End of World Through Technology

[anomaly]

As I was watching a show on television about technology and how it has advanced throughout the ages, I realized that as technology is invented more technology grows off of that piece of technology. Think of the caveman when he found fire. It may have been the necessity to collect wood that lead to the discovery of the stone tool. That tool lead to a weapon and more tools and so on and so forth. As technology increases the time between each great invention is shortened. The time between each great invention back in the Greek and Roman time period would be fairly long. Probably around 200 years. But if you were to look at nowadays its only 10 years. Think of the difference between the 90’s and now. It’s huge compared to 10 years in the Roman period. And on to my point of world destruction. The farther and farther we advance ourselves onto greater technological inventions the more and more great they will get. Each great invention will be followed by an even greater one but not within 10 years but within 1 year. Then onto 1 month then to a day, until we reach the point every single thing that gets invented will be surpassed almost instantaneously by another. I call this the Technology Termination Point. And you say “What’s the problem with that?” here’s the problem. What comes first with new technology? Many of the great inventions were invented for military purposes. And instead of having to using thousands of Nukes to destroy the planet one will only need one device. One might say that the government will try to put a hold on that device. But like I said before when that device is invented many will follow even greater than the last making it almost impossible to keep tabs on them all. In a couple of days following the TTP planet earth will have hundreds of ways to destroy itself with the push of a button. And as soon as it falls into the wrong hand, it’s all over. Right now I am working on a timeline to plot when the TTP might happen. But it is easy to see that it will happen. If you were to plot each great invention on a graph with the date as the x-axis and the distance in time as the y-axis you will see the graph makes a half exponential function. Just by following the pattern it will no matter what you believe hit that point. It is impossible for it no to.

Edited July 24, 2008 by anomaly

[iNow]

Almost all of the great inventions were invented for military purposes.

 

Wow, even immunology?

 

 

Maybe, if we're really lucky, someone will invent a carriage return.

[anomaly]

Wow, even immunology?

 

 

Maybe, if we're really lucky, someone will invent a carriage return.

 

on that invention yea

Edited July 24, 2008 by anomaly
multiple post merged

[iNow]

I'd be curious to read more about that. Do you have a source to support it? I'd thought the concept of preventing sickness came well before the concept of biological warfare, but I could be wrong.

[anomaly]

I'd be curious to read more about that. Do you have a source to support it? I'd thought the concept of preventing sickness came well before the concept of biological warfare, but I could be wrong.

 

wow my bad when i read that i thought of something completely different. your right on that one

[Phi for All]

Most technology that starts out with military applications ends up sparking a few dozen non-military applications as well, once it can be made safe for those uses.

 

The scenario you paint where technology continues to progress faster and faster has its limits, but it may actually be the factor that helps us progress to a Star Trek-type level, where money is done away with and a sort of meritocracy is established. Capitalistic markets need technology to slow down long enough to be controlled and exploited. Maybe if progress becomes too rapid to allow profitable manufacturing, we might just give up our markets and shoot for the stars.

[Mr Skeptic]

It's actually called a technological singularity. It is the result of technological advancements resulting in an increased rate of technological advancement. Then the rate of technological advancement will increase because of the extra technology. Pretty soon technological advancements would occur so quickly that anything that was built would be obsolete before it was finished. An example is an AI that is able to improve itself (hardware and/or software), humans using GM to increase our intelligence, etc. Quite a few people think that a technological singularity is inevitable in the future.

[iPeppers]

There has to be a limit though... if something is invented, it still has to be built, which puts a cap on the whole thing because things won't be built if the builders think that it will be obsolete before it hits the market. Inventions require money to fund their building process, and they won't be brought to completion if they are to be superseded before they can make any money for the inventor. Therefore we will never make it to this technological singularity imho. There may be many many inventions in this future time period, but only certain landmark breakthroughs will be produced. It isn't economical even now to have every single invention be built and sold to people.