Limits of Reality Isn’t Sci-Tech, It’s Sociopolitical
Let’s start with quotes from Eric Drexler, whom you reference:
From past to future…life moved forward…paced by genetic evolution. Minds with language picked up the pace….The invention of the methods of science and technology…accelerated advances….Growing wealth, education, and population…continued this [trend]….The automation of engineering will speed the pace….In parallel, molecular technology will [mature]…. [Then] artificial intelligence systems will bring still swifter automated engineering.…The rate of technological advance will then quicken to a great upward leap: in a brief time, many areas of technology will advance to the limits set by natural law [and halt]….Beyond it, if we survive, lies a world [of technologies]…able to make whatever they are told to make, without need for human labor. [Drexler]
Survival is not a foregone conclusion
[Political systems] are not human, though they are made of humans….[Historically, they] move from one semiautonomous, inhuman system to another — equally inhuman but perhaps more humane [system]…. [W]e must not confuse states that wear a human face with states that have humane institutions. [Drexler]
How humane do political systems in the world look today?
Indeed, governments, ‘historically, excelled at slaughter and oppression…[but] labor has been the necessary foundation of power….Advanced technology will make workers unnecessary and genocide easy.’ [Drexler]
We’re moving toward a world that makes this an option.
My point is that not only have apocalyptic pessimists been wrong, but so have techo-utopians — a camp you seem to favor. Reality is in-between and more the product of sociopolitical variables.
If interested in a realistic set of high-probability outcomes, on my Medium publication, A Passion to Evolve, you can find articles on these topics. For example:
Doc Says — Our Emotions, Institutions and Technological Capabilities Are Mismatched
Our Twilight Zone & What Comes Next
Civilization’s Anti-Human, Not Machines
Capitalism and Post-Capitalism — The Whole Truth & Nothing But
Only 6 Possible Outcomes in Next 20 Years [ — 4 are Bad — ]
Macroscopic Evolutionary Paradigm
Doc Huston
