Industrial Society and its Future

[Juniper Bruhmomentius]

Can't be worse than Trump

Definitely cant

 

[atara]

This whole "industrial society" is just a strawman that Kaczynski is using as a conduit in his rant against society in general. He's literally repeating what Schopenhauer wrote more than a hundred years earlier. This particularly stood out to me:



Now here's virtually the same thought as expressed by Schopenhauer:



Schopenhauer was annoyed by people hammering and moving around in horse-drawn buggies and Kaczynski was annoyed by people mowing their lawn and moving around on iron horses. Technology doesn't even factor in

Whaaat?

Yes, Schopenhauer and Kaczynski both complained about noise. But Kaczynski wasn't complaining about noise, itself, but that technology amplifies disruptive side-effects, and he used noise as an example. He is right and wrong on the specifics: cars are not louder than whips, but cars' noise carries farther. But the principle of charity suggests we at least consider the strongest version of his argument, and "noise" is certainly not the most important disruptive side-effect of technological progress.

That would be air pollution. Air pollution is much worse than any diffuse side-effect of pre-technological activity. The worst thing previously was overfarming, which tends to hurt mostly the landowner and thus generates natural free-market incentives to control it. Air pollution, however, must be regulated, and society has learned that the hard way; millions of people still die each year because of air pollution.

Air pollution, and its regulation, are also very much not the result of anyone trying to control anyone else. It is an "externality".

 

[thujone]

Yes, Schopenhauer and Kaczynski both complained about noise. But Kaczynski wasn't complaining about noise, itself, but that technology amplifies disruptive side-effects, and he used noise as an example.

I don't disagree with this. I drew the parallel to Schopenhauer just to point out that Kaczynski thinks along the same lines. I picked the passage on noise because it was the most convenient place where a similarity could easily be shown, but if you were to read the essays of Schopenhauer in full, you would no doubt be left with the feeling that they were very much alike in their thinking.

But the principle of charity suggests we at least consider the strongest version of his argument, and "noise" is certainly not the most important disruptive side-effect of technological progress.

That would be air pollution. Air pollution is much worse than any diffuse side-effect of pre-technological activity...

This here is what I find so frustrating about Kaczynski. He makes prescient points about the direction society is heading in but because it's a sprawling, all-over-the-place rant, it leaves so much room for misinterpretation about the actual POINT he's trying to make.

His point wasn't simply "technological progress is bad". If it were, he would not have devoted so much of his essay specifically to point out how leftist political ideology has engineered an industrialized society.

Let's reflect on the title: "Industrial Society and Its Future". Society is the noun in this title, not industry or technology.

It's less about technology and more about how we have all been indoctrinated to believe whatever political narrative is most attuned to convincing us that happiness comes from supporting economic growth with labour and consumption. It's about how we're raised from birth to be obedient, functional cogs in the machinery of progress that has created this urban technological utopia that we have been made dependent on so that our continued obedience to this system is preferable to any more primitive form of existence, community and social structure.

 

[sigmond]

IIRC, Kaczynski was raging mainly against the proliferation of highways and strip malls but is that still relevant in 2019? Now American infrastructure is in a catastrophic state of disrepair and there's a retail apocalypse shuttering malls across the country.

Wouldn't today's Unabomber be writing about the future of postindustrial society?

I'm confused as to what exactly the point was invoking Kaczynski when discussing topics like CCTV, AI and such...

Whats up thujone!

Its been a long time since I read any of the 'manifesto' but one of his main complaints was that technology has made life so easy for humans that now instead of spending most of our time occupied by tasks necessary for our survival we spend that time on trivial things (surrogate activities) that have little meaning other than a way to keep us busy. Ultimately these activities, which he believes are lacking a discernible or visceral meaning, end up making us feel confused and depressed and result in a multitude of social issues. I think he also believed that whatever benefits humans have enjoyed by advancing technology were not worth the destruction that was caused to the environment.

He makes a lot of interesting points. Its definitely worth a read and not something that should be discredited because of the actions he decided to take.

* feel free to correct me if I am wrong on this. I'll have to read his arguments again.

 

[Wilson Wilson]

Let's reflect on the title: "Industrial Society and Its Future". Society is the noun in this title, not industry or technology.

It's less about technology and more about how we have all been indoctrinated to believe whatever political narrative is most attuned to convincing us that happiness comes from supporting economic growth with labour and consumption. It's about how we're raised from birth to be obedient, functional cogs in the machinery of progress that has created this urban technological utopia that we have been made dependent on so that our continued obedience to this system is preferable to any more primitive form of existence, community and social structure.

Yes the focus is undoubtedly on how the increasing reliance on technology influences the direction of society. But as far as society raising people to be cogs in the system, I do not see this as a separate issue from the criticisms of technology. Does one not plainly lead to the other?

Direct quote: "modern man is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations, and his fate depends on the actions of persons remote from him whose decisions he cannot influence. This is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in any technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO regulate human behavior closely in order to function."

Further: "In any technologically advanced society the individual's fate MUST depend on decisions that he personally cannot influence to any great extent. A technological society cannot be broken down into small, autonomous communities, because production depends on the cooperation of very large numbers of people and machines. Such a society MUST be highly organized and decisions HAVE TO be made that affect very large numbers of people. When a decision affects, say, a million people, then each of the affected individuals has, on the average, only a one-millionth share in making the decision. What usually happens in practice is that decisions are made by public officials or corporation executives, or by technical specialists, but even when the public votes on a decision the number of voters ordinarily is too large for the vote of any one individual to be significant."

And what is to me the most compelling argument: "While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications ... how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages. Yet, as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all these technical advances taken together have created a world in which the average man's fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of politicians, corporation executives and remote, anonymous technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence."

It is very easy to extrapolate this into the modern day. The internet - which our entire society has come to rely on in a very short period of time - is largely controlled by a small handful of huge corporations which in turn are influenced by or are influencers of the state and various political agendas.

For example 60% of all the servers in the world are collectively owned by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. Additionally, Amazon has contracts to run servers for the CIA while Microsoft does the same for the DoD. So even the most powerful branches of the US government are now reliant on private tech companies. When you think about it this is pretty crazy.

The increase in "cloud computing" as a trend has directly lead to over half of the internet being controlled by three companies. What this means for the average citizen is that a series of seemingly unrelated online services are in fact all hosted largely by those three companies. And the government organisations above them who have all the information and power are similarly trusting those same services. This means those three companies - and the government - sit on a goldmine of data.

Similarly, look at smartphones, which again we have come to heavily rely on as a society in a very short period of time. 90% of all smartphones in the world are Android based. So Google effectively controls and, as per its whole business model, surveils almost the entire worldwide smartphone market.

And of course the amount of data gathered by social media companies such as Facebook, which we are becoming increasingly reliant on for socialising, goes without saying. Facebook of course is undoubtedly the dominant social media company and maintains their dominance by buying out competitors.

The real world implications of this are clear in events such as Snowden's NSA leaks. The NSA can pretty much collect the data of the entire internet through forming alliances with a small number of companies. If you have the three big cloud providers you effectively have 60% of the internet already. One of those is Google which in turn gives you access to 90% of smartphones. Facebook gives you almost all social media.

On a lower level, it also means governments who wish to spy on and censor their citizens similarly only need to target a handful of companies in order to do so. We are all so reliant on the internet, and the internet is so easy to control, it is now trivial for governments to control us through it.

For the most extreme realisation of this you need look no further than China's social credit system. They partnered with Chinese tech giants such as Alibaba and Tencent to develop the system and gather initial data, then the government swooped it up into a state controlled centralised system. The control exerted in the Chinese system is remarkable only in how overt it is. The same level of data is held on individuals in pretty much any developed country.

Consider dictatorships of the past, before the internet. In order to gather information on people you had to encourage neighbours to inform on each other and have police constantly roaming the streets. It's easy to imagine that while laws were strict on paper, in reality it's likely a lot of crime went undetected simply because gathering the information was very difficult. Today gathering information is extremely easy and can simply be automated with very little manpower.

Even without government interventions, we are at a point where decisions made by American tech companies affect the entire world. We see very real examples of this in, for instance, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where Facebook allowed user data to be gathered and abused for political gain in multiple countries.

It is unlikely, but a political party could run on a platform of promising to increase privacy and win. But how would you verify they are sticking to their word even in this scenario? The actual servers running all this are closed off and private, as are the organisations in charge of them, and there is a huge economic and political incentive to continue with how things are. You have to take someone's word for it if they promise to reverse this and just hope they are not lying. The whole thing is out of your control. As was predicted, you are entirely dependent on decisions made by government officials and technicians in a manner that allows you no real influence.

And so, you reread those quotes again, and consider these facts, and you can see in a very real way how increased centralised social control and technological advancement are going hand in hand.

What will happen in the future is anyone's guess, but a look at the current state of technology can only lead one to conclude Kaczynski was right.

 

[thujone]

Whats up thujone!

Werd

Its been a long time since I read any of the 'manifesto' but one of his main complaints was that technology has made life so easy for humans that now instead of spending most of our time occupied by tasks necessary for our survival we spend that time on trivial things (surrogate activities) that have little meaning other than a way to keep us busy. Ultimately these activities, which he believes are lacking a discernible or visceral meaning, end up making us feel confused and depressed and result in a multitude of social issues. I think he also believed that whatever benefits humans have enjoyed by advancing technology were not worth the destruction that was caused to the environment.

I don't think primitivism is a reasonable trajectory though. Humanity is driven towards progress if for no other reason than our inherent need to compete. I just can't see eye to eye with any political philosophy that requires human nature to fundamentally change

He makes a lot of interesting points. Its definitely worth a read and not something that should be discredited because of the actions he decided to take.

Kaczynski was dead-on about a lot, but it was all jumbled together in an incoherent rant that was only published because he rose to fame as a mail bomber. It's tragic if anything. He has to sit in a prison and watch what he knew would happen... happen.

Yes the focus is undoubtedly on how the increasing reliance on technology influences the direction of society. But as far as society raising people to be cogs in the system, I do not see this as a separate issue from the criticisms of technology. Does one not plainly lead to the other?

Technology can be freeing, too. Take for example someone like Richard M. Stallman. He has written software that helps millions of people in their daily lives and is anything but a cog. He's a controversial figure because of how free he is to say whatever he believes. His life's work is technology and he's a freedom zealot. Just because technology is often found divorced from ethics doesn't mean it has to be.

Direct quote: "modern man is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations, and his fate depends on the actions of persons remote from him whose decisions he cannot influence. This is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in any technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO regulate human behavior closely in order to function."

the U.S. has freedom of speech enshrined in law yet the government does nothing to prevent society itself from imposing harsh consequences on people that practice disagreeable and unpopular free speech. So how is technology or even the government at fault here, when society decides how you will be punished for doing something that's perfectly legal?

It is very easy to extrapolate this into the modern day. The internet - which our entire society has come to rely on in a very short period of time - is largely controlled by a small handful of huge corporations which in turn are influenced by or are influencers of the state and various political agendas.

Did anyone force you to sign up for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace or any other social network? There was even a study that proved people would sign away the rights to their firstborn child to join a social networking site. These internet companies have amassed great wealth and power just because we gave it to them. We can take the power away by refusing to use their services. Using these services is a choice, not a requirement.

Similarly, look at smartphones, which again we have come to heavily rely on as a society in a very short period of time. 90% of all smartphones in the world are Android based. So Google effectively controls and, as per its whole business model, surveils almost the entire worldwide smartphone market.

I wouldn't know, my smartphone runs on AOSP and doesn't contact Google servers. Some people choose not to even own a smartphone. There are choices.

On a lower level, it also means governments who wish to spy on and censor their citizens similarly only need to target a handful of companies in order to do so. We are all so reliant on the internet, and the internet is so easy to control, it is now trivial for governments to control us through it.

Astroturfing is the only major internet control problem in my country, all things considered that's not so bad. Some countries exert strict control but it always ends up coming down to rounding people up who use certain software to subvert the technological controls so that's really just a matter of a government having the manpower and legal authority to do such things. It isn't likely to happen in democratic countries.

And so, you reread those quotes again, and consider these facts, and you can see in a very real way how increased centralised social control and technological advancement are going hand in hand.

What will happen in the future is anyone's guess, but a look at the current state of technology can only lead one to conclude Kaczynski was right.

I agree that what you worry about is probably inevitable because there are so many ways to exploit technology and exploit human behaviour. I only disagree that technology and technological progress itself is bad and that primitivism is a viable answer to our problems.

 

[Wilson Wilson]

Technology can be freeing, too. Take for example someone like Richard M. Stallman. He has written software that helps millions of people in their daily lives and is anything but a cog. He's a controversial figure because of how free he is to say whatever he believes. His life's work is technology and he's a freedom zealot. Just because technology is often found divorced from ethics doesn't mean it has to be.

I know about Stallman. I use Linux (sorry, GNU/Linux!) on most of my machines and try to use FOSS whenever possible.

In the grand scheme of things, looking into the distant future, I am also optimistic about the direction decentralised networks are going in. This will put the power back where it belongs.

But as things stand right now, the current structure of the internet has pretty much gone backwards to the era of mainframe computing thanks to all this cloud shit, and as a result pretty much every single major web service is run by three companies.

the U.S. has freedom of speech enshrined in law yet the government does nothing to prevent society itself from imposing harsh consequences on people that practice disagreeable and unpopular free speech. So how is technology or even the government at fault here, when society decides how you will be punished for doing something that's perfectly legal?

You noted yourself, he talks widely about society, he does not put the blame squarely on the state.

Did anyone force you to sign up for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace or any other social network? There was even a study that proved people would sign away the rights to their firstborn child to join a social networking site. These internet companies have amassed great wealth and power just because we gave it to them. We can take the power away by refusing to use their services. Using these services is a choice, not a requirement.

I don't use Facebook. But even something as simple as that is radical enough to be a statement these days. People look at you funny.

There's another great quote that directly addresses exactly this point: "When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it."

Indeed, good luck functioning in modern society without the internet, or holding down any kind of office job without having a smartphone and a laptop. No one technically forces you to do anything, but in order to actually work and earn money you are required by social obligation to use new technology. And social obligation regulates behaviour far more effectively than impersonal demands from the state. Social obligation today also requires people use social media. A small number of individuals opt not to with little cost for now. But like the internet and smartphones before it, I would be amazed if we don't end up becoming so reliant on social media that we're required to sign up by social convention even if we don't want to.

In fact even when I was at university over five years ago I needed a Facebook account because everything was arranged on there. I don't just mean parties either I mean study sessions, group projects, and so on. I would have had a hard time actually studying if I wasn't on Facebook.

For that matter, basically every company has an internal social network in their intranet. I don't use mine. But I have a profile on there because everyone who works at the company does. I really don't see the point in stupid shit like that. Apparently it's meant to boost morale somehow?

And do platforms such as Slack count as social media? I'd say they partially do at least. Certainly they're IRC-like chat rooms. Which you now must use as part of work.

I wouldn't know, my smartphone runs on AOSP and doesn't contact Google servers. Some people choose not to even own a smartphone. There are choices.

I go a step further and use Graphene OS.

But haven't you really just made my point for me? Even though you are consciously opting out of so much of this, you still feel like you need a smartphone.

People can choose to not own a smartphone but they give up a lot, socially and professionally, by making such a decision.

The whole point here is not that someone is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to buy or use anything. It's that this stuff has "soft power."

Astroturfing is the only major internet control problem in my country, all things considered that's not so bad. Some countries exert strict control but it always ends up coming down to rounding people up who use certain software to subvert the technological controls so that's really just a matter of a government having the manpower and legal authority to do such things. It isn't likely to happen in democratic countries.

So there is no mass surveillance in your country? And no corporate surveillance? The information gathered by corporate surveillance is not used in an attempt to alter your behaviour?

I agree that what you worry about is probably inevitable because there are so many ways to exploit technology and exploit human behaviour. I only disagree that technology and technological progress itself is bad and that primitivism is a viable answer to our problems.

I also disagree that technology is inherently bad. I said already in this thread I work for a tech company. I'm good at what I do and I make a lot of money doing it. I wouldn't be so good at hunting with spears.

However, the specific points I'm addressing here regarding technology assisting in greater centralised social control are extremely valid, at least as they pertain to the current model of the internet.

 

[sigmond]

Somewhat off-topic but I find it interesting that Charles Manson also had a similar philosophy. I would have to read more about both individuals, but remember seeing an interview with Manson from the 80's where he goes on some rant about environmental destruction. I forget what people influenced Kaczynski's thought but I remember much of what he wrote about wasn't original.

*Its not surprising but it seems like Marx's alienation was a rather large influence.

 

[Wilson Wilson]

Somewhat off-topic but I find it interesting that Charles Manson also had a similar philosophy. I would have to read more about both individuals, but remember seeing an interview with Manson from the 80's where he goes on some rant about environmental destruction. I forget what people influenced Kaczynski's thought but I remember much of what he wrote about wasn't original.

*Its not surprising but it seems like Marx's alienation was a rather large influence.

There's a real interesting article about Kaczynski's likely influences that has an interview with someone who knew him at Harvard and it goes into detail about how the curriculum was structured back then. A lot of the stuff they read and the philosophy of it seems like it'd have driven Kaczynski's ideology. And of course those MKULTRA experiments.

Here it is, found it:

Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber

A series of purposely brutalizing psychological experiments may have confirmed Theodore Kaczynski’s still-forming belief in the evil of science while he was in college.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[sigmond]

Great article thanks! Im gonna have to look into this guy Thorstein Veblen; sad to admit I have never heard of him.

 

[psyfiend]

Nice thread, I was looking at Ted's other publications (mathematics) earlier today.

Also there was this "newer" documentary:

It continues on this site: https://www.bitchute.com/video/MbIUD3GrGH2K/ (part 2/4)

 

[thujone]

I don't use Facebook. But even something as simple as that is radical enough to be a statement these days. People look at you funny.

There's another great quote that directly addresses exactly this point: "When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it."

Indeed, good luck functioning in modern society without the internet, or holding down any kind of office job without having a smartphone and a laptop. No one technically forces you to do anything, but in order to actually work and earn money you are required by social obligation to use new technology.

I thought you agree technology is not bad. Why is it bad then that a person needs an internet-capable device to be a part of modern society? Before the internet you still needed a phone line or a postal address to get communication. It's an exaggeration to say you need it to work and earn money, many people choose to do work that doesn't require communications technology.

People can choose to not own a smartphone but they give up a lot, socially and professionally, by making such a decision.

That's the whole point of choices. To get something you have to give up something else. In this case, to be free of a smartphone you have to give up the benefits of having one.

So there is no mass surveillance in your country? And no corporate surveillance? The information gathered by corporate surveillance is not used in an attempt to alter your behaviour?

Probably. What's a feasible solution? The most salient example is phones. All of our movements can be tracked through our phones, but since that feature is part of what enables the phone to even functional as expected, the user has to make the choice to turn the phone off and lose its functionality when they definitely don't want to be tracked.

However, the specific points I'm addressing here regarding technology assisting in greater centralised social control are extremely valid, at least as they pertain to the current model of the internet.

Before social media told people what to think, newspapers told people what to think. The difference is that with social media there is a better chance of seeing the counter narrative, a better chance of seeing the opinions of someone who knows the truth about a particular subject.

Instead of lamenting how the internet has caused an increase in social control, why not celebrate that it has also created an unprecedented medium for any person on Earth to have their opinions and truths known to all?

 

[Juniper Bruhmomentius]

I can vibe this Unabomber guy, almost scarily much.

 

[Wilson Wilson]

I thought you agree technology is not bad. Why is it bad then that a person needs an internet-capable device to be a part of modern society?

Technology, in my opinion, is not inherently bad, but certain applications of it certainly are. It's a nuanced issue. I went into detail about my rationale above. Since you are the kind of person who runs your phone on pure AOSP I'm sure you agree with me it's a bad thing that over half the internet is run by three companies who make most of their money from spying on us and share our data with the government, yeah?

The problem is it's basically impossible to separate the good from the bad, so when you use this stuff for the good parts (like chatting shit with me on a drugs forum) you can't do much to avoid the bad parts (everything we do online is ultimately logged and profiled). We can take precautions to reduce those negatives and make it more difficult, but we cannot really escape it unless we give up all technology, but the cost of giving up technology means not being able to function in society.

Therefore a technological society is one where we are all made to be tracked, monitored, profiled, and controlled constantly.

Whether one believes the good outweighs the bad is a personal judgement, but those are the facts.

It's an exaggeration to say you need it to work and earn money, many people choose to do work that doesn't require communications technology.

Even a tradesman whose work has nothing to do with technology is still expected to be contactable 24/7 and still needs to advertise his business online through social media if he actually wants customers.

That's the whole point of choices. To get something you have to give up something else. In this case, to be free of a smartphone you have to give up the benefits of having one.

But again, how much of a choice do you actually have? Even if my job had absolutely nothing to do with technology, I could not work in any type of office without owning a smartphone and a laptop. It is impossible. These are not choices in any real sense, they are requirements to function in society.

Probably. What's a feasible solution?

There isn't really one. That's kind of the point. I do think laws such as the GDPR are good political steps towards keeping corporate surveillance in check. But Facebook and Google are still watching everyone and such laws have zero effect on government agencies.

Before social media told people what to think, newspapers told people what to think. The difference is that with social media there is a better chance of seeing the counter narrative, a better chance of seeing the opinions of someone who knows the truth about a particular subject.

I disagree. Theoretically you are right, but in practice that's not really what happens. Social media is designed explicitly to put you in a bubble. It's algorithmic so it looks at the type of content you respond to and floods you with more of it. You don't see many, if any, dissenting opinions once the algorithm learns enough about you. Additionally most people only follow pages that conform to their existing views to begin with. Ads are then targeted at you based on the profile the social network builds of you throughout this process, and those ads further reinforce your existing views.

The end result is you actually see less dissenting opinions, not more, and your opinions are in fact reinforced not questioned.

Also, I don't remember newspapers having knowledge of other publications I read, gathering info on exactly which articles I look at, and changing their ads to target me specifically based on a profile they have of my behaviour. I also don't recall newspapers gathering as much info as they can about my private life to share with advertisers and the government.

Instead of lamenting how the internet has caused an increase in social control, why not celebrate that it has also created an unprecedented medium for any person on Earth to have their opinions and truths known to all?

My argument was never that technology has no positives. I said right from the start I don't take the hardline view Kaczynski did. But I think it's perfectly valid to point out that there are downsides to the age of social media, smartphones, and constant surveillance. And that while use of technology may seem like a choice, it isn't in any practical sense.

Your argument seems to have shifted to "yeah okay this is right but it's not a bad thing." That's your view and that's fine. But it is how things now are.

 

[Shady's Fox]

I think this is the best example of over-thinking because it's a ''Go fuck yourself but come back'' type shit.

 

[thujone]

I think I was jumping to conclusions about TK based on parts of the manifesto. I've been thumbing through Technological Slavery lately, which is a collection of TK's writings, to get a better idea of what he was really on about.

TK asserts that technological society is fundamentally incompatible with humanity. The more we try to reconcile humanity with technology in order to continue to progress, the greater the risk that we'll open (or may have already opened) a Pandora's Box that dooms us.

That's why he advocates for a revolution where modern technology is eschewed, thus ending the system of technological slavery. The main problem I can see here is that all of us are so deeply dependent on some aspect of the system (economic activity) that we can't just suddenly get rid of it and survive.

Not to mention a lot of human life now depends on industrial scale agriculture and commercial transportation just for basic survival so it does feel like we have to try and make the best of progress and hope that we don't destroy ourselves.

I think what TK is describing could actually be what brings us to our Great filter, as a civilization. Take for example how global warming and now covid are threats on a global scale. It's known that Covid was released from a lab. Unintentionally or not, a lot of people have died this year due directly to a consequence of technological society.

Maybe we can stay ahead of consequences of progress just enough to stave off extinction but maybe we'll accidentally end up opening a Pandora's Box that kills us all

 

[Xorkoth]

It's known that Covid was released from a lab. Unintentionally or not, a lot of people have died this year due directly to a consequence of technological society.

I know this isn't the covid thread and don't want to get into debate about covid's origin, but is it known, or is it a theory? I'm not saying I think it's at all implausible, in fact I wouldn't be surprised at all if it escaped from a lab, I'm just not aware of any evidence that is not hearsay or conjecture.

 

[thujone]

it hasn't been confirmed independently, and probably won't be, but the fact is Wuhan is the location of China’s only lab certified to work with infectious viruses like Covid.

The conspiracy theory angle is that it was bio-engineered and released on purpose, which is probably not what happened, but the evidence looks pretty strong that it was being studied at the lab and escaped.

 

[Zopiclone bandit]

Uncle Ted was right on everything, I Hail him alongside Pentti Linkola as the way forward with humanity.