Apocalyptic thinking is frequently found in certain future scenarios, especially when those scenarios are created by people concerned with military conflict, climate change, artificial intelligence, disease outbreaks, or other scary possibilities. CRN has ourselves participated in the making of such scenarios involving nano-weaponry, and our co-founders wrote a chapter for a book on global catastrophic risk.
So, for anyone who's read this blog for a while, or who has kept up with general trends in futurist thinking, the projected "end of civilization" is not an unfamiliar theme.
A recent article in the New Scientist suggests that "the demise of civilization may be inevitable."
It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of
complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a
point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything
crashing down.
Some
say we have already reached this point, and that it is time to start
thinking about how we might manage collapse. Others insist it is not
yet too late, and that we can -- we must -- act now to keep disaster at
bay.
The upshot is that a certain level of complexity is unsustainable, and that we have reached or are near that point in numerous areas, including energy production, environmental management, finance and credit, etc. Assuming you accept the premise of the article, our choice -- that is, the collective choice of our modern industrialized society -- is to either adapt or collapse.
Adaptation will mean huge changes in the way we function. This is not a new idea, of course. Since "The Population Bomb" (1968) and "The Limits to Growth" (1972), we've been hearing increasingly dire warnings about being on the wrong path and what we must do to correct it. But today, in the face of massive evidence that global warming will dramatically change our world no matter what we do, adapting in order to survive seems more urgent than ever.
Is total collapse actually possible? Well, obviously, ours would not be the first civilization ever to perish or to crumble under the weight of its own unchecked enlargement. So certainly it's possible.
As pointed out in the New Scientist article:
The stakes are high. Historically, collapse always led to a fall in
population. "Today's population levels depend on fossil fuels and
industrial agriculture," says [Utah State University's Joseph] Tainter. "Take those away and there would
be a reduction in the Earth's population that is too gruesome to think
about."
If industrialised civilisation does fall, the urban masses -- half the world's population -- will be most vulnerable. Much of
our hard-won knowledge could be lost, too.
On the other hand, we now know a great deal more about the mechanics
and dynamics of collapse than have any people before us. We know much
more about sustainability and resilience. It is also possible then, if
not likely, that we can avoid collapse by making just enough of the
right kinds of changes just in the nick of time.
But if our civilization is to change as much as some people say is necessary, how will that affect current institutions, such as the corporation, the nation-state, or even democracy itself?
George Dvorsky, who writes the excellent Sentient Developments blog and who serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), has some serious thoughts on the subject in a piece titled "Future Risks and the Challenge to Democracy."
It is becoming increasingly clear that 21st Century politics will be focused around
managing the impacts of disruptive technologies,
addressing the threats posed by apocalyptic weapons and environmental degradation, and
attending to global-scale catastrophes and crises as they occur. [his emphasis]
This
restructuring is already underway. We live in the post 9/11 world—a
world in which we have legitimate cause to be fearful of superterrorism
and hyperterrorism. We will also have to reap what we sowed in regards
to our environmental neglect. Consequently, our political leaders and
institutions will be increasingly called-upon to address the
compounding problems of unchecked WMD proliferation, terrorism, civil
unrest, pandemics, the environmental impacts of climate change (like
super-storms, flooding, etc.), fleets of refugees, devastating food
shortages, and so on. It will become very necessary for the world’s
militaries to anticipate these crises and adapt so that they can meet
these demands.
More challenging, however, will be avoiding outright human extinction . . .
Catastrophic and existential risks will put democratic institutions in
danger given an unprecedented need for social control, surveillance and
compliance. Liberal democracies will likely regress to
de facto authoritarianism under the intense strain; tools that will allow democratic governments to do so include invoking
emergency measures,
eliminating dissent and protest, censorship, suspending elections and
constitutions, and trampling on civil liberties (illegal arrests,
surveillance, limiting mobility, etc).
Looking further ahead,
extreme threats may even rekindle the totalitarian urge; this option
will appeal to those leaders looking to exert absolute control over
their citizens. What’s particularly frightening is that future
technologies will allow for a more intensive and invasive
totalitarianism than was ever thought possible in the 20th Century –
including
ubiquitous surveillance
(and the monitoring of so-called ‘thought crimes’), absolute control
over information, and the redesign of humanity itself, namely using
genetics and cybernetics to create a more traceable and controllable
citizenry. Consequently, as a political mode that utterly undermines
humanistic values and the preservation of the autonomous individual,
totalitarianism represents an existential risk unto itself.
George has eloquently restated some of the concerns that CRN has written about for years, many of them made possible or exacerbated by advanced nanotechnology. I urge you to read his whole article.
Clearly, then, the question to ask is not only whether our civilization can survive the challenges of this century, but if it can, what kind of civilization will it be?
That is what we must actively plan for and work toward if we hope to live in a better tomorrow.
Mike Treder
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