Astral/H3X
Member
I am reminded of Xenoblade for some reason.
I am, more likely, missing your reference.
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Is there knowledge that humanity shouldn't know?
- Thread starter hipbabboom
- Start date
I am reminded of Xenoblade for some reason.
I am, more likely, missing your reference.
i mean its kind of a miracle that in like 10,000 years of civilization we already managed to come this far i guess, considering how short a time that is in the grand scheme of life
Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
Figuring out how to create antimatter at scale would probably end poorly for us.
Fbh
Member
But would it alter our reality or simply create a new parallel timeline ?
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
Of course we aren't. But without knowledge we will never know.
Everything we are, everything we can be is directing us to our ultimate destiny. The proliferation of humanity across the stars.
Depends if the Hero fails, wins or becomes a child again.
That would indeed be cool if we humans can someday do interstellar space travel.
umop_3pisdn
Member
I could see some kinds of knowledge being restricted to some members of some institutions, but to prevent it from being known by anyone seems both inordinately challenging and potentially irresponsible.
Robot Pants
Member
The true origins of Guy Feiri....
We are not ready
We are not ready
The Albatross
Member
I can get if you want to protect the Earth for the sake of the Earth, or for the sake of other flora/fauna on the Earth, so that's why you might not want energy from oil, or plastics, or industrial farming. But as soon as you start to introduce the human element to that justification for being against those things, the argument falls apart.
Industrial Farming has virtually solved world hunger, where world hunger is now a political problem, not an agricultural problem. Prior to industrial farming, hundreds of thousands of people died of unavoidable starvation. Because of industrial farming, plastics, and energy from fossil fuels, starvation is not an agricultural problem anymore. Because of these three things -- industrial farming, plastics, and energy from fossil fuels -- disease, famine, malnutrition, clean water, and almost any other ill has been reduced to logistical or political problems. That is to say, these problems still exist in places that are under political duress or are logistically difficult to address, but political and logistical problems are soft problems that can be solved... The tyrant starving his population is overthrown, medical supplies can be brought to a disease stricken area, relief programs can eventually reach suffering populations that are difficult to access.
So, I get it if someone wants to turn back the clock on human life from some sort of Gaia/planetary concern, the idea that humans should not destroy nature and harm the delicate balance of all species on the planet, or perhaps the idea that if humans die of mass starvation, famine, or disease that maybe that's all part of nature's plan to regulate population, or what have you. I get those arguments and if that's your religious belief then I couldn't really argue against it... But the moment we bring in the human element to this, the idea of 'making the planet uninhabitable for humans,' the argument isn't convincing, because those three things in particular have made earth more habitable for humans than it ever was before they came about. Entire civilizations used to die of starvation over several bad crop seasons; entire continents would be ravaged by disease, reducing human populations by as much as 60% in Europe, or in some cases completely eradicating large cities. These three things, and really just one of them, the harnessing of fossil fuels, has led to the single largest reduction in pestilence, disease, starvation, and strife in human civilization (industrial farming and plastics both don't exist without petroleum). The cost to the planet, though, has been steep, so I get it if we're in favor of pestilence, disease, starvation, etc., as a means to keep some balance to the planet greater than the human species, but insofar as we're focused on humans ... it's a tough argument to be convincing.
Rather than outright strike these things from human knowledge (say, like some Assassins Creed Piece of Eden sorcery), I'd rather we live in a world where that knowledge is known, utilized, but then the same thing that leads us to those scientific discoveries, is the same thing that educates us on how to utilize them without destroying the planet. In the long term, maybe that's impossible, but in the short term, we'd all have been dead without them anyway.
Maybe finding out if we are living in a computer simulation? While nothing would change about life itself it may seriously devalue existence for a lot of people to know for real that we aren't real(even though you can already argue philosophically that our entire existence in this universe is an impermanent dream and we are tiny dream-like figments waiting to evaporate either way).
Username1198
Member
Jokers real name. It's gonna be something stupid like John VonClownson or worse
We are pretty insignificant considering the scale of the universe.
Just by the rule of probability, and the billions upon billions of solar systems out there, we are absolutely not the only sentient beings.
We as humanity are likely pretty primitive compared to beings that have been around a lot longer.
The gains in quality and length of life provided by those three technologies, and the technologies they subsequently provided a foundation for, are so incredibly, immeasurably more important to humanity than the present and future threat of climate change, which we absolutely have the capability to protect ourselves from and eventually repair and reverse, that yeah
when you say that we shouldn't have the means of ensuring global food security, the material on which the modern age is built, and machine power
it sounds like you're embracing something undeniably horrific because the other option has a scuff mark.
Username1198
Member
Exactly. I'd be pisssd if I found out this a computer simulation. Or happy if I could use cheat codes. Can you imagine waking up as the Hulk and hurling buildings at the moon?
The Albatross
Member
Just to be argumentative...
The 'rule of probability' would never mean anything is 'absolutely' true or false
Randolph Freelander
Member
I'm absolutely probably the center of the universe.
Maybe.
Maybe.
andythinkpad
Member
Who killed JFK
UncleSporky
Member
I thought this thread would be a spinoff from the gay faces detection software thread. A lot of people were saying this technology was harmful, or would cause more harm than good, and is an example of technology-derived knowledge or understanding that really had no positive application. It's knowledge that could right now lead to mass persecution and government execution in a number of territories around the world.
Or as just one example, if research like this eventually leads to discovering the "gay gene," coupled with some future knowledge of safe, cheap methods of genetic engineering in the womb, couldn't that lead to parents deciding they don't want gay children, designer babies, etc.? Should we still pursue knowledge that could lead to that?
Or as just one example, if research like this eventually leads to discovering the "gay gene," coupled with some future knowledge of safe, cheap methods of genetic engineering in the womb, couldn't that lead to parents deciding they don't want gay children, designer babies, etc.? Should we still pursue knowledge that could lead to that?
Randolph Freelander
Member
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
We are also on the scene fairly early. The universe is only 14 billion years old out of a potential lifespan of 1 to 100 trillion years. Even on the lower end, humanity is pretty early on the scene. Who knows? Maybe we are among the first species to achieve sentience? Maybe we will be the Precursor Race?
Airola
Member
Also the knowledge of how to control electricity.
That opened the floodgates to super mass production of everything.
We are slaves to electricity now. We feel like we are controlling electricity but it is controlling us. It brought us laziness and overindulgence of things.
Science was a mistake.
And now as things are too easy for us, we think that losing the convenience of science and electricity will make our lives boring and worthless.
Case in point below:
Username1198
Member
trump/GOP are the great filter imo
"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself" - Carl Sagan
I fully believe that quote from my man Sagan. So, no is the answer to the question.
If we kill ourselves because of knowledge, it's not the fault of whatever knowledge brought it upon us, it would be at the fault of humanity's refusal to stop killing each other.
I fully believe that quote from my man Sagan. So, no is the answer to the question.
If we kill ourselves because of knowledge, it's not the fault of whatever knowledge brought it upon us, it would be at the fault of humanity's refusal to stop killing each other.
hydragonwarrior
Member
How to make nukes.
They have no use for us, and even if we were to try to fend off an asteroid, it's far better to ward it off course gradually through other means.
They have no use for us, and even if we were to try to fend off an asteroid, it's far better to ward it off course gradually through other means.
I want to say the earliest planets to have formed in our universe was about 13 billion years ago. Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago. That's a big window for civilizations before us...a long time ago...in a galaxy far, far away.
Glass Shark
Banned
Just because we pursue knowledge doesn't mean that it has to be used. In fact, it's good that we know certain things so we know WHY they're a bad idea.
Astral Dog
Member
HONestly? no.
unless you are a scary person, what could that even be?if there is another life in the universe,or iwhen is the planet going to expire? i cant imagine anything else, people would descredit it anyways,.
oh its a funny thread
unless you are a scary person, what could that even be?if there is another life in the universe,or iwhen is the planet going to expire? i cant imagine anything else, people would descredit it anyways,.
oh its a funny thread
Instilling manufactured things with sentience.
Astral Dog
Member
maybe time travel is impossible to do,.
I think viewing or experiencing different moments in time will be possible at some point. You may not be able to do anything different though. The more we learn about time, the more we discover the true nature of time is not as we perceive it.
shnurgleton
Member
How can we know what we shouldn't know?
Known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, man
Known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, man
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
If we developed FTL we could send super-powerful observatories out to various distances to look at the Earth at what would be history.
Airola
Member
That's also a big window for at least some civilization building stuff that would make their existence know to us. I mean, think about how much humans have advanced in the last hundred years. If there have been billions of years of civilization building before earth was even formed I'd imagine at least one civilization would not have extreme distances as obstacles to find us. They should've made so big technolocigal advances that they can detect our small planet and they can visit us.
As there is not a single piece of evidence of them being here I'd say that
1) They are not intelligent at all. They might not even have built anything that can fly into space. They might be stupid as hell.
2) We are the first and could be the last too.
Yea, I'd say that is probably the most likely way to achieve some type of "time travel".
Billions of years is a long time. I think the most likely thing is that there have been other more advanced civilizations that are no longer around.
And also yes, there are probably plenty of lifeforms out there that are just not sentient or advanced to the point where they'd look for us.
Extra Sauce
Member
Humanity should never know that it is a cast of 7.5 billion characters living inside my mind. The consequences would be disastrous... but I trust GAF to handle and keep the secret.
The Albatross
Member
Last year I read 'American Prometheus,' the biography of Robert Oppenheimer, and I really thought the Myth of Prometheus was such a great parable to Oppenheimer and the scientists on the Manhattan project. Nearly all of them were conflicted about the project, and most went onto become ardent opponents of future nuclear development. For his opposition to nuclear development in the 1950s, Oppenheimer himself was attacked and discredited as being a Communist, despite literally doing more to end World War II than any other American.
SwiftDeath
Member
Humanity has only been truly looking for signs of alien life for the better part of what 300, 500 years?
We've always star-gazed but without written history that we can make sense of (scientific theory etc.) and without tools like telescopes, it's unlikely any time before that would we as a species even notice aliens unless they visited us.
What happens if aliens all died out or moved to the opposite end of the universe or any number of possibilities? Billions of years goes both ways as there no guarantee that advanced races will survive indefinitely or won't all just go VR Waifu route and stop moving about so much
Ha!
To contribute to the conversation: until humans can side step evolutionary and historical imperatives wrt colonisation, appropriation and capitalism, then there's a whole bunch of things we should never be or have been near. But the damage is already done so
Hmm, yeah, the bombs forced the Japanese to come to the table and surrender, but we also didn't tell them that they could keep their emperor until after we had dropped the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Would they have agreed to surrender in that scenario? Maybe not. But we also didn't present it as an option.
Not discrediting the work of Oppenheimer, just questioning the way the Allies ultimately went about it.
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