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...
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...