
Hackable humans and digital dictators: Q&A with Yuval Noah Harari - DyslexicAtheist
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/hackable-humans-digital-dictators-qa-yuval-noah-harari-180824095306982.html
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vages
I have read Harari's “Sapiens”, but I did not want to go on with the sequel.
The main reason was his way of always seeing clouds on the horizon and
predicting doomsday, probably because fear sells more books.

I believe the metaphorical clouds he is talking about here will probably drift
by. This is because I believe that the main reason why most people don't act
like tyrants, is not that they don't have the opportunity (because most people
have the opportunity to be someone's tormentor); it is that it is in their
economic interest to cooperate with others, benefiting their own survival.

Conjuring up dystopian visions of the future is no challenge; I'm sure most
readers could come up with ten just to argue with this comment. But society's
been getting better in every aspect of living almost every decade since the
enlightenment. While this is not a law of nature, it is reasonable to assume
that this will continue for a little while.

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briga
Society has been getting better, but at what cost? Human's have radically
disrupted ever biosphere on Earth throughout the past 10,000 years and are
almost certainly the prime driver of a current mass extinction of life on
Earth. Our global society depends on healthy ecosystems, so where does it
leave us when those ecosystems collapse? Every day human life might be getting
better, but for how long? Can we sustain modern Western lifestyles for
thousands of years? The Romans lived through hundreds of years in relative
affluence where their civilization seemed unbreakable. Look at where that
empire is today. 70 million years ago dinosaurs were the undisputed rulers of
the planet, but where are the dinosaurs now? What's to say that ours is the
civilization that lasts forever when all historical evidence is to the
contrary?

The sequel Homo Deus isn't as good, and it felt like something that was
written in a rush after Harari managed to break into the best-seller list.

~~~
vages
The point of surviving is not to last forever; it is to last longer. Feeling
slightly depressed that your civilization may undergo changes during the next
hundred years or that your species may not be able to last until the end of
time is a privilege of living in an abundant, technologically advanced
society. To paraphrase Stein's law and one of its corollaries: Something that
can't go on forever, won't, but it can go on for longer than you think.

The reason why everyone points to Western Rome as an example of fleeting
success (forgetting that its eastern part survived for an additional
millennium), is that it was the last empire to go out with a real boom. As a
counter-example, you could point to the British empire, whose heritage is
still alive and well: We are discussing using its language and it is still a
part of the G7. The same goes for the Roman language, which is still one of
the world's most spoken, just under another name (Spanish). And you probably
have dinosaur descendants living in your city, in the form of birds. Things
survive, and so will we.

Worrying about imminent ecological collapse is as old as the industrial
revolution. Thomas Malthus postulated that agricultural yields would not be
able to keep up with population growth. But here we are, more than two hundred
years later, better equipped than ever to tackle the challenges ahead of us. I
am certain that we will make it out alive, as long as we keep up our good
work.

~~~
rorykoehler
We are in massive unpayable (with todays technologies) debt to the biosphere.
The difference between Rome and now was Romes fall was due to being superseded
by other humans. We are in a totally different time now. Western hegemony
failing will not be replaced by Chinese or whatever. Humans will die off is
unprecedented numbers, along with most other species. This time it won't be
humans replacing other humans unless we achieve some pretty remarkable
technological breakthroughs in the coming decade. You talk about 100 years in
the future but I think you'll be in for a shock when you see the climate
change in the next 10 years even.

~~~
vages
Where did you get these claims from?

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
[https://climate.nasa.gov/](https://climate.nasa.gov/)

[http://www.ipcc.ch/](http://www.ipcc.ch/)

~~~
vages
I don't see the prediction of humanity's immediate extinction on the front
pages of these organizations. From what I have gathered, their perspective,
like mine, is that these challenges are substantial, but surmountable. And we
can all contribute.

As I see it, the best thing anyone can do right now is to convince their
friends and relatives that nuclear energy is safe and necessary; that will buy
us a lot of time.

~~~
rorykoehler
We're past the tipping point to run away warming according to some reputable
climate scientists. Im not saying we can't reverse it but we're not even
attempting to at the moment beyond half hearted deals like the Paris climate
accord.

~~~
GijsjanB
And the US is not even complying to the half hearted agreement

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zawerf
There is a much more convincing talk on the dangers of bioengineering:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY)

News article if you can't watch:
[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/31/bioweapons-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/31/bioweapons-
cancer-moonshot-gene-editing)

tl;dr “The reason you haven’t heard much about bioweapons is that they’ve been
held back by a pretty severe limitation, which is the potential for blowback."
Unlocking the ability to target specific genes will overcome this since the
same tech that allows targeting only cancer cell will allow targeting specific
groups or individuals.

> What, for example, if groups spread their agenda in a very direct way, by
> literally rewriting DNA to make it impossible to live a life against their
> credo? Suppose militant vegans wanted to end meat eating: there’s a gene for
> that. Or imagine if radical misogynists wanted to force the veiling of all
> women: there’s a gene for sunlight intolerance, and the genetic functions of
> gender are already well-known.

> Or, he suggested, attacks could be done on an individual level: targeting
> public figures by stealing their genetic code, or targeting their whole
> family by sequencing the genes of someone who’s closely related. And the
> attacks could be subtler than what’s expected: Sotos cited genes for
> intractable diarrhea, massive weight gain, total baldness and “an intense
> fishy body odour”.

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dprophecyguy
Do any of you guys can think of something that we can do in order to get rid
of the problems that's described in this talk. I am asking for solutions that
may or may not work but just a guess. What about the problem with Bio-
Engineering? What about hacking humans and predicting humans behavior? I want
to hear what is your thoughts on the solutions to these problems?

