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Why The Future Doesn't Need Us
Atec Февраль 29 2008 20:16:19
Книга только для ознакомления
. This step will almost certainly be necessary 5 billion years
from now (or sooner if our solar system is disastrously impacted by the impending
collision of our galaxy with the Andromeda galaxy within the next 3 billion years),
but if we take Kurzweil and Moravec at their word it might be necessary by the
middle of this century.
What are the moral implications here? If we must move beyond Earth this quickly
in order for the species to survive, who accepts the responsibility for the fate of
those (most of us, after all) who are left behind? And even if we scatter to the
stars, isn't it likely that we may take our problems with us or find, later, that they
have followed us? The fate of our species on Earth and our fate in the galaxy
seem inextricably linked.
Another idea is to erect a series of shields to defend against each of the
dangerous technologies. The Strategic Defense Initiative, proposed by the Reagan
administration, was an attempt to design such a shield against the threat of a
nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. But as Arthur C. Clarke, who was privy to
discussions about the project, observed: "Though it might be possible, at vast
expense, to construct local defense systems that would 'only' let through a few
percent of ballistic missiles, the much touted idea of a national umbrella was
nonsense. Luis Alvarez, perhaps the greatest experimental physicist of this
century, remarked to me that the advocates of such schemes were 'very bright
guys with no common sense
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