A fine recent UK-flavoured post-apocalypse -- swarm of comet/meteor strikes, decades of rising sea level and global rain) is 'The Aftermath' : Shelter, by Dave Hutchinson (2018); Haven, by Adam Roberts (2018); and Sanctuary, Hutchinson, 2023.
In describing what his blog will include, Wellerstein writes, "Conversations between me and various smart, interesting people I’ve met over the years who generally think about some aspects of the end of the world for a living."
First, I would love to see the nuclear weapons community establish an online discussion forum for this purpose. The public would benefit greatly from being able to find all the nuclear weapons experts and leading activists all in one place. Perhaps one of your future articles might explore this possibility?
Second, we might address the subject of experts, those who do intellectual work for a living, particularly in regards to nuclear weapons.
For the sake of this discussion we might divide problems in to two broad categories, 1) those problems that can be solved with realistic and reasonable conventional thinking, and 2) those that can't.
When a problem can be solved with realistic and reasonable conventional thinking experts are very useful because they have the most information on a subject. The experts have studied their topic in great depth, and so it's logical for us to look to them for solutions.
When a problem can't be solved with realistic and reasonable conventional thinking, the experts are at a disadvantage, because they typically aren't in a position to publicly explore those ideas beyond what's considered realistic and reasonable. Publicly exploring ideas considered unrealistic and unreasonable can put the expert's most valuable business asset, their professional reputation, at risk. Being branded a crackpot can end an expert's career.
What we see in the case of nuclear weapons is a consistent failure of realistic and reasonable conventional thinking to meet this threat for 75 years. The technical, diplomatic, military, academic experts keep writing their books and articles, and leading activists keep organizing and protesting, all in a realistic and reasonable professional manner. And none of it ever works.
Point being, if a conversation on nuclear weapons is limited to those who do this intellectual work for a living, such a conversation seems doomed from the start to be limited to that set of ideas which have consistently failed to meet the nuclear weapons threat for 75 years.
There may be no solution to the nuclear threat. Perhaps we doomed, and nothing can be done. That could be the reality.
But if we are going to keep fighting to escape that fate it seems rational to turn our attention away from that which has never worked. We may need to explore ideas which have been judged to be unrealistic and unreasonable. A conversation containing only professionals may not be in a position to do that.
We might consider this structural challenge to nuclear weapons solutions.
1) The experts have the most information, but their careers may require them to limit their analysis to realistic and reasonable ideas which have never worked.
2) Amateurs are free to explore in any direction, but even if they were to come up with some good ideas, they don't have the badges of authority needed to be heard.
Conclusion: If a solution to nuclear weapons lies in the realm of ideas generally considered to be unrealistic and unreasonable, nobody at any level is in a position to sell those ideas.
Dr. Wellerstein, here's an idea that I hope you'll find relevant to your Doomsday Machines blog.
What exactly is the Doomsday Machine that threatens this civilization? The answer to that question seems remarkably simple. Violent men. Or to put it more precisely, we might define the Doomsday Machine threat as being the marriage between violent men and an accelerating knowledge explosion.
To illustrate, imagine that all the nukes were to magically vanish, perhaps say, abducted by aliens in an attempt to save us from ourselves. What would happen next is that violent men would immediately turn their attention to obtaining other mass chaos tools. And before you know it, we'd be right back where we are now. Point being, it's not really the destructive weapons which threaten us, but those who would use them. And that's violent men.
Once the Doomsday Machine threat is properly understood, the next obvious thought to pop in to our minds is likely to be, ok then, so let's get rid of the violent men. Sounds good of course, but there's one little problem. No society anywhere in the world in all of human history has figured out how to keep the many peaceful men while ridding itself of the minority of violent men. No religion, ideology, philosophy, political structure or system of law or anything else has ever liberated a human society from the threat presented by violent men.
Upon recognizing this long history we find ourselves confronting a very inconvenient reality.
1) To have any men is to have violent men.
2) To have violent men in the 21st century is to be traveling a road towards civilization collapse.
EVIDENCE: There is no credible reason to believe we can keep nuclear weapons around forever and they will never be used. And.... We have exactly no clue of how to get rid of these weapons. The nuclear weapons threat is more dangerous today than it was on the day I was born in 1952 at the dawn of the nuclear weapons era. We aren't making progress, we're going backwards, ever deeper in to the threat.
Here's another way to understand the Doomsday Machine problem. We insist on developing revolutionary technologies, but stubbornly reject doing the kind of revolutionary thinking that revolutionary technologies require.
If we were willing to crawl out of this dead end conceptual box, what might such revolutionary thinking look like?
In a world without male humans, there would be no violent men. Unspeakable suffering would be lifted off the backs of the innocent at every level of society all over the world. Vast new resources no longer needed for managing male violence would become available for reinvestment in life affirming projects like health care and education.
A world without men would still experience real problems, including some violence. But the scale of violence would be so radically reduced that it might be reasonable to claim that something very close to the long dreamed of world peace had finally be realized.
World peace by whatever means are necessary, or world destruction. These are our options. Pick one from the above list.
The above proposal is EXTREMELY unpopular because the modern world is clinging to a child like fantasy that we can continue to give violent men ever more powerful tools without limit and that somehow things will turn out ok. We want the vast powers the knowledge explosion offers us, but we don't wish to pay for them. We want everything to change, while also staying the same as it's always been. And if we keep this kind of insane brain dead thinking going, there is no future for this civilization.
A longer and more detailed presentation of this argument can be found in print here:
A fine recent UK-flavoured post-apocalypse -- swarm of comet/meteor strikes, decades of rising sea level and global rain) is 'The Aftermath' : Shelter, by Dave Hutchinson (2018); Haven, by Adam Roberts (2018); and Sanctuary, Hutchinson, 2023.
In describing what his blog will include, Wellerstein writes, "Conversations between me and various smart, interesting people I’ve met over the years who generally think about some aspects of the end of the world for a living."
First, I would love to see the nuclear weapons community establish an online discussion forum for this purpose. The public would benefit greatly from being able to find all the nuclear weapons experts and leading activists all in one place. Perhaps one of your future articles might explore this possibility?
Second, we might address the subject of experts, those who do intellectual work for a living, particularly in regards to nuclear weapons.
For the sake of this discussion we might divide problems in to two broad categories, 1) those problems that can be solved with realistic and reasonable conventional thinking, and 2) those that can't.
When a problem can be solved with realistic and reasonable conventional thinking experts are very useful because they have the most information on a subject. The experts have studied their topic in great depth, and so it's logical for us to look to them for solutions.
When a problem can't be solved with realistic and reasonable conventional thinking, the experts are at a disadvantage, because they typically aren't in a position to publicly explore those ideas beyond what's considered realistic and reasonable. Publicly exploring ideas considered unrealistic and unreasonable can put the expert's most valuable business asset, their professional reputation, at risk. Being branded a crackpot can end an expert's career.
What we see in the case of nuclear weapons is a consistent failure of realistic and reasonable conventional thinking to meet this threat for 75 years. The technical, diplomatic, military, academic experts keep writing their books and articles, and leading activists keep organizing and protesting, all in a realistic and reasonable professional manner. And none of it ever works.
Point being, if a conversation on nuclear weapons is limited to those who do this intellectual work for a living, such a conversation seems doomed from the start to be limited to that set of ideas which have consistently failed to meet the nuclear weapons threat for 75 years.
There may be no solution to the nuclear threat. Perhaps we doomed, and nothing can be done. That could be the reality.
But if we are going to keep fighting to escape that fate it seems rational to turn our attention away from that which has never worked. We may need to explore ideas which have been judged to be unrealistic and unreasonable. A conversation containing only professionals may not be in a position to do that.
We might consider this structural challenge to nuclear weapons solutions.
1) The experts have the most information, but their careers may require them to limit their analysis to realistic and reasonable ideas which have never worked.
2) Amateurs are free to explore in any direction, but even if they were to come up with some good ideas, they don't have the badges of authority needed to be heard.
Conclusion: If a solution to nuclear weapons lies in the realm of ideas generally considered to be unrealistic and unreasonable, nobody at any level is in a position to sell those ideas.
Dr. Wellerstein, here's an idea that I hope you'll find relevant to your Doomsday Machines blog.
What exactly is the Doomsday Machine that threatens this civilization? The answer to that question seems remarkably simple. Violent men. Or to put it more precisely, we might define the Doomsday Machine threat as being the marriage between violent men and an accelerating knowledge explosion.
To illustrate, imagine that all the nukes were to magically vanish, perhaps say, abducted by aliens in an attempt to save us from ourselves. What would happen next is that violent men would immediately turn their attention to obtaining other mass chaos tools. And before you know it, we'd be right back where we are now. Point being, it's not really the destructive weapons which threaten us, but those who would use them. And that's violent men.
Once the Doomsday Machine threat is properly understood, the next obvious thought to pop in to our minds is likely to be, ok then, so let's get rid of the violent men. Sounds good of course, but there's one little problem. No society anywhere in the world in all of human history has figured out how to keep the many peaceful men while ridding itself of the minority of violent men. No religion, ideology, philosophy, political structure or system of law or anything else has ever liberated a human society from the threat presented by violent men.
Upon recognizing this long history we find ourselves confronting a very inconvenient reality.
1) To have any men is to have violent men.
2) To have violent men in the 21st century is to be traveling a road towards civilization collapse.
EVIDENCE: There is no credible reason to believe we can keep nuclear weapons around forever and they will never be used. And.... We have exactly no clue of how to get rid of these weapons. The nuclear weapons threat is more dangerous today than it was on the day I was born in 1952 at the dawn of the nuclear weapons era. We aren't making progress, we're going backwards, ever deeper in to the threat.
Here's another way to understand the Doomsday Machine problem. We insist on developing revolutionary technologies, but stubbornly reject doing the kind of revolutionary thinking that revolutionary technologies require.
If we were willing to crawl out of this dead end conceptual box, what might such revolutionary thinking look like?
In a world without male humans, there would be no violent men. Unspeakable suffering would be lifted off the backs of the innocent at every level of society all over the world. Vast new resources no longer needed for managing male violence would become available for reinvestment in life affirming projects like health care and education.
A world without men would still experience real problems, including some violence. But the scale of violence would be so radically reduced that it might be reasonable to claim that something very close to the long dreamed of world peace had finally be realized.
World peace by whatever means are necessary, or world destruction. These are our options. Pick one from the above list.
The above proposal is EXTREMELY unpopular because the modern world is clinging to a child like fantasy that we can continue to give violent men ever more powerful tools without limit and that somehow things will turn out ok. We want the vast powers the knowledge explosion offers us, but we don't wish to pay for them. We want everything to change, while also staying the same as it's always been. And if we keep this kind of insane brain dead thinking going, there is no future for this civilization.
A longer and more detailed presentation of this argument can be found in print here:
https://www.tannytalk.com/s/peace
Some of those articles have been converted in to video presentations here:
https://hippytoons.com/p/world-peace-table-of-contents
If there is to be escape from the Doomsday Machine, that escape will start in understanding what the Doomsday Machine actually is.
To any reader who made it this far, thanks for listening!