Modification of individual minds will inevitably be part of the “answer”, for societies which have that power and which are genuinely threatened with annihilation. A simple unrealistic scenario: Imagine a city in space on the brink of a nanotechnological assembler revolution. Imagine a “Borg Party” who say the answer is for everyone to have regular brain scans to check for berserker tendencies, with forced neural pacification for people who show up as dangerous. Then imagine increasingly heated conflict between Borgists and antiBorgists, ending in armed struggle, victory of Borgists, and invasion of antiBorgist enclaves, followed by the forced enrolment of remaining antiBorgists in the brain-scan regime.
When people are genuinely threatened, they will do the previously unthinkable, if the unthinkable appears to be necessary. And it is surely inevitable that access to technologies which pose an extinction risk will only be permitted to entities which demonstrably won’t use that power to destroy everyone. How could it be any other way?
And it is surely inevitable that access to technologies which pose an extinction
risk will only be permitted to entities which demonstrably won’t use that power
to destroy everyone.
How could it be prevented? Are all science books to be hidden away from all people, all machine tools, all user-modifiable equipment, all transportation equipment, etc, etc? Or am I looking at your suggestion in the wrong way?
What I wrote was about a single polity dealing with the “threat from within” by compelling all its citizens with access to dangerous technology to undergo regular mental health checks, with compulsory mind modification if they appear to be a threat. This could be elaborated into a class system in which the lower class are exempt from the brain scans, but only have access to preindustrial technology. It could even become a principle of interstate relations and a motive for war—a way of dealing with the threat from outside a particular society: only trust those societies who have a society-wide ethical-brain-scan protocol in place, and introduce this system, by force, propaganda or subversion, into those societies which don’t have it.
So the main idea is not to hide the dangerous technology, but rather to change human nature so you don’t need to hide it. Of course, in the real world of the present we are rather far from having the ability to scan brains and detect sociopathy or dangerous private value systems, let alone the ability to alter personality or motivation in a clean, selective way (that doesn’t impair or affect other aspects of the person).
Modification of individual minds will inevitably be part of the “answer”, for societies which have that power and which are genuinely threatened with annihilation. A simple unrealistic scenario: Imagine a city in space on the brink of a nanotechnological assembler revolution. Imagine a “Borg Party” who say the answer is for everyone to have regular brain scans to check for berserker tendencies, with forced neural pacification for people who show up as dangerous. Then imagine increasingly heated conflict between Borgists and antiBorgists, ending in armed struggle, victory of Borgists, and invasion of antiBorgist enclaves, followed by the forced enrolment of remaining antiBorgists in the brain-scan regime.
When people are genuinely threatened, they will do the previously unthinkable, if the unthinkable appears to be necessary. And it is surely inevitable that access to technologies which pose an extinction risk will only be permitted to entities which demonstrably won’t use that power to destroy everyone. How could it be any other way?
How could it be prevented? Are all science books to be hidden away from all people, all machine tools, all user-modifiable equipment, all transportation equipment, etc, etc? Or am I looking at your suggestion in the wrong way?
What I wrote was about a single polity dealing with the “threat from within” by compelling all its citizens with access to dangerous technology to undergo regular mental health checks, with compulsory mind modification if they appear to be a threat. This could be elaborated into a class system in which the lower class are exempt from the brain scans, but only have access to preindustrial technology. It could even become a principle of interstate relations and a motive for war—a way of dealing with the threat from outside a particular society: only trust those societies who have a society-wide ethical-brain-scan protocol in place, and introduce this system, by force, propaganda or subversion, into those societies which don’t have it.
So the main idea is not to hide the dangerous technology, but rather to change human nature so you don’t need to hide it. Of course, in the real world of the present we are rather far from having the ability to scan brains and detect sociopathy or dangerous private value systems, let alone the ability to alter personality or motivation in a clean, selective way (that doesn’t impair or affect other aspects of the person).