Jews international part of the Soviets.

So naturally all Jews, men, women, and children had to be exterminated. Give it a rest, aracua, you are just making yourself look increasingly stupid.

 

[keith1]

A commonality emerges over time:
Most administrators of schools, of governments,
of religions, and science research centers, are jaded imbeciles
who have "luxury blindness", and cannot lead.

Technology and human society go hand-in-hand, or they tumble clumsily over each other, like loose globs of chaotic densities.