Remember when Einstein sent that one letter about a hypothetical city-flattening bomb?
You mean the Einstein–Szilárd letter? That was a rather unique situation, historically; the experiments laying the groundwork had been performed only a year previously, a world war was imminent, and enormous weapons potential was there to be taken by any government with the requisite technical and scientific resources. It’s also worth mentioning that the physics behind nuclear weapons is rather simple, undergraduate-level stuff by modern standards; the real challenge is in materials and engineering, which, far more than the basic theory, is what made getting a head start so important back in 1939.
I don’t have an informed opinion on the race-and-IQ issue, nor do I care to pursue one. But whatever the raw data says, it describes a condition that we’re already dealing with. There are plausible ways of placing some of the possible results on the spectrum of information hazards, but no direct way to turn them into megadeaths without a lot of unpredictable social intermediaries.
You mean the Einstein–Szilárd letter? That was a rather unique situation, historically; the experiments laying the groundwork had been performed only a year previously, a world war was imminent, and enormous weapons potential was there to be taken by any government with the requisite technical and scientific resources. It’s also worth mentioning that the physics behind nuclear weapons is rather simple, undergraduate-level stuff by modern standards; the real challenge is in materials and engineering, which, far more than the basic theory, is what made getting a head start so important back in 1939.
I don’t have an informed opinion on the race-and-IQ issue, nor do I care to pursue one. But whatever the raw data says, it describes a condition that we’re already dealing with. There are plausible ways of placing some of the possible results on the spectrum of information hazards, but no direct way to turn them into megadeaths without a lot of unpredictable social intermediaries.
Here’s an upvote and a sincere thanks for your moderating and thoughtful intervention.