Apocalypse Now?

 

We used to b so hopeful back in the 1960s. This, many of us felt sure, was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Which would be in every way better than the present age.

The mood has darkened significantly.

An interviewee on John Cleese’s Dinosaur Hour made an unsettling point. Increasingly, mankind is developing technologies that could put an end to mankind. We have been living with the threat of nuclear annihilation since the 1950s. We are now close to developing AI to a level at which it might act unpredictably. And then there is genetic manipulation, which might be used to create something rather worse than Covid-19 at almost any moment. A highly virulent, 100% fatal virus seems a possibility.

At the same time, technological improvements make such tools accessible, over time, to more people. 

How long will it take before one such tool is in the hands of a psychopath, the sort of mind that shoots up schools? Someone who wants to die, but also wants to take the whole world with them?

The commentator on the Dinosaur Hour thought it inevitable by the end of this century.

I can’t see, offhand, where his logic is wrong. Other than it is all, as it always was, in the hands of God. Perhaps he planned this for the end times.

This might also explain the frequency of reported alien visits in recent years. Either they are coming to save us, or to watch the fireworks.