16 replies to this topic

[robomoon]

The United Nations should be there to provide security for the entire human race if the most dangerous elimination of life on Earth is about to happen. What can they do against the highest risk of planetary annihilation after particle collision experiments of unidentified physical danger?

http://lifeboat.com/...6/press-release and this is about a far greater disaster than:


<img src='http://brontopixel.c...87f63ecbb3e.jpg' alt='Posted Image' class='bbc_img'/>

In the end there will be no survivors left.

Can you help out with a reply? If no, you got to take the risk. If yes, please try to evaluate: how can the law from the United Nations help to prevent this disaster from happening?

http://www.un.org/en...ter/index.shtml

Edited by robomoon, 06 June 2011 - 08:29 PM.

[Rational Madman]

The United Nations should be there to provide security for the entire human race if the most dangerous elimination of life on Earth is about to happen. What can they do against the highest risk of planetary annihilation after particle collision experiments of unidentified physical danger?

http://lifeboat.com/...6/press-release and this is about a far greater disaster than:


<img src='http://brontopixel.c...87f63ecbb3e.jpg' alt='Posted Image' class='bbc_img'/>

In the end there will be no survivors left.

Can you help out with a reply? If no, you got to take the risk. If yes, please try to evaluate: how can the law from the United Nations help to prevent this disaster from happening?

http://www.un.org/en...ter/index.shtml

Do you have any notion of what the annual budget of the United Nations is, because if you did, you would realize that there is almost no enthusiasm for trusting it to handle anything of real importance.

[robomoon]

The current solution has been an approach towards human rights concerning risks and dangers of planned research experiments. Being alive should be a human right. But the situation is different, because of uncommon references to a previous violation of rights. Under these conditions, nothing has killed anyone so far. Even when there is a verifiable death toll after one research accident in particle collision experiments within global risk dimensions, it will just be too late for countermeasures.

In hindsight to the risk of death, the UN is helping out in cases of genocide. One of the responsibilities from the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide http://www.un.org/en...ser/index.shtml has to be: Acting as a mechanism of early warning to the Secretary-General, and through him to the Security Council, by bringing to their attention situations that could potentially result in genocide.

There are no references to a previous legal case that ended up successfully in this situation up today. The human race has never been brought to extinction before. There are no references to a past act of violence, not even in the word genocide itself. Genocide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group".

The Special Adviser has to act with a mechanism of early warning, but there will be no advantage in choosing the word genocide in this case, not even for an entire national group. The human race may just be described as an international group, but not a national group, so there is not any minority to defend.

When the UN has not the required budget to act, who else can be trusted? So far, charity organizations can be trusted to defend humans rights. Would their actual mission and budget be sufficient then?

[Rational Madman]

The current solution has been an approach towards human rights concerning risks and dangers of planned research experiments. Being alive should be a human right. But the situation is different, because of uncommon references to a previous violation of rights. Under these conditions, nothing has killed anyone so far. Even when there is a verifiable death toll after one research accident in particle collision experiments within global risk dimensions, it will just be too late for countermeasures.

In hindsight to the risk of death, the UN is helping out in cases of genocide. One of the responsibilities from the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide http://www.un.org/en...ser/index.shtml has to be: Acting as a mechanism of early warning to the Secretary-General, and through him to the Security Council, by bringing to their attention situations that could potentially result in genocide.

There are no references to a previous legal case that ended up successfully in this situation up today. The human race has never been brought to extinction before. There are no references to a past act of violence, not even in the word genocide itself. Genocide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group".

The Special Adviser has to act with a mechanism of early warning, but there will be no advantage in choosing the word genocide in this case, not even for an entire national group. The human race may just be described as an international group, but not a national group, so there is not any minority to defend.

When the UN has not the required budget to act, who else can be trusted? So far, charity organizations can be trusted to defend humans rights. Would their actual mission and budget be sufficient then?

I believe the UN serves a valuable purpose for tempering the security dilemma between nation states, but it exists largely to serve the interests of its members. And since its budget is limited to approximately $5 billion annually, and because it lacks powerful and independent enforcement mechanisms, its authority is dependent on the compliance of its members. This compliance has no basis in international law, because though some laws are legally binding, there are enough ambiguities and provisions to allow states to avoid their obligations if there is a conflict of interest. Sure, there might be some reputational costs with taking a position at odds with the opinion of the international community or binding statutes, but these costs are usually not a grave concern. So this is why I brought up the question of the annual budget, because if the international community really viewed the United Nations as a serious actor, then it would have entrusted it with the authority and resources to carry out its duties, and because of this evident lack of confidence, the United Nations should not be seriously considered as a candidate for managing anything that has critical global and legal implications. Instead, the international system will be managed in the same way since its advent, which is by states possessing the greatest quantity of power and capabilities.

Edited by Rol82, 11 June 2011 - 05:16 AM.

[robomoon]

The danger has not even been made sufficiently identifiable without the use of psychology. Sounds crazy, yes, but that is why psychology plays an important role, see http://lifeboat.com/blog/ for postings between February and June 2011 about particle physics. So any human being with a rather intellectual background in the field of global security would ask if is this could be really a currently existing existential risk. In other words: are human beings mentally unstable enough to nuke themselves out of existence? In absence of psychology science bringing new ideas into this troublesome issue, the intellectual reader would not be easily convinced to think so.

Looking on our society, we will find, we are indeed very insured about the functioning of the cold war. After the nuclear bombing in Japan, no political leader went so much hateful and agressive to command the launch of nuclear warheads. So we are expecting the same fear and sanity from others who are in possession of dangerous nuclear equipment, however new it may be. Unfortunately, this is the wrong time. Politicians only decided that nuclear weapons needed much better defense strategies after the nuclear bombing in Japan. Regarding research experiments, they are not sufficiently cautious.

Governments are the major decision makers, also in hindsight to the funding and cancellation of research experimens. But what they cannot see is what they cannot get. So the governmental authorities cannot see the complicated and sometimes undetectable experimental changes described by new theories in natural science as the possible trigger for something like an accidentally created implosion. A new kind of black hole theory might help to describe this, ever heard about an implosive nuclear bomb? Not me, not you, and not anyone around. So we must realize that politicians and their voters would not get anxious about its creation before seeing a great implosion with severe damage on material property. Perhaps strangelets or something else are even more dangerous than black holes, who knows; anyways, I do not understand those particle physics.

Unfortunately, it takes too long before governmental officials in different countries might even be able to recognize one demonstration of a new research experiment that enables an accidentally triggered chain reaction in huge quantities of matter. Various kinds of black holes, strangelets, or whatever accidentally created, it may not be stopped. If not stoppable, it can destroy too much.

There has to be an institution that provides useful recommendations in terms of international law to all the states who are possessing the greatest quantity of power and capabilities for overly dangerous research experiments. What the UN can do despite of low funding is to inform the public that such an institution is absolutely required and urgently needed under any circumstances.

[Rational Madman]

The danger has not even been made sufficiently identifiable without the use of psychology. Sounds crazy, yes, but that is why psychology plays an important role, see http://lifeboat.com/blog/ for postings between February and June 2011 about particle physics. So any human being with a rather intellectual background in the field of global security would ask if is this could be really a currently existing existential risk. In other words: are human beings mentally unstable enough to nuke themselves out of existence? In absence of psychology science bringing new ideas into this troublesome issue, the intellectual reader would not be easily convinced to think so.

Looking on our society, we will find, we are indeed very insured about the functioning of the cold war. After the nuclear bombing in Japan, no political leader went so much hateful and agressive to command the launch of nuclear warheads. So we are expecting the same fear and sanity from others who are in possession of dangerous nuclear equipment, however new it may be. Unfortunately, this is the wrong time. Politicians only decided that nuclear weapons needed much better defense strategies after the nuclear bombing in Japan. Regarding research experiments, they are not sufficiently cautious.

Governments are the major decision makers, also in hindsight to the funding and cancellation of research experimens. But what they cannot see is what they cannot get. So the governmental authorities cannot see the complicated and sometimes undetectable experimental changes described by new theories in natural science as the possible trigger for something like an accidentally created implosion. A new kind of black hole theory might help to describe this, ever heard about an implosive nuclear bomb? Not me, not you, and not anyone around. So we must realize that politicians and their voters would not get anxious about its creation before seeing a great implosion with severe damage on material property. Perhaps strangelets or something else are even more dangerous than black holes, who knows; anyways, I do not understand those particle physics.

Unfortunately, it takes too long before governmental officials in different countries might even be able to recognize one demonstration of a new research experiment that enables an accidentally triggered chain reaction in huge quantities of matter. Various kinds of black holes, strangelets, or whatever accidentally created, it may not be stopped. If not stoppable, it can destroy too much.

There has to be an institution that provides useful recommendations in terms of international law to all the states who are possessing the greatest quantity of power and capabilities for overly dangerous research experiments. What the UN can do despite of low funding is to inform the public that such an institution is absolutely required and urgently needed under any circumstances.

You're strangely using the rational actor model to justify your theory of international governance, but I doubt that your faith in this model would extend to domestic politics, where the structural disparity between these levels of analysis give more of a reason for confidence. At the international level, the rational actor model has some predictive power, but there are some limitations that have been repeatedly pointed out in the literature. In my view, this limitation is mostly related to information, both its quantity, and the capacity of actors to process this information. Even in normal conditions, the filtration of an overwhelming stream of information is frequently time consuming and imperfect, leaving a player with only the best information that their occupation, socioeconomic status, and personal life will allow. These pressures make devices that provide a simplified, Manichean explanation of the world highly appealing. State and non-state actors are not immune to this problem, and in closed society, the homogenous character of the information can lead to behavior that an outsider might otherwise consider irrational----helping to explain the phenomenon of some states believing their own propaganda. The shape and the behavior of closed states, though, is made inevitable by the anarchic structure of the international system, and the uneven distribution of power and capability. In societies that have a state capable of mitigating the divisions between individuals, this is less of a concern, and actors have less of a need to rely on self-help. But in a perpetually anarchic international system---meaning that there is no higher state of any significance---the participants of the international system have no such hope.


The absence of nuclear war and the normative adaptation of states is cited as evidence of a linear change in human behavior, and to support the notion that the state of systemic anarchy and the resulting security dilemma is not a strictly perpetual state. And to some extent this is true, because globalization, the growth of international institutions, the current distribution of state power, and changes in international law help to positively alter the incentives of states. But this belief is predicated in part on the faulty premise that changes in the distribution of power are not destabilizing, and that state behavior won't be influenced by adverse external events. In our present circumstances, we can see that ties that bind us are eroding, because the fear---albeit irrational---that states have for their safety is changing their calculations about cooperation. Indeed, should the world be suddenly thrown into a very severe economic depression, I'm doubtful that the overwhelming domestic political currents would leave the international structure for governance that we've built standing. So in other words, the cooperation that we are now seeing is only the result of policymakers' conclusion that international cooperation is within their state's interest, but should international conditions change, and when a state will feel that it can only rely on self-help, then national identity will only matter----which usually comes first anyway.


The incidence of nuclear warfare is another interesting question that I'll leave for the most part unaddressed, but I doubt an evolving appreciation of life had much to with restraint of nuclear weapons states, because much was spent on the question of preemption and winning a nuclear exchange. In the end, nuclear weapons failed to deter because the consequences were unconscionable, and would render all ostensible victories dubious. For deterrence to work, the threat of force has to be credible, but because the quantity of nuclear weapons reached absurd levels, their utility has functionally depreciated. Instead, the balance of power in the Cold War was maintained largely by the threat of conventional force, which both the Soviet Union and the United States both proved to be credible, but because of obvious obstacles that states face in conventional conflict, it would have been impossible for one actor to deter all potentially unwanted conflicts through conventional means alone.


Anyway, I'm having difficulty understanding the rest of your position, because I find it hard to believe that it has much of an empirical basis. So what are the quantitative criterions to support the notion that the performance of supranational agencies exceeds that of national governments, or even the private sector? Because seriously, I suggest spending one day at the General Assembly as an observer, and I promise you that your love affair will come to a sudden end. One could maybe cite the IMF, the WTO, and the World Bank, but I consider these merely extensions of the EU and the United States-----but I'm light years away from being an anti-Globalization activist, so this is just a statement of realism.


Additionally, since I was taking some critical notes on a book reviewing the work of Thomas Schelling last night, and because it has some relevance, I might as well add these notes----even though my views aren't exactly spectacular:


-Rationality is a function of the costs that an actor faces when erring, because if an actor has no stakes in a game, then he can’t be deterred by the threat of punishment.



-Deterrence must be credible for it to modify the behavior of a target, which is a requirement that renders many forms of massive, nuclear retaliation dubious, because the effects may be impossible to contain in the short term, or in future games. Even for great powers, the grave and inevitable costs (e.g. loss of life, and systemic authority) could set an actor on an irreversible course of decline. Therefore, caps on the quantity and explosive power of nuclear weapons should be strictly maintained so that their use may be deemed acceptable, and so that only a limited number of powers (optimally two) would be able to maintain a near monopoly on this method for inflicting pain. However, the maintenance of peace is also somewhat dependent on the ability to find some degree of harmony between their interests and systems of life, which should have some parallels.-Rationality is dependent on the availability of information, but in panicked conditions, the ability to process and recall relevant information is impaired. Even in normal conditions, the filtration of an overwhelming stream of information is frequently time consuming and imperfect, leaving a player with only the best information that their occupation, socioeconomic status, and personal life will allow. These pressures make devices that provide a simplified, Manichean explanation of the world highly appealing.-Actors only need have a clear knowledge and appreciation of the costs of erring for deterrence to work. The rationality of the fear matters little, because fear can very easily alter perceptions of proximity and probability.

[robomoon]

Yes, it is truly hard to believe that my position has much of an empirical basis. In international politics and socioeconomics as seen from the US, it really has not much of it. So back with this limited position of occupation, socioeconomic status, and personal life to where it came from: far away from a seat as an observer at the General Assembly. And now one great thank you to her Majesty of the UK for kindly supporting the currently greatest research experiment, and also good luck with the fear for the survival of our race one international law for safe experimentation must provide. Also thank you, dear forum member, for your wonderful answers, you have only confirmed my opinion.

Edited by robomoon, 19 June 2011 - 12:26 PM.

[Rational Madman]

Yes, it is truly hard to believe that my position has much of an empirical basis. In international politics and socioeconomics as seen from the US, it really has not much of it. So back with this limited position of occupation, socioeconomic status, and personal life to where it came from: far away from a seat as an observer at the General Assembly. And now one great thank you to her Majesty of the UK for kindly supporting the currently greatest research experiment, and also good luck with the fear for the survival of our race one international law for safe experimentation must provide. Also thank you, dear forum member, for your wonderful answers, you have only confirmed my opinion.

Okay then, good luck with enlisting the United Nations, because I'm sure the international community might throw a few extra billion their way.

[robomoon]

Regarding the article http://lifeboat.com/...d-risked-planet incl. an explanation what the wording in its title might offer to suggest: one probably humiliating word about lower intelligence, just to raise awareness, is better than interruptions of an intelligent intervention against improperly dangerous experiments. Very unfortunately, the international legal system against improperly dangerous experiments has not been sufficiently established to upgrade the human right of being alive. Law codes bring the fear of legal violations, but what has been left must be psychology for the fear of death, just an important emotion among the last warning signals.

Edited by robomoon, 26 June 2011 - 10:11 PM.

[Rational Madman]

Regarding the article http://lifeboat.com/...d-risked-planet incl. an explanation what the wording in its title might offer to suggest: one probably humiliating word about lower intelligence, just to raise awareness, is better than interruptions of an intelligent intervention against improperly dangerous experiments. Very unfortunately, the international legal system against improperly dangerous experiments has not been sufficiently established to upgrade the human right of being alive. Law codes bring the fear of legal violations, but what has been left must be psychology for the fear of death, just an important emotion among the last warning signals.

The credibility of laws requires that they be enforceable, and because there is no agent or mechanism that can be relied upon to act selflessly, your idea won't become anything more than a Power Point presentation.

[robomoon]

Computer Presentation - Draft

This draft of content for a computer presentation file does not contain slides. For each slide, there should be a short video clip and a computer voice telling the title of each slide with smooth pronunciation. In the beginning, the title and subtitle in this presentation should move in sync to a modern musical theme.

Slide 1 incl. music:

Title: Functional Life Physics

Subtitle: Physics Studies Might Become Comprehensible With Real Survival

Slide 2 incl. video of physics students doing math:

Students in physics are being tought mathematics to turn into the highest educational elite in industry, finance, and science. By using the most advanced level in mathematical calculus humans can get, they learn how systems work in the entire universe. The knowledge they create has helped to make productive changes in our solar system and beyond.

Slide 3 incl. video of animated math formulas in silver and golden glimmer:

The limits of gravity were challenged by physics calculations for the construction of rockets to transport different vessels into space. Mostly the stationary space technologies transported into the orbit must be quite productive to pay off sufficiently enough in industry, finance, and for-profit science. Space satellites must provide what space probes are missing: to stay close enough to our planet. Overly productive satellites are rare, but sometimes we are a bit concerned about observation satellites that might be in use despite of a violation of somebody's right for privacy.

Slide 4 incl. video of skeletons jumping out of a hole above a direction sign with the label BOMB SHELTER:

Space probes, however, can be helpful for the survival of life as the better alternative to more local productivity. With the production of local bomb shelters, we are not presently escaping our political enemies who could be ready to win over a conflict with atom bombs. But space probes can travel far to explore a distant place where humans can work more productively. Life on Earth has been increasingly threatened by a greater demand for research experiments in particle physics whereas natural disasters are obviously the lesser risk. Physics experiments within space travel provide more safety where more productivity does not require an improperly complicated and overly questionable risk evaluation for increasingly dangerous experiments in physics and further educational subjects.

Slide 5 to 8 incl. videos:

Open content under development. Please consider to copy, change, and develop this draft further. This has been provided free of charge and without any potential copyright claims. It should be free for education and further publishing by anyone and anywhere who cares. Anyone should be allowed to edit it and add further content as described by the aforementioned messages in this thread or further resources referred and linked to by them. Thank you for rescuing the life on Earth.

The credibility of laws requires that they be enforceable, and because there is no agent or mechanism that can be relied upon to act selflessly, your idea won't become anything more than a Power Point presentation.

[Alex Libman]

Mindless politically-motivated fear-mongering. The greatest current threat to the human species is the United Nations itself!

By gradually imposing a socialist world government, they will remove all objective frame of reference. The only reason Hitler or Stalin couldn't take over the world is they couldn't take over all of it at once, so the inferiority of their systems was apparent. Without intergovernmental competition, Hitlers and Stalins could take credit for every technological accomplishment, and people would believe that they are better off under tyranny, because that will be the only thing they know.

UN needs to be resisted at all costs, and replaced with a competing mesh of non-governmental organizations that promote free trade, diplomacy, security, enforcement of contracts, etc.

Edited by Alex Libman, 12 September 2011 - 07:45 AM.

[robomoon]

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Mindless politically-motivated fear-mongering. The greatest current threat to the human species is the United Nations itself!

By gradually imposing a socialist world government, they will remove all objective frame of reference. The only reason Hitler or Stalin couldn't take over the world is they couldn't take over all of it at once, so the inferiority of their systems was apparent. Without intergovernmental competition, Hitlers and Stalins could take credit for every technological accomplishment, and people would believe that they are better off under tyranny, because that will be the only thing they know.

UN needs to be resisted at all costs, and replaced with a competing mesh of non-governmental organizations that promote free trade, diplomacy, security, enforcement of contracts, etc.

What written law can provide one mesh of non-governmental security organizations with the necessary legal and decisive power for real competition against governmental security organizations themselves?

What written national or international law code are you talking about, could you please name a working one in this situation? The 1st message of this thread contains one hyperlink to the law from one governmental organization known as the UN that you are dismissing so much.

It would make the world a better and happier place to learn about a different link to some written law code for a jurisdiction where non-governmental organizations have more decisive power in this situation but the UN Security Council.

If somebody in here can post definite links or plausible references while leaving dominating words like science, engineering, technology, physicists, or catchphrases like “physics community”, “scientific method”, and indignities like “mindless fear-mongering” out of the discussion (in this thread) about links and references to written law, we should remain very thankful.

Edited by robomoon, 13 September 2011 - 02:45 PM.

[Alex Libman]

The only legitimate basis of law is Natural Law, which is based on pure reason, not some legislator's "written" whims. Scientific study of the question of what universal rulesets apply to human beings so as to make civilization possible inevitably leads to the same conclusions: Non-Aggression Principle, Property Rights, Parents' Rights, Contract Rights. These rules have been recognized to some degree since ancient Hebrew mythology, and modern understanding of econometrics has evolved our understanding of them quite a bit. A few things remain theoretical for lack of evidence (ex. intellectual property) or lack of enforcement technology (ex. pollution liabilities), but the vast majority of fundamental legal questions are long settled.

Contrary to what political interests want you to believe, the sky is not falling. We live in an abundant universe, and human lives will continue to become safer and happier than ever before. Billions of well-educated rational human beings are very well capable of self-organizing into an advanced emergent economy with decentralized balance of power - imposing some creationist idea of central planning on them does a lot more harm than good. The greatest anchor and danger to human civilization is its belief in that old "divine right of governments" delusion, which violently prevents the evolution of newer, better, and safer forms of governance from taking place.

[robomoon]

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Above, Alex Libman has recommended links to encyclopedia pages that are quite educational. Such links, however, definitely do not count as legally valid resources of actually working law code that can be used to compete against an international security organization and their very powerful member nations. <br><br/>

The list below was made by random choices of various competing organizations (other than the unique Lifeboat Foundation) who might already use some law in connection with the above mentioned encyclopedia pages:<br><br/>

Foresight Institute http://foresight.org to avoid the risks of the ultimate manufacturing technology. Global Risk Institute http://www.globalriskinstitute.com to avoid economic risks in the improvement of the financial services sector - not very different to Global RISK Management Network http://brint.org and Global Risk Solutions Institute http://www.grsinstitute.com . Global Security Institute http://www.gsinstitute.org to keep focusing on nuclear arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament - somehow like Nuclear Threat Initiative http://www.nti.org . The Institute for the Analysis of Global Security http://www.iags.org to strengthening the world's energy system.<br><br/>

The problem: non of those organizations in the above list can be identified as having published and retained expressed statements to work on safety measures against a broad variety of existential risks concerning the extinction of all mammals including humanity’s descendants to be born. Do you know how to replace that list with a competing mesh of non-governmental organizations? They should be more directly engaged in activism against the actually greatest existential risks but the following examples:<br><br/>

http://www.globalsecurity.org just for information and commercial selling of safety equipment. http://globalsecurityplanning.com to avoid locally destructive acts of terrorism in the non-global impact category - somehow like ERGSS http://ergss.com . http://green-agenda.com to avoid wasted natural resources and reduced biodiversity.

Edited by robomoon, 15 September 2011 - 02:05 PM.

[Alex Libman]

Above, Alex Libman has recommended links to encyclopedia pages that are quite educational. Such links, however, definitely do not count as legally valid resources of actually working law code that can be used to compete against an international security organization and their very powerful member nations.

They do if one believes that law should be based on reason.

The list below was made by random choices of various competing organizations (other than the unique Lifeboat Foundation) who might already use some law in connection with the above mentioned encyclopedia pages: [...]

That is a mixed bag of various institutions, some of which would (or could, with some restructuring) be very useful in a free market to provide things like risk assessments, quality assurance certifications, insurance audits, etc. And some are insane alarmist gangs lobbying for greater government force. A lot of groups profit from perceived threats and panics, but I'm yet to see a single major threat that can stand the test of rational scrutiny.

The further into the future one looks, the less probable any "global threat theories" become. As economic integration goes up, the probability of war and terrorism go way down. As technology advances, it becomes ever-easier to monitor the origin of all contaminants, and ever-more-difficult it would be for any "mad scientist" to get away with his crimes. The further humanity ventures into space, the lower is the risk of an epidemic or any other potential crisis that could affect all mankind. Etc.

The human race has nothing to fear but fear itself!

Edited by Alex Libman, 20 September 2011 - 12:01 AM.

[robomoon]

...//quote content cut//...

The list below was made by random choices of various competing organizations (other than the unique Lifeboat Foundation) who might already use some law in connection with the above mentioned encyclopedia pages: [...]

That is a mixed bag of various institutions, some of which would (or could, with some restructuring) be very useful in a free market to provide things like risk assessments, quality assurance certifications, insurance audits, etc. And some are insane alarmist gangs lobbying for greater government force. A lot of groups profit from perceived threats and panics, but I'm yet to see a single major threat that can stand the test of rational scrutiny.

The further into the future one looks, the less probable any "global threat theories" become. As economic integration goes up, the probability of war and terrorism go way down. As technology advances, it becomes ever-easier to monitor the origin of all contaminants, and ever-more-difficult it would be for any "mad scientist" to get away with his crimes. The further humanity ventures into space, the lower is the risk of an epidemic or any other potential crisis that could affect all mankind. Etc.

The human race has nothing to fear but fear itself!

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<title></title> A cocky phrase like “insane alarmist gangs” would suggest there is no seriously great risk. Actually I’m aware there are risks, and even if I’m wrong and there are non outside my own fantasy world, it is not so easy to give up trying to understand what makes eventual risks appear. As long as I don’t understand risks sufficiently, I’m better using the principle of active cautiousness and a healthy dose of critical thinking instead of an unhealthy overdose of positive thinking. When I’m saying the world is just fine because there seems to be no risk and something might be positive thinking while I’m doing nothing against a risk that might be real, there should be a safety problem.

When there is no mad scientist who can create a dangerous virus that is spreading fast, the world could be safer. But if I don’t have enough understanding about how artificially created viruses work, or at least something like genetically manipulated and engineered viruses, there should be no need to stop taking care about new virus experiments with caution.

There may be dangerous aliens in outer space I should also be cautious about. What the government is actually doing with a possible risk: they are spending most of the financial funding for great research experiments. Therefore, it is possible they are using PR propaganda for turning a hard science into soft science which opinion I got about could be manipulated for a certain political agenda.

Scientists could be tempted to gain great amounts of financial funding from the government for expensive research experiments by using something like statistical methods for special theories incl. difficult mathematics in astronomy. This field of research looks very complicated, but there are also some theories that could be manipulated for political reasons.

The celebrated leaders in natural science who are owning a certain immunity against critical objections to some mathematics in their academic literature, espc. objections from individuals acting outside the faculty which the aforementioned leaders belong to, shall be aware of having established theories that can be manipulated through politics, like something from economists. For a theory in natural science based on something like statistics and mathematics, there appears a believe in risk assessment that could be based on peer pressure and reputation instead of independent observations.

Not only the common public, but also chemists and biologists can be manipulated in their opinion to serve political interests in governmental funding, intelligence or counterintelligence, reputation from new research results, employment, and investments into the faculty of physics.

In the past we were very much in favor of seasteading. So any settlement stretching out beyond the beach into the seabed has to be rated top priority in hindsight to material simulations of installations that could be applied for space settlement later.

Edited by robomoon, 23 September 2011 - 08:35 AM.