Anyone who thinks deeply on the ramifications of the computer and related technology should come to the conclusion that they will inevitably lead to the destruction of individual liberty and total subjugation or annihilation of a significant portion of humanity.
This is not gunpowder, the printing press, or the cotton gin and to compare them you're either naive or being disingenuous.
There is little hope for us to deviate from this path barring significant technological regression due to cataclysmic events or mass enlightenment of the human character. The former is a problem in and of itself and the latter is comically unlikely.
I think that's a very pessimistic view of the world. So far technology empowered as much as it destroyed individual liberties. There is still hope. With the upcoming decentralized technologies, I hope that the power returns to individuals again.
What is the solution? I would rather have automated drone armies in the hands of the US government than anyone else.
The same could be said of the atomic bomb. A weapon made purely for mass scale indiscriminate destruction of humanity. But if not us, then who would we trust to develop such a technology?
Permit my inquiry but whenever i see comments like this, I can't help but think that your main reason for believing in this train of thought is majorly because the negative effects of U.s military industrial complex has pretty much never affected you. because if you were perhaps an Arab who watched his/her home town bombed to shit by a us drone and had the us write off the human casualties that resulted there in from this act as collateral damage you most likely will not feel this way about a single country trying to amass absolute power, particularly when it is a specific country that seem to have a very itchy war finger, which also just elected a very racist man as president.
If the table were turned will you still feel this way, i wonder.
And p.s i am not an Arab, I am African so yes i do sympathize somewhat with what they go through. I also do not hate the U.S but i do feel it that it was time the rest of the world closed the military and technological gap the U.S and the west really had over the rest of the world as this will stop a lot of their bullshit.
I am American, and I hear this from Americans all the time. The reality is far different, though. Does the Russian military perform more humanely in war than the US military? I don't think so. Would the Chinese? Things like My Lai and Abu Ghraib are the exception with the US military, not the rule.
I obviously don't want any single powerful entity to have access to this technology, but I can see the reality of it, which is that someone will have it. Who will it be?
I imagine knowledge over whether those are the exception or the rule for the US military is classified. they don't have to tell you when they've been doing evil
Yet it always comes out. Not because of a bug in code, or a document that fell off of a truck. It’s humans involved that know something is wrong and decide to report it.
The My Lai was reported by the American close air support crew, not a Vietnamese journalist.
The British, Russians and French have these weapons and have never used them. The South Africans developed them and gave them up. The Israelis probably have them but don’t admit to it.
Of these people, only the Americans have used them, and they used them on population centers.
I’m not taking a position on whether this was right or wrong. I’m just pointing out that you are trusting the only government that has ever killed thousands with these weapons and distrusting several governments that have not.
The atomic bomb is a blunt instrument with no finesse. The ability to vaporize large groups of people in a flashy infrastructure destroying display is not particularly conducive to control.
Atomic bombs don't let you watch, record, and analyze the movements of millions of people. They don't let you record and analyze the personal lives, conversations, and secrets of millions of people. They don't eliminate the need for human labor.
This is not gunpowder, the printing press, or the cotton gin and to compare them you're either naive or being disingenuous.
There is little hope for us to deviate from this path barring significant technological regression due to cataclysmic events or mass enlightenment of the human character. The former is a problem in and of itself and the latter is comically unlikely.