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Imagine how the world would be if everyone suddenly gained to ability to kill anyone they wanted just by thinking about it hard enough. What happens?
(This is an idea that could make for an interesting sci-fi story. It's an extension of the idea that we'd all be safer if everyone would carry a weapon. I wonder what ideas we on hubski could come up with... what kind of places could this story line go?)
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I actually brought this up a long time ago, in a roundabout way. Short Version: Human agency has been increasing since we first picked up a rock and used it to open a stubborn coconut. As human agency increases, the potential violence that an individual can perpetrate by themselves goes up. There will come a time where large sections of the human race will have the ability to destroy almost everybody, and will have to consciously choose NOT to do that. If we do not develop our moral sense fast enough we are going to hit The Great Filter and that will be the end of our story. fallingsaucer are you still out there somewhere? You can also use this as the starting point for comparing political leaders, as a thought experiment loosely termed 'Perfect Weapons.' It goes something like this. Barack Obama would have one list of people he thinks should be killed. King Salman of Saudi Arabia would have a different list. Ibrahim Awad (Abu Bakr Al-Bagdhadi) would have a different list. Theresa May would have her own. Etc ad infinitum. The comparison of these lists would be very interesting.We have come into the possession of perfect weapons. With the push of a button, a person dies without any mess or collateral damage. We can use these weapons on the battlefield, as assassination tools, threats, etc. Now, imagine giving control of this weapon to someone, who would they kill?
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fallingsaucer · 411 days ago · link ·
WHO HAS DISTURBED MY SLUMBER The survival of populations is due to the diversity within those populations and how isolated, and somewhat thusly protected, they are. How easy is it to fairly elect a madman or a sane person with a dark agenda? It is unclear with whom the management of the health of the system ought to be left , but what is clear is that we routinely ignore those with legitimate expertise in relevant topics to instead revere the loudest bullhorn. We must increase the average exposure of alien groups and ideas to the most isolated cultures because we know that when we are put in a diverse environment, tolerance proliferates. In the last decade, the United States has become increasingly more polarized. The answer can be found by thinking in a social engineering paradigm. Our supposedly culturally enriching social media resources have instead erected walls between us and created echo chambers of opinion. If we cannot come together and make enough of a change to save ourselves here on Earth, then to find refuge on some backwoods exoplanet to begin a second chance civilization we must.
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WanderingEng · 410 days ago · link ·
Can another John Lennon exist in a world with Facebook and Twitter? I think the constant access would destroy the mythos while simultaneously being necessary for global popularity.
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Unrelated to the topic but related to Lennon - I have listened to the Beatles full discography at least twice. 'Hey Jude,' 'Blackbird,' and 'Let It Be' are some of my favorite songs to play and sing for my own benefit. I still don't understand the mass hysteria that John Lennon inspired. I understand the Beatles conceptually, where they fit in the history of music and mass culture in the 20th century, but I don't understand why Lennon specifically incurs so much strong emotion. Anybody have an explanation?
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WanderingEng · 408 days ago · link ·
Cynically, because he was shot on a street in New York by a lunatic. If he'd fallen asleep while driving south on the M1 past Sheffield and drove into a tree, I don't think he'd be remembered in the same way. Tragic death causes different emotions, I think. My favorite Beatles song is Across The Universe. I won't say I'm specifically a George Harrison fan, but I think it's a better song than anything Lennon did.
Yeah, I'd have to imagine there would not be a lot of people left after not so long. Small isolated groups who kill anyone they meet, because better to kill than be killed. Dynamics would also depend on how hard you have to think, how long it takes to kill, and if anyone would know if it was you or could tell you were thinking someone dead while you were doing it. If everyone carried guns, for example, we would all be wiped out because anyone could see you killing another person and be able to react accordingly. Being able to kill without consequences, from the comfort of your living room for example, would be catastrophic.
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Once long ago I read a short story about an altruistic alien people who exchanged this dull silver metal with each other for commerce and everyone had enough and everyone was happy. Then one day a greedy alien was born and he started hoarding as much silver metal as he could into a pile. Then the plutonium reached critical mass, blew him to smithereens, wiped out his entire town and the cycle started anew with no one remembering that their coins exploded when you had too many of them and greed never evolved. Questionable physics, questionable morality, amusing thought experiment. Wish I could find the story to link it, but I've already given away the joke.
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Q and Q Continuum are a good answer to this. Petulant, omnipotent, self-righteous, boring and don't give a damn about anything that's 'beneath' them (i.e. rest of the universe). IIRC, half of the Q's appearances can be boiled down to "'cuz bored and you can't-do anything about it."
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The thing about the Q Continuum is that they have the ability to resist the death thoughts of each other. Q is a garden-variety deus ex machina with some Greek chorus thrown in. He's more of a narrative instrument than a thought experiment.
I suspect Bixby didn't go there because it's uninteresting. In order to achieve a steady-state "society" you quickly run into ground rules so alien to us that we would not be able to recognize its functioning. When Groupthink reaches the point where the majority can exterminate the minority without effort, you end up with such homogeneity that the only thing left is L'Engle's Camazotz, which is only interesting when the protagonists interact with it as individuals.
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I understand why Bixby didn't go there. I understand why L'Engle took the avenue that she did. Literary boredom does not preclude a thing from being. I'm more interested in when the majority can exterminate the majority without effort. Everybody has their finger on the metaphorical button and then has to consciously choose to allow everybody else to continue on.When Groupthink reaches the point where the majority can exterminate the minority without effort,
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/02/the-power-naomi-alderman-review I kept seeing this book in bookstores. While it's not 1 to 1 to your prompt, it does seem to examine a similar idea.