If you retrieve the standard cached deep wisdom for don’t go overboard on admiring science, you will find thoughts like “Science gave us air conditioning, but it also made the hydrogen bomb” … But the people who originated such thoughts … Probably they didn’t like something science had to say about their pet beliefs, and sought ways to undermine its authority.
Among early critics of science making the hydrogen bomb were Einstein, Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Bertrand Russell. They didn’t like the risk of mass death, civilizational collapse, and possible human extinction. They weren’t trying to undermine the authority of science.
If someone is so deep into a “happy death spiral” about science that nuclear weapons don’t make them blink that is a severe case. I think it can be an effective argument for milder cases. Certainly my love for science was held in check by reading about AI extinction risk in 1997.
More generally I think that noticing the skulls of your Great Idea is often a cure. If someone is getting a happy death spiral about the USA, it helps if they notice the slavery. If industrialization, notice the global warming. If Christianity, notice the Inquisition. And so on.
Among early critics of science making the hydrogen bomb were Einstein, Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Bertrand Russell. They didn’t like the risk of mass death, civilizational collapse, and possible human extinction. They weren’t trying to undermine the authority of science.
If someone is so deep into a “happy death spiral” about science that nuclear weapons don’t make them blink that is a severe case. I think it can be an effective argument for milder cases. Certainly my love for science was held in check by reading about AI extinction risk in 1997.
More generally I think that noticing the skulls of your Great Idea is often a cure. If someone is getting a happy death spiral about the USA, it helps if they notice the slavery. If industrialization, notice the global warming. If Christianity, notice the Inquisition. And so on.