Dancing on the edge.

If you read any of my blogs you know I love everybody. If you don't read them, I love everybody. And more than anything I want everybody to stop the headlong race to human extinction before it is too late. I try to be the voice of reason in a world mad with anger, hate, envy, suspicion, greed, all of the noble human sentiments. It is an uncomfortable position, fortunately I don't take it very seriously, because people are going to be people, and if history has provided any clues, any path for the future, it looks bleak.

For example, memoirs and notes have revealed that the US may have been willing to drop atomic bombs to support the French soldiers who were trapped in an ever tightening siege at Dien Bien Phu.

There is not enough space here to detail the horrors of the French occupation of Indochina, nor is there room to describe the terrible, rapidly deteriorating conditions facing the French soldiers trapped in the tiny valley. If you are interested in the battle you should read "Hell in a Very Small Place" by Bernard Fall, it is a gripping story of the plans and the failures, of the French command. In fairness they could never know the terrible weather that would deny them air support, and it is almost inconceivable the dedication and indescribable labor of the Vietnamese army.

But, the fact that the US had even considered unleashing the awesome destruction of atomic weaponry to support a failing Imperial power stuck in a battle in a tiny jungle covered valley on the
other side of the world should terrify us all.

France was going to lose Vietnam, imperial powers were falling everywhere, and history has proven that Vietnam is impossible to occupy. Even then it was widely known that Ho Chi Minh was a communist of convenience, he was a nationalist who only wanted to expel the foreigners. And yet, to prop up a failing regime, in a distant country, with nothing to gain the US was contemplating atomic weaponry.

Part of it was the loss of China, and the deadly slog in Korea, sure. But a lot it was the feeling that World War II had changed everything. No longer, it was assumed, could the US let things happen, we had to influence things to end on our terms.

After the war ended the US War Department (now the Department of Defense) divided the world into five zones, each was named and ranked according to activity. Which was fine, except that it provided the unshakable belief that anything that happened anywhere in the world was a direct threat to the US. Which was almost laughably ridiculous.

Almost laughable, until dropping the most destructive force mankind, in all its technologically ingenious wizardry, has been able to develop. On people who were battling for nothing more than the right to self determination. Not very damned funny then, is it?

Of course, the bombs weren't dropped, and the French left and US forces took their place. And a lot of people were killed, and it still isn't very funny. Communism is falling under its own weight. New threats arrive, and reactions are mixed, but the threat of going too far is always there, And nobody seems to be paying attention.

Why is that?

Grim Reaper by Totemicdruid via Deviant Art

One step forward, and there is the abyss.

The history of the world is a history of violence. Other things happened, but, far and large it was the biggest, and strongest who wrote the tale of the times. Often times it was technology that defined who was the most able to control the narrative.

The Assyrians, it is believed, mastered using iron to make weaponry, which was much more widely available than bronze, used by most armies. Of course, they used their weapons with brutal and ruthless efficiency. But, learning to forge iron gave them an advantage.

Many people feel that the Mongol bow was the premier projectile weapon until the invention of the firearm. It took a great leader to bring the widely scattered tribes into a mobile, lethal, devastating army of horsemen. But, the bow gave them an edge.

Now the pace of technical innovation has changed the way things are calculated. There is no way of knowing what the future holds, but it is safe to say there will be breakthroughs undreamed of even now.

Albert Einstein said "the release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known I should have become a watchmaker." Unleashing the awful power of the atom is the most extreme example, but there are constant breakthroughs in technology that make the destruction of our enemies easier, more efficient, and "sanitary."

Now, the Air Force wants to make drones smarter and deadlier. Killing an enemy from the comfort of an air conditioned room thousands of miles away makes a cold, calculated sense. And building in an automated response system to deal with threats is perfect. Killing, and destruction, represented in an algorithm.

War has always been about choices, would the costs outweigh the benefits. And for most of the worlds history war could be a very profitable enterprise. Countries who were good filled their treasuries with the gold from conquered nations. Now, the formula is different. Our ability for destruction has irreversibly removed any real benefit from the equation.

But, if we find a way to make it less costly in human lives (at least our human lives) will that variable change again? These weapons are here to stay, but we, as a race, the human race, need to find a way to work together without the use of explosives. Finding common grounds to work together and build is liable to be much more difficult than finding ways to destroy but we no longer have much choice.

The machine apocalypse, oddly.

According to computer scientist Donald Knuth, "artificial intelligence has by now succeeded in doing essentially everything that requires 'thinking' but has failed to do most of what people and animals do 'without thinking'; that somehow is much harder." It has come to the point machines are reaching new heights in reasoning, but can not temper their intelligence in any natural manner. It is possible to program a computer to play chess, but impossible to teach it the empathy to let a small child win once in a while to keep them interested.

When I need to go somewhere, and need directions I just ask my phone. "Hey, Siri, how do I get to the North Market on foot?" Siri tells me. Step, by step. Siri knows how to get me almost anywhere. But, has no clue that I can get out of the building. Most people might say, "go to the stop sign, and head west."

Computers, robots, and their controls are insinuating themselves into every aspect of our lives. We read on screens that get the text from cloud services, transmitted via towers controlled by a network of computers.

Traffic patterns are regulated by algorithms designed to keep things flowing smoothly, and cameras record the results, which are stored on and analyzed by a machine. It would be almost impossible to list the many ways and places technology shapes and controls our lives. It would be equally futile to claim we don't benefit immeasurably from the help.

It becomes increasingly obvious that we are more reliant on the convenience of our electronic servants daily. They assume more control, and more responsibility for our every day successes and accomplishment. But, things are not always fool proof, either. Anybody who has spent hours working on a document, presentation, or spreadsheet only to lose it, whether from computer crash, misplaced file, or programming "bug" can tell you about the frustration involved in digital manifestations.

It is impossible for even the best programmers to account for every possibility.  One doomsday scenario from Nick Bostrom in "Superintelligence, Paths, Dangers, Stategies." imagine a computer instructed to maximize the production of paper clips. As the machine interprets the instructions it may not be able to make the assumptions that come from years of evolutionary reliance on restraint. In it's quest to complete the program it would eventually convert all of the Earth's resources into office supplies.

Yes, that is an extreme example, but not impossible. And it is only one of many potential catastrophes. And if we know anything about mathematics it is that anything that carries a statistical probability, no matter how minute, that doesn't diminish over time will eventually happen. When the rapid escalation of technological innovation, and our reliance on technology is added, the probability increases.

In future posts we will cover all sorts of potential calamities. There are millions, and it will make a great movie, don't you think?