Stephen Hawking fears human aggression could 'destroy us all

[guno]

“It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”

Stephen Hawking fears human aggression could destroy us all calls for more empathy - Yahoo News

 

[williepete]

Not exactly a new concept:

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but world War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-- Albert Einstein

 

[hortysir]

So what?
We're all just random clumps of cells with no purpose. Right Stephen?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I disagree.
I subscribe more to the many quotes from Albert Einstein such as:

"...machines develop or neglect certain things in people ... Machines make our life impersonal and stultify certain elements in us and create an impersonal environment."
" I believe that the deterioration of ethical conduct of people stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives - the disastrous by-product of the scientific and technical mentality. Nostra culpa. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits."

Indeed, when people prefer their interactions with technology over relationships and interactions with real people - we are in serious trouble.
And that is exactly what is happening today. People under 30 prefer to text, than talk. They define a relationship as real only after it has been validated by technology, such as their relationship status on Facebook.
This is scary. People are growing up with little real contact with others, children sitting at home playing video games rather than playing with each other. Teenagers sitting at home on Fri/Sat nights group texting rather than hanging out in real life.
This is the beginning of the end of social culture as we know it.

 

[mudwhistle]

This guy is supposed to be smart...and only now he's figuring this out???

 

[hortysir]

This guy is supposed to be smart...and only now he's figuring this out???

Took him a while to blow it through His straw

 

[Delta4Embassy]

“It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”

Stephen Hawking fears human aggression could destroy us all calls for more empathy - Yahoo News

Human aggression has been part of the human animal all along. Unfortunately, nothing causes more innovation and technological development than war. At present, there's more to worry about from certain areas of scientific inquiry than anything coming from warfare. Nuclear weapons are bad but not a threat to humanity in its' entirety. Genetic research on the other hand could well bring about a genetic plague that could wipe us all out.

 

[guno]

This guy is supposed to be smart...and only now he's figuring this out???

Took him a while to blow it through His straw

an answer I would expect from a chrit stain

 

[Truman123]

Religion or nationalism will end the human race eventually. Probably a mixture of the two.

That's the theme of the novel I'm working on now.

I'm thinking of calling it "How A Head Goes To Sleep" or I might call it simply "Adherence."

 

[Penelope]

Religion or nationalism will end the human race eventually. Probably a mixture of the two.

That's the theme of the novel I'm working on now.

I'm thinking of calling it "How A Head Goes To Sleep" or I might call it simply "Adherence."

You mean self fulfilling prophecy as found in the Bible that so many believe?

 

[Cassandro]

A genius in one area is not a genius in all areas. Isaac Newton believed in alchemy his entire life.

 

[zaangalewa]

“It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”

Stephen Hawking fears human aggression could destroy us all calls for more empathy - Yahoo News

Steven Hakwing is a brilliant phycicist - but he has some little problems: His view on history is a little confused - and he seems not to know a lot about psychology if he asks for more empathy instead of agression. Compassion or love would be a better word. It's a myth that psychopaths don't have empathy. A psychopath who tortures knows very well how to interpret what hurts his victim. Empathy is not the same like love. A similar problem exists with the term "tolerance". Tolerance is an ability - not a value. Someone can also tolerate murder for example.

But back to history: Mr. Steven Hawkings is sometimes simple minded in case of history. He seems to forget that history are real facts and not only clichees or interpretations. Three days ago for example I switched in a film "Steven Hawkings and blabla ...". They showed in this moment a story about Galileo Galileo in the view of Steven Hawking - and everything was well made, good quality - with only one exception: it was just simple wrong what they said. They confused what Nicolaus Copernicus found out - and what Galileo Galilei learned in school and university - with the results of Galileo Galillei himselve. I was really astonished how detailed they showed what Galileo Galilei thought - they illustrated this even with little films - but nothing had to do with Galileo Galilei.
Galileo got problems when he was old and started to say "I am the only one who is in the truth and everyone else is wong". This was a very dangerous sentence in his time. In Germany was the 30 years war - an unbelievable cruel war - because the people were no able to accept that truth is something what has to be discussed with words and not with weapons. Maybe some people lived in fear in Italy could also happen something like this. When Galileo started in this situation to say "The Earth turns around the own axis" some Clerics thought it's better to force Galileo Galilei to revoke this thesis. In this case they were wrong - but on the other side the concept behind was not wrong. No one is always only in the truth. Galilei - like everyone else - made mistakes. Galileo Galilei accepted for example not the very important results of Kepler. And without Kepler no Isaac Newton and his professorial chair where Steven Hawking sat on too.

 

[WelfareQueen]

Religion or nationalism will end the human race eventually. Probably a mixture of the two.

That's the theme of the novel I'm working on now.

I'm thinking of calling it "How A Head Goes To Sleep" or I might call it simply "Adherence."

Nope. Technology will end the human race. And sooner than we think.

 

[WelfareQueen]

Religion or nationalism will end the human race eventually. Probably a mixture of the two.

That's the theme of the novel I'm working on now.

I'm thinking of calling it "How A Head Goes To Sleep" or I might call it simply "Adherence."

Nope. Technology will end the human race. And sooner than we think.

But evolve us to sumfin different.

A.i. ftw

I read a great book recently. Within 10-15 years virtually everything will be "smart" and internet enabled. Your thermostat, your house, car, medical devices, etc.

Sounds good accept the web is incredibly vulnerable and easily hackable. Huge security risks. Ditto robotics, A.I. nanotechnology and genetic engineering.

All will be linked and very, very powerful, and quite likely difficult to control.

We are rapidly becoming increasingly vulnerable to technologies we do not understand and are evolving exponentially faster than we are.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

In other news, experts now saying it is possible that the White Star line's mammoth ship "Titanic" could in fact sink if conditions converged just right.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

“It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”

Stephen Hawking fears human aggression could destroy us all calls for more empathy - Yahoo News

Nice to see he's reading my emails. No one listens to me when I say it.

 

[zaangalewa]

This guy is supposed to be smart...and only now he's figuring this out???

Religion or nationalism will end the human race eventually. Probably a mixture of the two.

Why? A real patriot loves not only the own country - he loves it also if someone else loves his own country. And in case of religion: What's not a belief? Atheism?

 

[turzovka]

“It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”

Stephen Hawking fears human aggression could destroy us all calls for more empathy - Yahoo News

My sympathy for this man is for his physical condition and also for his “settled reasoning” of being an atheist. But I do not consider him wise, nor do I consider his intelligence well-served when he came out with this warning to the world back in 2010:

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach."

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is "a little too risky". He said: "If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/25/stephen-hawking-aliens_n_551035.html


Oh, please. You are all worried about aliens and how we should treat them? Meanwhile, tons of evidence for life after death and you cannot allow yourself to admit you are wrong on that.

At least you have Guno’s attention on this newfound idea of human aggression. The rest of us are better focused and equipped on how to deal with that. Thanks anyway.