Forum: Computer Science and Technology: A race between Technology and Wisdom

Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun Microsystems, creator of the Java programming language) and Sir Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal, Master of Trinity and President of the Royal Society) have something in common.  They are both worried that technological progress presents an increasing threat to the existance of humanity.  It is a well observed trend that, as time goes on, technology has enabled smaller and smaller groups to kill more and more people.  And, since it seems likely that technology will not only keep on progressing, but do so at an increasingly fast pace, unless something is done about the basic propensity for greedy, stupid, insane, frightened or pissed off people to want to blow each other up, time is running out for humanity (unless we colonise space or something equally unexpected).

It could be argued that doing something about that basic propensity is a question for education, pyschology, sociology or politics.  However, perhaps wisdom (individual and collective) has a part to play too.

But here's my question.  Have people (on average) become any wiser over the last 10 centuries?  If so, what would the curve look like, when plotted against time, and how would that compare to the curve for our capacity per person to blow each other up?

Douglas 

It is of course quite problematic to come up with units that would allow you to put a number on how 'wise' an individual is.  Especially when there is little agreement as to what precisely wisdom actually is.

However, for these specialised purposes, we might measure technology and wisdom as follows:

Technology - the percentage of the world's population that would be required to cooperate in order to wipe out humanity.  So this might start 1000 years ago at 25%, decrease with the advent of gun and decrease again with improvements in mass transport and production.  By the time we get to the end of the second World War and the start of the cold war, the percentage would be down to 4.5 % (the population of the USA).

Wisdom - the percentage of the world's population willing to be swayed into mass homicidal irrationality by religious or political oratory.  So, for instance, during the second World War we could peg it roughly at 1.5 % (the population of Germany).  For an example earlier in history we could look at the crusades, and consider what fraction of Europe was actively involved (Europe at the time had nearly 25% of the world's population).

Any other thoughts on how wisdom could usefully be measured?

I have my doubts as to whether or not wisdom can be quantified. The only work that I'm aware of that relates to this would be the work of Monika Ardelt, which came up with a test to determine how wise people are (on a scale of 1 to 5). I suppose you could apply it to samples of the world's population using good polling/sampling practices, and then try to determine some sort of overall number from there, but, like I said, I have my doubts as to the quantifiability of wisdom.

I think that the number for what you describe as technology (number of people that it would take to wipe out humanity) is a far smaller number than the population of any country. It is the number of people staffed at nuclear missile silos, multiplied by the minimum number of such silos needed to launch to ensure destruction of humanity, plus those people in the chain of command above them as necessary for authorization (if the nuclear missile launch sequence requires authorization from a superior or multiple such superiors). My guess is that this might be as low as a few thousand people, if not lower.

Many people feared the destruction of the earth during the Cold War era - mutually assured destruction, it was called.... 

But maybe, mutually assured destruction (MAD) was the wisest path that could be chosen (see SDI versus MAD).

andrewsw:

I think that the number for what you describe as technology (number of people that it would take to wipe out humanity) is a far smaller number than the population of any country. It is the number of people staffed at nuclear missile silos, multiplied by the minimum number of such silos needed to launch to ensure destruction of humanity, plus those people in the chain of command above them as necessary for authorization (if the nuclear missile launch sequence requires authorization from a superior or multiple such superiors). My guess is that this might be as low as a few thousand people, if not lower.

Let us see if, between us, we can work out a clearer way to word it.

I think the key number is: given a group of random people (so you can't specify in advance that they are all particularly bright, wealthy or in particular positions of responsibility) how many would you need in order to develop, fund the purchase of, sieze by force or otherwise gain control over weapons of a particular destructive power.

Let's take the example of Aum Shinrikyo.  In 1995 they had 40,000 members, but the chemical attack they managed to put together killed only 12 people.  A base group size of random people was only marginally enough to scrape together not just people determined and with military expertise, but also the funding and competent enough scientists.  Weapons of mass destruction are still (relatively) hard to lay hand upon.  If they wern't, every cult and crackpot dictatorship would have them.

Scientists who have the skill and knowledge to work with cutting edge technology are a very small percentage of the population.  To recruit enough of them to staff the Manhattan Project took a very large population in the 1940s.  But time changes that.  Designs leak out onto the internet.  Materials become available on the black market.  Nuclear weapons can be developed, built and deployed by far smaller countries than it required 50 years ago.

Biological weapons are also getting easier to develop.  The equipment required to do genetic manipulation and the expertise needed to use it is becoming more wide spread due to the growth of the peaceful biotechnology industry.  It is easier now to set up a bioweapons lab than it would have been 10 years ago, and it will be easier still 10 years hence. The precise scale you use to measure this tendency is probably less important than whether you can plot the trend, and in which direction the trend is going.

 But can the same sort of trend be spotted in the development of wisdom?

Douglas 

 I see it now. The need for that percentage of the population to be chosen "at random".

 I see an underlying assumption to this question: that technology's current status, as it "progresses" is somehow independent of the people involved.

Douglas.Reay:

To recruit enough of them to staff the Manhattan Project took a very large population in the 1940s.  But time changes that.  Designs leak out onto the internet.  Materials become available on the black market.  Nuclear weapons can be developed, built and deployed by far smaller countries than it required 50 years ago.

 

 Just as we can ask about how "wise" things are, I think that part of what happens with technological know-how and its dissemination - such as the leaking out of designs onto the internet, availability of materials on the black market, and increased ease of building nuclear weapons - I think these are (arguably) also signs of the wisdom (or lack thereof) of people (or at least some people).

 There are reasons that we don't allow access to certain things without ensuring that people receive sufficient training in how to use them (special licensing boards, the regulation of prescription medications, etc...). If we fail to apply this approach effectively with regard to the right people, isn't that merely a question of us not being sufficiently wise rather than some function of the population and time (on the presumption that technology always "improves" over time)?

It used to be common to expect that parents would answer to their children with responses like "I'll tell you when you're older." Why do we not now more often say to people "I'll tell you when you're wiser." or the equivalent thereof?

This idea of technology increasing towards ease of destruction precludes the possibility that restricting access to the destructive technology is a viable option.