>>60529659Additionally, technological progress opens completely new dimensions of harm, even mass extinction. Just decades ago, mankind had only one means of committing global suicide, the hydrogen bomb. It was extremely expensive to build, billions per bomb, a nationwide effort. Because society allows brain damaged sociopaths to subvert institutions and positions of power, this simple device led to dozens of close calls that had to be stopped by normal people. 20 to 10 years ago, biologists and epidemiologists put together the resources to build ELE level viruses. The industrial accident in Wuhan was a small demo of what can happen with this technology. But in contrast to nuclear bombs, this is a technology that people can use at home, for the price of a car, one can create an oncogenic cold virus at home.
This decade, engineered prions became feasible, which could be way worse than viruses, as they can contaminate the environment for centuries. And an ecosystem of self-replicating, self-improving artificial intelligences is rising. Mathematical weapons might be around the corner, like introducing irreversible dynamic patterns of escalation into all kinds of systems.
These are just examples, but it's clear that this is a rapidly accelerating process. Bureaucrats and politicians will try to counter that with massive surveillance and behavioral restrictions. And I believe they will fail. Societal structures are inept and corrupted, there is no way they could be fixed in time. Reigning in the greedy sociopaths would require lots of collective effort and foresight, which we do not have.