Chris: “Walton learns that the price of knowledge can be far greater than we anticipate. It is a warning that humanity has not yet learned.”
COMMENT
Indeed. As the power of the technologies that follow from increasingly deeper and accurate models of physical reality expands, when will we heed the ever-shriller klaxon? Not until we’re well into the disaster. Even then?
I wish I had even the vaguest notion of how, given the present
organization and dynamic of our current worldwide civilization,
we might avoid the disasters that are probably coming.
Thanks for your comment, Frank - always appreciated! The absence of any sense of prudence here is staggering, yet it is also not entirely surprising. The way that the university has been reorganised in the last century has created severe vulnerabilities in our social framework for knowledge, what I would call our 'epistemic commons'. It is currently no longer operating as a commons at all, which represents an enormous problem, and there is a demand for ideological conformity the likes of which we've not seen in European language cultures since perhaps the middle ages.
If we could reduce our certainty, I feel this would be a step in the right direction, as right now there is excessive confidence that such-and-such is the disaster to pay attention to (AI, climate change, contagion), when in fact the suite of possible disasters is far wider, and many of the crises are much more subtle in nature. I would say that one big disaster would cure us of this - but this is evidently not the case.
Something, however, will give in the political domain at some point soon, and this might provide opportunities to reorganise. As long as the politicisation of science proceeds apace, we effectively have no empirical science, and we certainly have no philosophy to back it up. What a strange place to end up this truly is!
I have not lost hope, but I recognise (as do you) that the dangers are significant.
AGREE #TPK_1: Price
Chris: “Walton learns that the price of knowledge can be far greater than we anticipate. It is a warning that humanity has not yet learned.”
COMMENT
Indeed. As the power of the technologies that follow from increasingly deeper and accurate models of physical reality expands, when will we heed the ever-shriller klaxon? Not until we’re well into the disaster. Even then?
I wish I had even the vaguest notion of how, given the present
organization and dynamic of our current worldwide civilization,
we might avoid the disasters that are probably coming.
Thanks for your comment, Frank - always appreciated! The absence of any sense of prudence here is staggering, yet it is also not entirely surprising. The way that the university has been reorganised in the last century has created severe vulnerabilities in our social framework for knowledge, what I would call our 'epistemic commons'. It is currently no longer operating as a commons at all, which represents an enormous problem, and there is a demand for ideological conformity the likes of which we've not seen in European language cultures since perhaps the middle ages.
If we could reduce our certainty, I feel this would be a step in the right direction, as right now there is excessive confidence that such-and-such is the disaster to pay attention to (AI, climate change, contagion), when in fact the suite of possible disasters is far wider, and many of the crises are much more subtle in nature. I would say that one big disaster would cure us of this - but this is evidently not the case.
Something, however, will give in the political domain at some point soon, and this might provide opportunities to reorganise. As long as the politicisation of science proceeds apace, we effectively have no empirical science, and we certainly have no philosophy to back it up. What a strange place to end up this truly is!
I have not lost hope, but I recognise (as do you) that the dangers are significant.
Enjoyable read. Thanks, Chris.