A small dose of outside view shows that it’s all nonsense. The idea of evil terrorist or criminal mastermind is based on nothing—such people don’t exist. Virtually all terrorists and criminals are idiots, and neither are interested in maximizing destruction.
Virtually all terrorists and criminals are idiots, and neither are interested in maximizing destruction.
We forecast technology becoming more powerful and available to more people with time. As a corollary, the un-maximized destructive power of idiots also grows, eventually enough to cause x-risk scenarios.
Virtually all terrorists and criminals are idiots, and neither are interested in maximizing destruction.
What about the recent reports of Muslim terrorists being (degreed) engineers in disproportionate numbers? While there’s some suggestion of an economic/cultural explanation, it does indicate that at least some terrorists are people who were at least able to get engineering degrees.
Virtually all terrorists and criminals are idiots, and neither are interested in maximizing destruction.
Kinda funny, the first terrorist which came to my mind was this guy.
From Wikipedia: Kaczynski was born in Chicago, Illinois, where, as an intellectual child prodigy, he excelled academically from an early age. Kaczynski was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 16, where he earned an undergraduate degree, and later earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley at age 25, but resigned two years later.
It took the FBI 17 years to arrest the Una-Bomber and he only got caught because he published a pamphlet in the New York Times, which his brother could identify.
Anyway, IMO Savalescu merely says that with further technological progress it could be possible for smart ( say IQ around 130 ) sociopaths to kill millions of people. Do you really believe that this is impossible?
Wikipedia describes Una Bomber’s feats as “mail bombing spree that spanned nearly 20 years, killing three people and injuring 23 others”.
3 people in twenty years just proves my point that he either never cared about maximizing destruction or was really horrible about it. You can do better in one evening by getting an SUV, filling it with gas canisters for extra effect, and driving it into a school bus at full speed. See Mythbusters for some ideas.
The facts of the matter are such people don’t exist. They’re possible in a way that Russell’s Teapot is possible.
Yeah, good points, but Kaczynski tried to kill especially math or science professors or generally people who contributed to technological progress. He didn’t try to kill as many people as possible, so detonating a bunch of school kids was not on his agenda.
Anyway, IMO it is odd to believe that there is less than a 5% probability that some psychopath in the next 50 years could kill millions of people, perhaps through advanced bio-technology ( Let alone nanotechnology or uFAI). That such feats were nearly impossible in the past does not imply that they will be impossible in the future.
Unless you believe distribution of damaging psychopaths is extremely fat tailed, lack of moderately successful ones puts a very tight bound on probability of extremely damaging psychopath.
All the “advanced biotech / nanotech / ai” is not going to happen like that. If it happens at all, it will give more power to large groups with enough capital to research and develop them, not to lone psychopaths.
All the “advanced biotech / nanotech / ai” is not going to happen like that. If it happens at all, it will give more power to large groups with enough capital to research and develop them, not to lone psychopaths.
I hope you’re right, and I also think that it is more likely than not. But you seem to be overly confident.
If we are speculating about the future it is probably wise to widen our confidence intervals...
I think Schneier is one of the most intelligent voices in the debate on terrorism but I’m not convinced you sum up his position entirely accurately. I had a browse around his site to see if I could find some specific data to confirm your claim and had trouble finding anything. The best I could find was Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot but it doesn’t contain actual data. I’m rather confused why you linked to the specific blog post you chose which seems largely unrelated to your claim. Do you have any better links you could share?
Note that in the article I link he states:
There is a real threat of terrorism. And while I’m all in favor of the terrorists’ continuing incompetence, I know that some will prove more capable.
Read some Schneier. A more accurate headline should be: “Nation on edge after an idiot demonstrates his idiocy”. Nearly all terrorism has been performed by people who have serious mental deficiencies—even the 9/11 attacks depended on a lot of luck to succeed. Shit happens, but random opportunities usually aid the competent more than the incompetent. And nearly all criminals and terrorists are of lower intelligence, the few that are reasonably intelligent are seriously lacking in impulse control, which screws up their ability to make and carry through plans. Besides Bruce Schneier’s work, see “The Bell Curve”, and most newer literature on intelligence.
A small dose of outside view shows that it’s all nonsense. The idea of evil terrorist or criminal mastermind is based on nothing—such people don’t exist. Virtually all terrorists and criminals are idiots, and neither are interested in maximizing destruction.
See everything Schneier has ever written about it if you need data confirming what I just said.
We forecast technology becoming more powerful and available to more people with time. As a corollary, the un-maximized destructive power of idiots also grows, eventually enough to cause x-risk scenarios.
What about the recent reports of Muslim terrorists being (degreed) engineers in disproportionate numbers? While there’s some suggestion of an economic/cultural explanation, it does indicate that at least some terrorists are people who were at least able to get engineering degrees.
Kinda funny, the first terrorist which came to my mind was this guy.
From Wikipedia: Kaczynski was born in Chicago, Illinois, where, as an intellectual child prodigy, he excelled academically from an early age. Kaczynski was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 16, where he earned an undergraduate degree, and later earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley at age 25, but resigned two years later.
It took the FBI 17 years to arrest the Una-Bomber and he only got caught because he published a pamphlet in the New York Times, which his brother could identify.
Anyway, IMO Savalescu merely says that with further technological progress it could be possible for smart ( say IQ around 130 ) sociopaths to kill millions of people. Do you really believe that this is impossible?
Wikipedia describes Una Bomber’s feats as “mail bombing spree that spanned nearly 20 years, killing three people and injuring 23 others”.
3 people in twenty years just proves my point that he either never cared about maximizing destruction or was really horrible about it. You can do better in one evening by getting an SUV, filling it with gas canisters for extra effect, and driving it into a school bus at full speed. See Mythbusters for some ideas.
The facts of the matter are such people don’t exist. They’re possible in a way that Russell’s Teapot is possible.
Yeah, good points, but Kaczynski tried to kill especially math or science professors or generally people who contributed to technological progress. He didn’t try to kill as many people as possible, so detonating a bunch of school kids was not on his agenda.
Anyway, IMO it is odd to believe that there is less than a 5% probability that some psychopath in the next 50 years could kill millions of people, perhaps through advanced bio-technology ( Let alone nanotechnology or uFAI). That such feats were nearly impossible in the past does not imply that they will be impossible in the future.
Unless you believe distribution of damaging psychopaths is extremely fat tailed, lack of moderately successful ones puts a very tight bound on probability of extremely damaging psychopath.
All the “advanced biotech / nanotech / ai” is not going to happen like that. If it happens at all, it will give more power to large groups with enough capital to research and develop them, not to lone psychopaths.
I hope you’re right, and I also think that it is more likely than not. But you seem to be overly confident. If we are speculating about the future it is probably wise to widen our confidence intervals...
Savulescu explicitly discusses smart sociopaths.
I think Schneier is one of the most intelligent voices in the debate on terrorism but I’m not convinced you sum up his position entirely accurately. I had a browse around his site to see if I could find some specific data to confirm your claim and had trouble finding anything. The best I could find was Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot but it doesn’t contain actual data. I’m rather confused why you linked to the specific blog post you chose which seems largely unrelated to your claim. Do you have any better links you could share?
Note that in the article I link he states:
There a terrorist attempt only recently:
“Nation on edge after Christmas terrorism attempt”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-terror-plane28-2009dec28,0,6963038.story
Read some Schneier. A more accurate headline should be: “Nation on edge after an idiot demonstrates his idiocy”. Nearly all terrorism has been performed by people who have serious mental deficiencies—even the 9/11 attacks depended on a lot of luck to succeed. Shit happens, but random opportunities usually aid the competent more than the incompetent. And nearly all criminals and terrorists are of lower intelligence, the few that are reasonably intelligent are seriously lacking in impulse control, which screws up their ability to make and carry through plans. Besides Bruce Schneier’s work, see “The Bell Curve”, and most newer literature on intelligence.