miscellany

image on Twitter*

“Can we continue to trust our intelligence to get us out of any impending ecological disasters?”

Well, one of the most famous solutions to the big question – “Why haven't we discovered any aliens? If there are alien civilizations in the universe, why haven’t they contacted us?" – one of the most famous solutions to that paradox is that it’s quite likely that civilization, once it reaches a certain technological advancement, simply destroys itself.

And from our experience, that would seem to be a very reasonable hypothesis. I mean, we are not doing a good job. Prospects for the human race do not look good. Whether we will still be here in a thousand years is a question that we don’t know the answer to. So it could just be that once you reach a certain level of technological mastery over your environment, but haven’t reached a level of sophistication and wisdom to be able to protect your environment, then you’re essentially doomed to extinction.*