I was thinking about it after watching a superhero movie. Doesn't matter really which one.
Then I thought about the fairy tales that involve someone being granted a wish, or three wishes, by a God or a Genie. Those stories never seem to end well, do they, for the wisher? One of the oldest ones is King Midas. Whatever we wish for ultimately becomes a curse. So perhaps it for the best that humans aren't too powerful. That we cannot bend the universe to our wishes. It's for our own good.
But maybe someday science will give us the power to destroy ourselves. Probably it already has, in the form of nuclear weapons. So far, even though we have them, we haven't committed mutual self-annihilation. But that ultimately seems to rest on the premise that the few who have the power to actually use them refrain from using them. On the premise that they don't want to kill us all. What if someday someone does want to do that?
Maybe it will be something else entirely. After all, we don't know where science might eventually lead. Maybe this is the Great Filter. Intelligent species are doomed to self-destruct eventually, for the same reason that fairy tales that involve wishes being granted always end badly?
Then I thought about the fairy tales that involve someone being granted a wish, or three wishes, by a God or a Genie. Those stories never seem to end well, do they, for the wisher? One of the oldest ones is King Midas. Whatever we wish for ultimately becomes a curse. So perhaps it for the best that humans aren't too powerful. That we cannot bend the universe to our wishes. It's for our own good.
But maybe someday science will give us the power to destroy ourselves. Probably it already has, in the form of nuclear weapons. So far, even though we have them, we haven't committed mutual self-annihilation. But that ultimately seems to rest on the premise that the few who have the power to actually use them refrain from using them. On the premise that they don't want to kill us all. What if someday someone does want to do that?
Maybe it will be something else entirely. After all, we don't know where science might eventually lead. Maybe this is the Great Filter. Intelligent species are doomed to self-destruct eventually, for the same reason that fairy tales that involve wishes being granted always end badly?
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/9f8YhBy
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