Poll: Will Technology Ever Defeat Nature?
Recently, while on the climb-down from the acute effects of Ayahuasca, my friend and I were discussing whether technology could ever vanquish nature, specifically in the context of the besieged Amazon rainforest.
His position was that a.) people have been encroaching on the rainforest for centuries and it’s still there, having only made tiny inroads into the vast landscape and b.) even if the rainforest were ever fully destroyed by man (or AI birthed by man), it would eventually resurface in some other incarnation.
On the second count, I agree that the rainforest, if it were destroyed and all life within it extinguished, the same or something else like it would likely emerge at some point on a long enough timeline (even billions of years).
On the first count, though, what I don’t think he appreciates is the exponential rate of increase in technological capacity year over year, so that in the not-so-distant future it would be entirely plausible that nihilistic technocrats or AI could develop the means to wipe out all life on Earth in a single keystroke.
Another way of looking at it, of course, is that technological progress by man is a natural process itself, so the question “can technology vanquish nature?” doesn’t make sense.
So, to put it to you, Armageddon Prose audience: will technology ever defeat nature?
(“God” can serve as a proxy for “nature” and the question still applies.)
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
Follow his stuff via Substack. Also, keep tabs via Twitter.
For hip Armageddon Prose t-shirts, hats, etc., peruse the merch store.
Support always welcome via the digital tip jar.
Bitcoin public address: bc1qvq4hgnx3eu09e0m2kk5uanxnm8ljfmpefwhawv
AI is just the latest 'hype' and I'm with Public Enemy on that... Brave now runs 'AI' on searches on Android which is just basically a preferred search result. BIBO, bias in, bias out. That is why it is being pushed in the way it is. Meanwhile the best language model has the IQ of a cat, apparently... I think cats are way smarter personally. Then there's the question of powering these vast data centres and their reliance on coding...
Hubris doesn't begin to encompass the 'tech bros', DARPA stooges... Carry on building your bunkers on faultlines fucktards...
Clearly we have evidence from past mass extinctions that information cannot be created nor destroyed if we admit that time is a simple illusion as the destroyed ecosystems arise in another but similar form very very quickly so if we tried to destroy the Amazon it would morph into another form as life has done in the past. Clearly simple Darwinistic ideas are pure crap. As my brother a PhD microbiologist always says "The people who are most convinced of "evolution" via a Darwinistic route are always those who know least about Darwinism".