It’s not social Darwinism we have to worry about—it’s regular Darwinism. Social Darwinism is an ideology, Darwinism is what happens by default if no one stops it.
Already we have been able to keep culture and hope alive in the midst of near-genocidal wars. Excepting mistakes such as a UFAI taking seriously “survival at any cost”, I think that the risk of survival’s demands trashing human joy is greatly lowered since 1950 and is unlikely to return.
Meeehhhhh. Ok, I’m going to slightly dissent and note that we’re on our way to creating a second rise of fascism at the moment in much of the Western world. That is, even though our economies and societies are easily capable of keeping everyone alive, on a collective level we’re currently choosing to force large numbers of people into Survival Mode, which frankly is an even greater mindkiller than blue-green politics. Get large numbers of people into Survival Mode and they start making really stupid decisions, like marching down the streets of the capital yelling “Jews out!” and demanding a strengthening of the military… in an EU member-state with barely any Jews in it.
Did I just refer to France or Greece? Both.
On the other hand, I don’t think population trends really allow for militarization and total war anymore, and the rise of Asia means that someone’s around to smack Europe and America when they get too stupid.
So we could be looking at some waves of terrorist violence if public policy remains terminally obstinate about forcing people into their brain’s mind-killed survival mode no matter the material facts, but probably not another Great War.
To which I would note that slipping into mind-killed survivalist mode is going to be even less helpful in trying to fight a war against a UFAI that simply isn’t impaired by evolutionarily-ingrained biases about free thought being a bad idea.
It’s not social Darwinism we have to worry about—it’s regular Darwinism. Social Darwinism is an ideology, Darwinism is what happens by default if no one stops it.
So far we’ve already beaten Survival Darwinism, and we’re on our way to beating Reproductive Darwinism. Civilization is good at that sort of thing.
Already we have been able to keep culture and hope alive in the midst of near-genocidal wars. Excepting mistakes such as a UFAI taking seriously “survival at any cost”, I think that the risk of survival’s demands trashing human joy is greatly lowered since 1950 and is unlikely to return.
Meeehhhhh. Ok, I’m going to slightly dissent and note that we’re on our way to creating a second rise of fascism at the moment in much of the Western world. That is, even though our economies and societies are easily capable of keeping everyone alive, on a collective level we’re currently choosing to force large numbers of people into Survival Mode, which frankly is an even greater mindkiller than blue-green politics. Get large numbers of people into Survival Mode and they start making really stupid decisions, like marching down the streets of the capital yelling “Jews out!” and demanding a strengthening of the military… in an EU member-state with barely any Jews in it.
Did I just refer to France or Greece? Both.
On the other hand, I don’t think population trends really allow for militarization and total war anymore, and the rise of Asia means that someone’s around to smack Europe and America when they get too stupid.
So we could be looking at some waves of terrorist violence if public policy remains terminally obstinate about forcing people into their brain’s mind-killed survival mode no matter the material facts, but probably not another Great War.
I’m taking about a much worse scenario.
To which I would note that slipping into mind-killed survivalist mode is going to be even less helpful in trying to fight a war against a UFAI that simply isn’t impaired by evolutionarily-ingrained biases about free thought being a bad idea.