I wonder how libertarianism will survive in the future when the average citizen will have access to the technology to cook up a pandemic in their bathtub or create a paperclip maximiser on their PC.
There are bad actors who will do so - see bushfire arsonists here in Australia
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Definitely - but it’s abuse doesn’t constitute an existential threat every time a broken individual lights up a national forest and destroys nearby towns.
Absent a global totalitarian surveillance state one these individuals only has to succeed *once* to end it all for everyone
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there's something about this argument that 'feels' like it has a fallacy in it, like there's some intuitive tag around it, like... something like we've advanced HUGELY in tech over the last 200 years but haven't seen a proportional amount of individuals fucking over others
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What there has been is an increase not in the proportional *number* but in the *capability* of individuals to enact mass harm. A century ago a man could stab 3 or 4. Today he can mass shoot 30 or 40. Tomorrow he can kill 30,000 or 40,000. A century from now...?
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The Australian government is at fault for not clearing our under brush. Plain and simple
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I don’t disagree. I’m not blaming the catastrophic 2019/2020 fire season on arsonists - I’m just acknowledging that they exist and would probably do worse if they had the means
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I think Ben is pointing up the asymmetry between how much good a person can do, and how much harm they can potentially do with the aid of technology.
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Do you know how much damage someone can do with a cell phone, lap top, internet?..Pretty mundane point imo. Everyone already understands people can be extremely evil with today’s technology in our connected world & a multiplier w/ govs.
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I know what you’re saying. My point is that if it were so doomsday as you’re saying, we’d be done for already. There’s more good than evil, even with the means to do mass harm being easier than a century ago
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