A new pandemic is sweeping the planet. Police fired on secessionist demonstrators in Oregon. The Chinese government is trying (unsuccessfully) to suppress news of eco-terrorists bombing multiple coal-fired power plants. We’re looking at climate refugees numbering in the tens of millions. The human race will go extinct by 2042.
I’m just recovering from the great time we had in Oxford last week talking about the different ways that human civilization might get wiped out, and what to do to prevent that.
Our global civilization is very fragile, and could crumble under the impact of catastrophic events. Wise use of emerging technologies could make our bodies, our communities and our civilization more resilient, or more vulnerable to collapse.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), originally promulgated in 1968 and entering into force in 1970, has three key provisions: that nuclear weapon-free signatory states refrain from developing nuclear weapons; that signatory states with nuclear weapons work to disarm; and that signatory states remain free to develop nuclear energy technologies.
Deeply researched and carefully worded, Military Nanotechnology is an overview of an emerging technology that could trigger a new arms race and gravely threaten international security and stability.
Christopher Csikszentmihalyi’s concerns about military robotics in Engineering Politics are valid. They are why I got involved with the IEET in the first place. But his effort to communicate to the general public comes up a bit short.
On July 30th I gave an hour-long presentation on “Nanotechnology and the Future of Warfare” at the World Future Society’s annual conference. You can view the presentation here.
Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker asserts that: “Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species’ time on earth.”
Few would dispute that the American military is, far and away, the most powerful conventional armed force on the planet, even as depleted as it is by the Iraq war. At the same time, few would dispute that this military force is, and by all signs will continue to be, insufficient to quell the insurgency in Iraq.
Grrr. I’m a strong supporter of strengthening (and democratizing) the United Nations, including the construction of a UN army. But it doesn’t look like most of you agree.
The U. S. government has long understood that its military, hyperpowerful as it is, is woefully inadequate for present and future conflicts. Hence, in recent years, the U. S. Department of Defense has sought a radical transformation of its armed forces, with the overall aim of having an agile and technology-driven army that is better prepared for multiple, simultaneous wars than is the cumbersome leviathan of today.
Yesterday I attended and took part in a “Future Weapons of Mass Destruction” symposium in Arlington, VA, sponsored by the Stanley Foundation and the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. One of the most interesting outcomes was a general agreement that the WMD acronym probably should be broadened to included Weapons of Mass Disruption as well as Destruction.
Soon after the end of the Cold War, U.S. President George H. W. Bush declared that a new era had opened up in which he hoped that his country would become a “kinder and gentler nation.” Fifteen years later his proclamation appears naïve and gushing with idealism, but his optimism was understandable given the times; the Soviet Union had just collapsed with the Eastern Bloc going down with it, and all without a single shot fired from an American gun. The world, it seemed, had been rebooted and started anew.
Strangely, the end of the Cold War, for whatever reason, ended the global impetus behind the development and enforcement of non-proliferation treaties for nuclear weapons. The current North Korean situation, and soon to be Iranian situation, is an example of inexorable technological globalization. It is also symptomatic of the current nation-state era, in which geographical regions claim political, economic and militaristic sovereignty; each country claims that it has the right to develop nuclear weapons and to protect itself.
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The Dark Side of Technology
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