From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri Oct 27 2000 - 12:43:22 MDT
Andrew Lias wrote:
>
> >Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 02:14:13 -0400
> >From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
> >Subject: RE: Fermi Paradox, etc.
> >
> >Michael Wiik wrote,
> > > I don't discount the possibility that we have 'fatal memes' in US
> > > culture.
> >
> >What about the creationist anti-science meme? [...]
>
> I would certainly agree that that's a bad meme, but I'm not sure that it
> would be fatal. Certainly I can think of some bad scenarios, including a
> return to the Dark Ages (which would include a lot of die-off as our
> technological infrastructure crumbled), but I'm having trouble imagining a
> case where the species was either wiped out or permanently hobbled. The
> only one that I can think of would be a case where an Apocalyptic
> fundamentalist cult would deliberately initiate the extinction of the
> species, but I would say that, in such a case, the immediate cause wouldn't
> be the anti-science aspect of the beliefs but rather the religious zealotry
> of the followers taking advantage of scientific advances.
>
>
1:
The luddite forces are further incensed by the "horrors" of nanotech,
genetic engineering, human modification and so on. Eventually they
see/believe that only something like a "cultural revolution" will save
them and purge the scientists and techies. The first natural or
artificial (more likely) plague that comes along wipes out humanity.
Such could happen anyway but without scientists to combat it it would be
much more likely.
2:
Like (1) but we (or rather they since most of us would be wiped out -
maybe in hiding) buy the farm through trying to return to the farm when
due to pollution, deterioration of top soil and so on that is no longer
viable and the amount of wildlife is too small to go all the way back to
hunter-gatherer ways.
- samantha
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