Re:Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People
by adriand on Friday December 23, 2016 @07:22PM
(#13247979)
That's the opposite of how history has played out with respect to violence, however. It is far easier (and less risky) to kill vast numbers of people now than it was hundreds and thousands of years ago, and yet the risk of any one person being killed by violence is far lower than at any previous point in history.
Re:Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People
by jameswilsterman on Saturday December 24, 2016 @07:44AM
(#13249583)
How are you calculating the 'risk of any one person being killed by violence' today? To make that claim you need to consider tail risk and black swan events that are possible but have little precedent. What weight are you giving the likelihood of a person dying by nuclear weapon?
Re:Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People
by adriand on Saturday December 24, 2016 @01:31PM
(#13251007)
Well, for example, "about 15% of people in prestate eras died violently, compared to about 3% of the citizens of the earliest states".
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240531119041067045765832...
As far as predicting the future goes, I can't.
Saying "humans have spied on each other for centuries" is nothing but a distraction for how far beyond what should be legal mass surveillance is, because it makes it so easy to have everything on everyone all the time. It's nothing like pass targeted surveillance. If anything it's much more like Stasi-style surveillance, but on a much bigger and more indepth scale. And we already know how dangerous such surveillance is with the wrong person leading a country.
When war becomes easy and cheap (to the attacker), you'll just end up having more of it. It doesn't help the the military industrial complex constantly lobbies for it either.