"bill_joy_-_why_does_the_future_not_need_us" - читать интересную книгу автора (Joy Bill)

owe its origin to a calculus of utility; it must have originated in spite of the fact
that the disutility and dangerousness of the 'will to truth,' of 'truth at any price' is
proved to it constantly." It is this further danger that we now fully face - the
consequences of our truth-seeking. The truth that science seeks can certainly be
considered a dangerous substitute for God if it is likely to lead to our extinction.

If we could agree, as a species, what we wanted, where we were headed, and
why, then we would make our future much less dangerous - then we might
understand what we can and should relinquish. Otherwise, we can easily imagine
an arms race developing over GNR technologies, as it did with the NBC
technologies in the 20th century. This is perhaps the greatest risk, for once such a
race begins, it's very hard to end it. This time - unlike during the Manhattan
Project - we aren't in a war, facing an implacable enemy that is threatening our
civilization; we are driven, instead, by our habits, our desires, our economic
system, and our competitive need to know.

I believe that we all wish our course could be determined by our collective values,
ethics, and morals. If we had gained more collective wisdom over the past few
thousand years, then a dialogue to this end would be more practical, and the
incredible powers we are about to unleash would not be nearly so troubling.

One would think we might be driven to such a dialogue by our instinct for
self-preservation. Individuals clearly have this desire, yet as a species our
behavior seems to be not in our favor. In dealing with the nuclear threat, we
often spoke dishonestly to ourselves and to each other, thereby greatly increasing
the risks. Whether this was politically motivated, or because we chose not to
think ahead, or because when faced with such grave threats we acted irrationally
out of fear, I do not know, but it does not bode well.

The new Pandora's boxes of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are almost
open, yet we seem hardly to have noticed. Ideas can't be put back in a box;
unlike uranium or plutonium, they don't need to be mined and refined, and they
can be freely copied. Once they are out, they are out. Churchill remarked, in a
famous left-handed compliment, that the American people and their leaders
"invariably do the right thing, after they have examined every other alternative."
In this case, however, we must act more presciently, as to do the right thing only
at last may be to lose the chance to do it at all.


As Thoreau said, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us"; and this is
what we must fight, in our time. The question is, indeed, Which is to be master?
Will we survive our technologies?

We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes.
Have we already gone too far down the path to alter course? I don't believe so,
but we aren't trying yet, and the last chance to assert control - the fail-safe point
- is rapidly approaching. We have our first pet robots, as well as commercially
available genetic engineering techniques, and our nanoscale techniques are
advancing rapidly. While the development of these technologies proceeds through
a number of steps, it isn't necessarily the case - as happened in the Manhattan