On the recent 73rd anniversary of the Hiroshima nuclear attack I took part in a informal discussion targeted at exploring possible ways of preventing such terrible catastrophes in the future.
I give below my sketchy notes for my contribution to the discussion. I feel that they may form a useful start point for a discussion in the RG forum.
NOTES
CONTRAST this pleasant environment with cooperative people enjoying afternoon tea -- some staff working, true, but they are moderately fairly compensated -- with the horrific destruction and killing of 70,000 in Hiroshima in 1945.
How do such things come about (eg Battle of Kursk, Tai Ping Rebellion, Spartacist Revolt)?
I look to human basics: greed, pride, ambition, family loyalty, aggression, and other fundamentals.
Adopting an evolutionary perspective, I ask: is it just human beings – and what is the evolutionary benefit? Consider the behavior of other great apes and chimpanzee “war parties”.
The late Steven Hawking suggested, as I recall: that initially in human evolution aggression was useful, but now more empathy is urgently needed.
A KEY FACTOR – massive development of technology! Consider the origins of nuclear weapons – Einstein, WW2 and Manhattan Project
How possibly control to avoid human self-destruction in foreseeable future.
Well --- computer modelling of the human global social system, what it is, its feasibility (or otherwise) in this context and the problem of how to control the seemingly massively complex global human system – which, alas, we are part of, including our decision making!
Best answer yet - experiment assuming LIMITED intervention possibilities in the complex system, and model to explore most effective (or least ineffective) intervention strategies.
Time is not on our side.
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