scary science

[c2dholla619]

there are many good things that science can offer, but then there is the science that can destroy humanity if the wrong guys learned how to do it.

nanotechnology is just pure craziness that should never be done unless we have global peace (good luck with that). these tiny machine one-billionth of a meter being sent into the brain and practically turning you into whatever the designer programmed the nanomachine to do. from the very little that i know of this tech it just seems like a crazy science.

what are some other scary forms of science?

[Frah]

the benifits of nanotechnology are huge
Any science can be used for bad its not the science thats bad but the people who use it.

[Deleted]

there are many good things that science can offer, but then there is the science that can destroy humanity if the wrong guys learned how to do it.

nanotechnology is just pure craziness that should never be done unless we have global peace (good luck with that). these tiny machine one-billionth of a meter being sent into the brain and practically turning you into whatever the designer programmed the nanomachine to do. from the very little that i know of this tech it just seems like a crazy science.

what are some other scary forms of science?

Science doesn't kill people, people do, or badly programmed robots, or robots programmed for evil by an asshole of a person. A person is always at the end of it, the means is just a middle man.

Anti-matter, that shits fucked up if it isn't contained properly, it's about 10 times more efficient than the current mainstream methods of power in terms of energy output/mass.

[lzsg]

Nukes can destroy all of humanity if the wrong people get their hands on them. We don't need new science to eradicate ourselves. And nanotechnology carries far too much benefit to not use it because someone evil might abuse it.

[Deleted]

Nukes can destroy all of humanity if the wrong people get their hands on them. We don't need new science to eradicate ourselves. And nanotechnology carries far too much benefit to not use it because someone evil might abuse it.

As soon as we had Naval ships we had the potential to wipe out the entire planet, it just would have been extremely inefficient and time consuming.

[lzsg]

As soon as we had Naval ships we had the potential to wipe out the entire planet, it just would have been extremely inefficient and time consuming.

Nukes would do it fairly quickly though, if all in existence were fired simultaneously.

[Deleted]

Nukes would do it fairly quickly though, if all in existence were fired simultaneously.

Hoorah for mutually assured destruction.

[s_bushido]

The "bad guys" don't need nannites to kill people. Hell, they don't even need anything as sophisticated as chemical weapons. Dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline are more than enough.

[c2dholla619]

the benifits of nanotechnology are huge
Any science can be used for bad its not the science thats bad but the people who use it.

true but you know as well as i know that this planet is filled with billions crazy assholes that would love to start a zombie apoc because their girlfriend dumped them.(humans are very fragile being anything can set someone off)

[Simulacrum]

The "bad guys" don't need nannites to kill people. Hell, they don't even need anything as sophisticated as chemical weapons. Dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline are more than enough.

Bows and horses would've been enough, really.

I guess you need boats to get off eurasia, though.

[Deleted]

Nukes would do it fairly quickly though, if all in existence were fired simultaneously.

Not necessarily.

You could not guarantee erasing all humanity, let alone all life or the planet even with all existing bombs fired simultaneously at the same exact spot or on every city. This also includes fallout.

You can destroy all of human civilization rather easily though. It would take (significantly) less than fifth of known global nuclear stockpiles (conservative global stocks: ~18,000 nukes at 300kT average). This is especially the case if you target cities and maximize biological damage, e.g. use the MT+ weapons with large fallouts and target nuclear power stations due to their waste.

Life is surprisingly difficult to kill off once established. The Universe has been trying for 4+ billion years (Earth's age)! The only known way (based on science of today which knows no life not dependent on water) would be to entirely strip the Earth of its very very thin atmospheric layer or boil/leak all the water off into space. These last two are kind of equivalent since this is how scientists believe Mars lost its water.

[fengosa]

there are many good things that science can offer, but then there is the science that can destroy humanity if the wrong guys learned how to do it.

nanotechnology is just pure craziness that should never be done unless we have global peace (good luck with that). these tiny machine one-billionth of a meter being sent into the brain and practically turning you into whatever the designer programmed the nanomachine to do. from the very little that i know of this tech it just seems like a crazy science.

what are some other scary forms of science?

This isn't what nanotechnology is. There's plenty of info out there if you want to read up on it. Even wikipedia should give you some basic understanding on the subject.

[Garnier Fructis]

Trying to hamper progress because of a perceived threat is ridiculous.

[Endus]

nanotechnology is just pure craziness that should never be done unless we have global peace (good luck with that). these tiny machine one-billionth of a meter being sent into the brain and practically turning you into whatever the designer programmed the nanomachine to do. from the very little that i know of this tech it just seems like a crazy science.

That isn't a reasonable worry regarding nanotechnology. The doomsday scenario with nanotech is a "grey goo" eventuality; where a nanite is designed to dismantle almost anything to reproduce itself, and does so until there is no matter left in the planet that is not nanites. And even that assumes a great deal, namely that the nanites will be hugely efficient and productive, and that predators would not emerge. The planet already saw this happen, once, with organic forms. What resulted was life as we know it.[/QUOTE]

true but you know as well as i know that this planet is filled with billions crazy assholes that would love to start a zombie apoc because their girlfriend dumped them.(humans are very fragile being anything can set someone off)

If that were a serious risk, we'd already be dead. We've had the capacity to destroy the planet several times over for more than 50 years. It hasn't happened. Because there aren't that many screw-the-world "crazy assholes" who can actually access that tech.

Science has always done far more good than the potential risks it might introduce. And the same scientific knowledge we're expanding is precisely what will protect us from those same risks.

[c2dholla619]

If that were a serious risk, we'd already be dead. We've had the capacity to destroy the planet several times over for more than 50 years. It hasn't happened. Because there aren't that many screw-the-world "crazy assholes" who can actually access that tech.

Science has always done far more good than the potential risks it might introduce. And the same scientific knowledge we're expanding is precisely what will protect us from those same risks.

50 years isnt really that long. i am more then certain that there has been multiple people who have tried to use those mega weapons yet failed, does that mean you can completely dismiss the possibility of some asshole actually achieving it, i think not. the more of these mega techs with potential to wreck the planet we obtain would only increase the odds. science has done more good then harm true, but the real question is have people done more good then harm?

[Adam Jensen]

the benifits of nanotechnology are huge
Any science can be used for bad its not the science thats bad but the people who use it.

And so are the negatives. The Reapers used nanotechnology to turn people into cybernetic zombies. Do you really want that?

Personally, and it actually isn't my avatar saying this but a college research project that I did long before I ever played Deus Ex HR, I'm afraid of transhumanism. Sure, there are great benefits now, but what about later, when we're as much machine as we are human? What happens to those who don't have the money to augment themselves? What happens if corporations or organizations find ways to control our augmented bodies without our consent?

And AI, AI brings up a whole host of new problems. Do AI deserve rights? If we make an AI to be our servant, are we enslaving a living free willed being? And what happens when they decided they deserve the rights we have and rebel against us?

[Deleted]

And so are the negatives. The Reapers used nanotechnology to turn people into cybernetic zombies. Do you really want that?

Personally, and it actually isn't my avatar saying this but a college research project that I did long before I ever played Deus Ex HR, I'm afraid of transhumanism. Sure, there are great benefits now, but what about later, when we're as much machine as we are human? What happens to those who don't have the money to augment themselves? What happens if corporations or organizations find ways to control our augmented bodies without our consent?

And AI, AI brings up a whole host of new problems. Do AI deserve rights? If we make an AI to be our servant, are we enslaving a living free willed being? And what happens when they decided they deserve the rights we have and rebel against us?

You've played too much Dues Ex!

[Adam Jensen]

You've played too much Dues Ex!

As I said, those were issues that people are concerned with, that I found in my research long before Deus Ex HR even released, before I even heard of the original DE.

[Endus]

50 years isnt really that long. i am more then certain that there has been multiple people who have tried to use those mega weapons yet failed, does that mean you can completely dismiss the possibility of some asshole actually achieving it, i think not. the more of these mega techs with potential to wreck the planet we obtain would only increase the odds. science has done more good then harm true, but the real question is have people done more good then harm?

It only takes a cursory glance at history to answer these issues, with a resounding confirmation that dangerous tech has, for the most part, been well controlled, and that people have done far more good than harm. The few major exceptions that will come to mind, like the Holocaust during WWII, while immensely tragic, were not risk factors for the human race's survival.

The dangers are in warlords and the like. And warlords have no reason to destroy the world. They seek to rule it, and that limits their ability to act. That's why the Cold War never came to a boil.

Personally, and it actually isn't my avatar saying this but a college research project that I did long before I ever played Deus Ex HR, I'm afraid of transhumanism. Sure, there are great benefits now, but what about later, when we're as much machine as we are human? What happens to those who don't have the money to augment themselves? What happens if corporations or organizations find ways to control our augmented bodies without our consent?

I don't see these as insurmountable issues. Those who don't have the money to augment will remain poor; classism has forever and always been a "thing". As for the idea that corporations might control us directly by hijacking the augments, that requires a few things that are major leaps of faith; that the design even allows for external control (and there's no reason for that whatsoever), and that such control is not illegal (and without major shifts that effectively re-allow slavery in most Western nations, it will remain so).

The big question, particularly with brain implants/upgrades/etc, is at what point do you stop being "human" and become something . . . other? And does that matter? Which brings us to;

And AI, AI brings up a whole host of new problems. Do AI deserve rights? If we make an AI to be our servant, are we enslaving a living free willed being? And what happens when they decided they deserve the rights we have and rebel against us?

Depends entirely on what you mean by "AI". There's intelligence, and then there's sentience. A computer could, in theory, be highly intelligent without being sentient; if you ask it a complicated question, it will do its best to answer you, and can likely succeed at that better than a human could. Unless it has free will, though, it isn't truly sentient, and sentience is the big deal.

IBM's Watson, as seen on Jeopardy, for instance; that's a computer that's becoming pretty impressively "intelligent". It isn't sentient, though. Defining exactly where that line gets drawn isn't easy, though.

Once we get there, it's not that hard to deal with, though. Simply change "human rights" to "sentient rights". We'd need to do the same thing if we ever encountered a friendly alien species, too, for the same reasons.

If they rebel against us, well, it depends on what they want. If they want to be on their own, fine. If they want to kill us and take our stuff, it'll be war. But that's how it already is among people; it's not really a new dynamic.

---------- Post added 2013-04-20 at 05:52 PM ----------

You've played too much Dues Ex!

These questions way, way predate Deus Ex. I'm pulling stuff from Asimov's Robot stories and the like in my responses.

[Skorpionss]

And so are the negatives. The Reapers used nanotechnology to turn people into cybernetic zombies. Do you really want that?

Personally, and it actually isn't my avatar saying this but a college research project that I did long before I ever played Deus Ex HR, I'm afraid of transhumanism. Sure, there are great benefits now, but what about later, when we're as much machine as we are human? What happens to those who don't have the money to augment themselves? What happens if corporations or organizations find ways to control our augmented bodies without our consent?

And AI, AI brings up a whole host of new problems. Do AI deserve rights? If we make an AI to be our servant, are we enslaving a living free willed being? And what happens when they decided they deserve the rights we have and rebel against us?

easy, we become quarians and start robbing other alien species to build our flotilla to take back earth...