1) When it comes to children everyone immediately gets that their ability is limited and thus the power they have should be as well. 2) When it comes to adults we completely ignore our own limitations and instead insist, "we need as much power as possible, more is better!" — Jake

Why do even the most intelligent and best educated people find this so hard to grasp?

Why do even the most intelligent and best educated people find this so hard to grasp? — Jake

• Our evolutionary descent gave us extensive linguistic and cognitive abilities tightly coupled with blinding primate ego-centricity (power without probity).
• 20:20 vision with respect to Immediate self-interest, and blindness with respect to long-term collective interest
• Our capacity to deal with future consequences of current (and past) actions is quite limited. We can not effectively plan and act in time scales longer than the remaining lifetime of a middle-aged adult -- maybe 20, 30, 40 years. Meanwhile we have created problems that require centuries of attentive management.

We have successfully avoided the worst consequences of natures because the reciprocal revolutions of science and industry are (in long time scales) very recent--in fact still underway. The discovery of how to unlock the power locked up in the atomic nucleus is not a century old, yet--and that's just one problematic discovery. The problems generated by discoveries and deployed technologies in chemistry are perhaps as problematic as nuclear knowledge. "Better living through chemistry?" *** Bah, Humbug!

21st century people are just lucky that the scientific revolution didn't happen 2000 years ago. If it had happened during the Roman Empire, (everything being equal) we would be dealing with fully unfolded global warming, an extremely disrupted planetary ecology, and rather poor prospects. The mass die-off of human populations would be past, and we survivors would not know why. Et Cetera.

IN OTHER WORDS... The human situation is tragic. We are very flawed heroes and our flaws have been, are, and will be the cause of our downfall.

An aside: One theory about why we haven't encountered intelligent beings from other star systems: Evolving beings develop intelligence and technology, and then (over a period of time) exhaust the resources of their world. By the time they reach the threshold of space exploration, they no longer have the social stability and resources to pursue it.

***The phrase "Better Living Through Chemistry" is a variant of a DuPont advertising slogan, "Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry." DuPont adopted it in 1935 and it was their slogan until 1982 when the "Through Chemistry" part was dropped. Since 1999, their slogan has been "The miracles of science".[1]

Jake, the problem with the theory is, as has been said a number of times, that its to general or on a too high level of abstraction, making it only partly true, and even if true, useless.

You just keep ignoring these points. It's only partly true because, a) like i said our 'relation to knowledge' is at best only marginally driving 'the knowledge explosion' (it's more a story of economics and goverments...), and b) it's not generally the case for all knowledge.

And from a policy-point of view the idea that we should 'change our relation to knowledge', is useless, because what is one supposed to do with such a general claim? Most people who are somewhat knowledgable about the subject don't simply believe more knowledge is allways better anyway...

If you really want influence the world in some way here, you need identify individual research that is potentially dangerous, explain why etc etc... and then make concrete and realistic proposals of how to deal with that. And if you'd start that excercise, you'd probably find that a number of people are allready doing that.

Here's another perspective on the whole thing: Innovation, and therefor the quest for more knowledge is likely to decrease anyway.

Innovation is the goal, because it increases productivity and sales... because it is necessary for growth. The primary reason government are investing in innovation and research is because they believe it benifits the economy.

But there are indications that innovations are harder and harder to achieve... because, as the low hanging fruit is being plucked, more specialised knowledge is necessary and infrastructure gets more expensive. To maintain the same level of innovation, exponentially more investments are needed. Once goverments figure out their return on investment is decreasing, they very well might cut back on investing in it automatically.

So here's a strategy that might help achieving your goal. Find evidence that the rate of innovation is decreasing, and convince the public and goverment that it's not worth the money anymore. That'll get their attention a lot faster than vague predictions of doom.

You got to work with the world a little to achieve something...

Jake, the problem with the theory is, as has been said a number of times, that its to general or on a too high level of abstraction, making it only partly true, and even if true, useless. — ChatteringMonkey

What is abstract about the fact that you won't give your children machine guns to play with? You see their ability is limited, so you restrict the powers available to them. This is all my thesis is, a recognition that our ability is limited, and thus the power we have must be too. Simple common sense, that's all.

You just keep ignoring these points. It's only partly true because, a) like i said our 'relation to knowledge' is at best only marginally driving 'the knowledge explosion' (it's more a story of economics and goverments...), and b) it's not generally the case for all knowledge. — ChatteringMonkey

I keep ignoring these points because they aren't relevant to the thesis. If you prefer to replace "relationship with knowledge" with "relationship with power" I don't object at all, as already stated, but that switch makes no difference, the problem remains.

And from a policy-point of view the idea that we should 'change our relation to knowledge', is useless, because what is one supposed to do with such a general claim? — ChatteringMonkey

Either disprove the thesis and then discard it, or accept that it is generally true, and then advance the inquiry on that basis.

What happens instead is, people try to disprove the thesis, and when they fail they wander off to some other discussion.

If you really want influence the world in some way here, you need identify individual research that is potentially dangerous, explain why etc etc... and then make concrete and realistic proposals of how to deal with that. And if you'd start that excercise, you'd probably find that a number of people are allready doing that. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes, many people are already doing that, agreed. And while that is good, it's not enough. Such a process assumes that we can navigate our way to having more and more power at faster and faster rates, and that simply isn't true.

As example, it seems to me that nuclear weapons are the most pressing threat. Let's imagine I had the perfect solution to that. That's great, but the knowledge explosion keeps rolling along, producing new and larger threats at an ever faster rate. Thus, if I limit my effort to this or that technology, I'm not really accomplishing anything other than delaying the inevitable crash. And of course, nobody has actually yet succeeded in getting rid of nukes, stopping or slowing genetic research, saying no to AI, or any of the things you seem to be suggesting.

At some point we're going to have to recognize that while we can manage X amount of power, we can't handle Y, and thus we have to say no to learning Y. The cultural consensus that you are expressing doesn't yet grasp that...

1) There are limits to human ability, thus...

2) There have to be limits to human power.

3) Simple!

Just exactly the same reasoning we routinely apply to children. It's the simplest thing, until someone suggests we apply this common sense to adults as well, and then everyone wants to make it as complicated as possible.

No.

The "knowledge explosion keeps rolling on" is just a metaphore, not an actual thing happening, but a vague abstraction of different processes.

The set of all knowledge is a higher abstraction containing different subsets of specific knowledge.

Contrairy to popular belief, going higher in abstraction doesn't necessarily inform you more, you lose information about the world in the proces of 'abstraction'.

That's why ideology and politics spoils philosophical sophistication, because they give very general answers to complex questions... removing the motivation to ask further.

You are basicly doing the same thing.

You restrict children from using machine guns, but not from using water pistols... point being that you need to look at individual cases about what exactly is dangerous and what is not.

1) There are limits to human ability, thus...
2) There have to be limits to human power. — Jake

Do we agree on this, or not?

Yeah sure.... but again, it's to vague to be informative. What limits is the question.

IN OTHER WORDS... The human situation is tragic. We are very flawed heroes and our flaws have been, are, and will be the cause of our downfall. — Bitter Crank

I generally agree with this Crank. We are flawed, but not entirely flawed. There is an element of sanity and reason there too. So while our downfall is likely inevitable at some point, we aren't required to race towards it blindly at full speed.

I would return a bit of focus to the Amish. They have opted out of the knowledge explosion in a manner all of us would likely consider to be extreme, and yet there they still are, not experiencing any dramatic calamity. While this is not a perfect example, it does at least suggest that the idea of slowing down is not out of the question.

Yeah sure.... but again it's to vague to be informative. What limits is the question. — ChatteringMonkey

Why is that principle not considered too vague or simple etc when applied to humans under the age of 18?

I agree there are many details to be considered, but before we rush off in to that, let's see if we agree on where we're trying to go. Is the shared goal of this conversation to look for ways to limit the powers available to human beings?

No, i'm not a politician or activist, I'm a philosopher. I'm interested in good arguments and thinking well, not in changing the world.

My goal in this thread is improving upon the argument, and maybe helping you to be more effective along the way.

There are allready a lot way peoples powers are restricted btw. I don't think it would be a good idea to start thinking about ways to restrict the power of human with a kind of top down approach, right here. I think, if that's what you want to do, you need to engage in a particular existing tradition, and identify particular ways in which the restrictions are not sufficient.

With respect to the Amish, you might like several of James Howard Kunstler's A World Made By Hand novels or some of his essays about knowledge, resource exhaustion, etc. like The Long Emergency".

His fictional town of Union Grove, New York is, along with the rest of the world, experiencing technological collapse. But life in this dystopian world is surprisingly wholesome, if somewhat precarious. The standard of technology has been set back to roughly 1890, roughly where the Amish prefer to be: No oil refineries, no cars, no planes, electricity IF you can figure out how to generate it, no antibiotics (the factories can't operate), no plastics, horse & human power only, etc. Not many factories, either, thus the "world made by hand".

Another post apocalyptic book I like is Earth Abides written in 1949. Techno collapse in this novel is caused by a world-wide epidemic which kills 99999 people out of 100,000--not many left and those widely scattered about. Bands of people, here and there, use such tools as they can find to grow food, and meet there bare needs. The 'hero' grows old in the novel, and at the end, his grand children have adapted to a vastly simpler life.

I like the Amish people I have met. They are, of course, quite religious and of necessity rather conservative, but they aren't naive country bumpkins. They've found sustainability, even if through the route of their old-world religious roots. They are maintaining technology we should pay attention to, because most of us are 3 generations from knowing how to work with a horse or oxen, raise food without RoundUp and artificial fertilizer, preserve food (canning, drying), make cloth (I don't know that the Amish spin wool, flax, and cotton or tan leather, but those are skills that would be critical without polyester, rayon, and nylon.

No, i'm not a politician or activist, I'm a philosopher. I'm interested in good arguments and thinking well, not in changing the world. — ChatteringMonkey

I'll rephrase then...

1) Should it be a goal of society to look for ways to limit the powers available to human beings?

2) Or, should we accept the group consensus which assumes we should learn as much as possible, thus giving ourselves as much power as possible?

I agree with your "thinking well" goal and am trying to facilitate that by focusing the question. In the end we are going to try to limit the knowledge and powers available to us, or we're not. Which do you prefer?

My goal in this thread is improving upon the argument, and maybe helping you to be more effective along the way. — ChatteringMonkey

I do agree that my phrase "our relationship with knowledge" will be perceived as too abstract by many readers. I think that's a good point.

I'm just one person. My abilities are obviously limited too. The solution I suggest is that lots of people write on this topic from their own perspectives, using their own preferred language etc. That's my goal, to help stir up such conversations.

I like the Amish people I have met. They are, of course, quite religious and of necessity rather conservative, but they aren't naive country bumpkins. — Bitter Crank

My best friend online is actually a former Amish who left that community as a teen. He's now a web coding expert about to publish his 1,000th ezine issue on those topics. He's a great guy, and we regularly joke about what the rear ends of horses look like as you're plowing the field etc. :smile:

I'll rephrase then...

1) Should it be a goal of society to look for ways to limit the powers available to human beings?

2) Or, should we accept the group consensus which assumes we should learn as much as possible, thus giving ourselves as much power as possible?

I agree with your "thinking well" goal and am trying to facilitate that by focusing the question. In the end we are going to try to limit the knowledge and powers available to us, or we're not. Which do you prefer? — Jake

No see, it's not black or white.

We are limiting the powers available to human beings. The president of the US is the only one who can push the button for a nuclear strike. They did that precisely because after WO II they knew the A-Bomb was not something to used lightly (and didn't trust the military with it (if the president is a better guarantee is another question)).

The question is not whether powers should be limited, but rather whether the current limitations to powers are sufficient. And if not, in what ways? I think they are insufficient in a number of ways, but that would move us way beyond this thread.

ChatteringMonkey, setting concern for humanity aside for the moment, I hope you will find this issue as philosophically fascinating as I do.

What I see is an entire culture taking the "more is better" assumption to be an obvious given, even though that assumption can be undermined with simple common sense.

To me, this illustrates that generally speaking human beings don't typically reference reason, but authority. The main authority being the group consensus. If everyone is saying the emperor is wearing clothes, everyone assumes that he must be wearing clothes. High school kids, grandma at the bake sale, Nobel Prize winning intellectual elites, it seems to make no difference. I guess this is what Crank is trying to tell us.

No see, it's not black or white. — ChatteringMonkey

Your dodging and weaving my friend. In your defense, you're in very good company.

2) Or, should we accept the group consensus which assumes we should learn as much as possible, thus giving ourselves as much power as possible? — Jake

In one respect, the group consensus is for a limitation of knowledge and power. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has sought to stop the expansion of nuclear bomb technology beyond the 5 recognized nuclear states: the USSR, USA, UK, France, and China. The effort has not been highly successful. Israel and the Union of South Africa presumably developed atomic weapons in combination. India and Pakistan both developed nuclear weapons, and more recently, so did North Korea. Iran was well on the way (apparently) to The Bomb.

Limiting the spread of nuclear weapons technology is difficult. No state that said they would develop nuclear weapons has so far failed to do so. (Atomic weapons knowledge spreads; it isn't reinvented. It was discovered only once, during the Manhattan Project. From the the US and the UK it passed on to the USSR, France, and China; Israel and South Africa; then to India and Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran. There are few "secrets" left, but the technological methodology is daunting.

The manufacture of chemical and biological warfare also was banned, but the ban can be evaded. No inconveniently noticeable big explosion is required to test C&B weapons.

1) Should it be a goal of society to look for ways to limit the powers available to human beings? — Jake

It isn't clear to me how "we" would limit "us" from learning whatever "somebody among us" decides to learn, be it benign or malignant. I can decide what I will not learn, but I don't know of a way to prevent you from learning what you wish to learn. (Well, I know a way, but it happen to be highly illegal and severely punished.)

We are what we are: inquisitive, intelligent, excitement seeking, short-sighted, selfish, (piggish, a good share of the time) poorly self-regulating beings. Worse, we do not have a high-resolution big-picture view over all human affairs. We can not see everything that is going on, and we are not able to interpret a good share of it. And even when we know that some people are engaging in skullduggery of the worst kind, there is sometimes nothing we can do about it.

Somewhere, right now, somebody is openly engaging in legal research which will likely have quite negative consequences. They are pushing the envelope, maybe too far. What are "we" going to do about it?

The president of the US is the only one who can push the button for a nuclear strike. — ChatteringMonkey

That was once a comforting assumption; it's not quite so comforting at the present moment. In any case, presidents long since began delegating to Naval command the power to launch defensively in the event of communication failure or severe time constraints. Fortunately, Pacific Fleet Command, and officers far down the ladder, were prudent, cautious, and careful. They might have, but did not launch on warning. See Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

In one respect, the group consensus is for a limitation of knowledge and power. — Bitter Crank

Good point. Yes, pretty much everyone seems to agree there should be fewer nuclear weapons, probably because that's a very dramatic threat which is easy to understand. A box that goes BOOM!, it can be explained to a child.

But as you say, we're not having a lot of luck with getting rid of nukes. To me, this illustrates the relative weakness of intellectual understandings. We all have a pretty detailed intellectual understanding of nukes, but that's not helping us much. What's missing is a sufficient emotional relationship with the threat. We have the data, but we're failing to experience the data as being real.

The best I can offer in terms of disarmament suggestions is that we focus more closely on the near miss mistakes which have in some cases brought us inadvertently close to the edge of war.

As example, in one case somebody mistakenly loaded a training tape in to the NORAD computer and for a few precious minutes the U.S. government thought it was witnessing an incoming Soviet first strike. In another example, the U.S. warned the Soviets they would be launching a research satellite off the coast of Norway, but somebody on the Soviet side forgot to pass the info up the chain of command. Soviet generals thought they were observing a U.S. first strike and raced the nuclear football to the usually drunk Yeltsin and told him he had to launch Russian missiles. Happily, Yeltsin ignored their advice and waited for confirmation.

The Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine doesn't protect us from such screw ups, so the only way for us to be safe is to get rid of the nukes. When I become Secretary Of State I will explain to the Russians that while we have no intention of attacking them on purpose but I can't rule out that we might do so by mistake.

It isn't clear to me how "we" would limit "us" from learning whatever "somebody among us" decides to learn, be it benign or malignant. I can decide what I will not learn, but I don't know of a way to prevent you from learning what you wish to learn. — Bitter Crank

I don't have a solution to this either, other than to hope some dramatic event will radically shift the group consensus making new opportunities possible. The question would seem to be, do we want modern civilization to continue, or not? Yes, or no?

If we answer yes then we would seem to have little choice but to tackle the challenge.

Somewhere, right now, somebody is openly engaging in legal research which will likely have quite negative consequences. They are pushing the envelope, maybe too far. What are "we" going to do about it? — Bitter Crank

We can prepare the ground. We can spread conversations like this as far as we can so when that researcher causes havoc that won't be the first time the group consensus has thought about these subjects.

Even though we in this forum thread are the most brilliant philosophers of all time :smile: we shouldn't assume that because we can't think of a solution to this off the top of our heads that automatically equals there not being a solution.

on purpose, I can't rule out that we might do so by mistake.

That was once a comforting assumption; it's not quite so comforting at the present moment. — Bitter Crank

You doubt the maturity and judgment of President Dumpster?? You doubt the moral integrity of Vladimir Putin??? Where in the world do you get these wacko ideas Dr. Crank??

Seriously, isn't it amazing? Two of the world's biggest assholes hold the fate of humanity in their grimy little hands. And Dumpster was legally elected, and Putin has wide support among the Russian people.

We are insane beyond words....

It's insane from some kind of moral point of view, from a view that has an idea about how the world should be.

It's not something we would say about something like the weather... isn't it insane or amazing that it's raining!

Why do we treat things differently when humans are involved. Because we attribute agency to them, the ability to freely make rational and moral decisions.

I think that view is at best partly true. In fact, that view is often part of the hubris.

When you look at the history of the two countries, and begin to understand the mechanics a bit more, it's isn't quite as insane.

A 'strong man' like putin was needed to hold Russia together after the fall of the USSR. And Trump, well, he's the result of large parts of the population being ignored and not represented politically.

Why do we treat things differently when humans are involved. Because we attribute agency to them, the ability to freely make rational and moral decisions. I think that view is at best partly true. In fact, that view is often part of the hubris. — ChatteringMonkey

I can largely agree with this. In the spirit of thinking well, again the question would seem to be, do we want to hang on to modern civilization, or not, yes or no? If we answer yes, then having nukes and handing them over to people like Putin and Trump seems fairly defined as insane, in relation to the goal of maintaining the benefits of modern civilization.

When you look at the history of the two countries, and begin to understand the mechanics a bit more, it's isn't quite as insane. A 'strong man' like putin was needed to hold Russia together after the fall of the USSR. And Trump, well, he's the result of large parts of the population being ignored and not represented politically. — ChatteringMonkey

I prefer to describe Putin as the world's leading gangster, head of a criminal enterprise which is busy soaking the Russian people for every last dollar which can be skimmed off the top and exported to secret bank accounts out of the country.

But you make a good point. Russia has been invaded from the West a number of times, and the last invasion was a horror show beyond our imagination. For example, Russia lost 40 times as many lives as America lost in WWII, and the western part of the country was burned to the ground. And so the Russians rationally choose to be ruled by a very smart gangster over risking political chaos which might invite another invasion. All that said, none of this is going to matter once somebody screws up and the missiles start flying. And what are the chances that nobody in Russia, or here, will ever screw up?

As I see it, Trump is a symptom of what we're discussing in this thread. Modernity is moving too fast, some folks are being left behind, and others are worried they will be next. And so some of us turn to a hyper-confident leader who promises he can take us back to the past when we felt we knew what was going on.

Knowledge explosion => Globalization => Rapid Change => Fear => Trump

I don't think a lot of people, me included, think having nukes arround is a good idea in itself. Problem is that there are soevereign competing nations, and that nukes happen to be the most powerfull weapon available in that competition. Again, it's a prisonners dilemma, where one nation thinks they can't afford to disarm unilateraly, because they'll loose their position.

Only way out of the prisonner's dilemma would seem to be a supranational legal framework where all parties are obliged to disarm simultaniously. Some efforts have been made to create such a thing, the league of nations, and the after WOII the United Nations... but I think that this have been failed attempts, or at least flawed. A lot of the time it has been used by nations only to serve their interests.

There were some design flaws, veto-rights, not enough resources and real power behind it to enforce decisions etc... Maybe one could do something about that, and then that could be a way forward, but in the end it's allways still people who have to do it. Still that has to be the way to deal with some of these problems.

Only way out of the prisonner's dilemma would seem to be a supranational legal framework where all parties are obliged to disarm simultaniously. — ChatteringMonkey

Something like what you describe is in the works. Here's a couple of links to provide a quick overview.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_Nuclear_Weapons

http://www.icanw.org/status-of-the-treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons/

It looks like everybody agrees to the treaty, except those states that have nuclear weapons. :smile: Still, it's movement in the right direction.

As you know, the policy of deterrence is called MAD, mutual assured destruction. What's not factored in to this equation is the possibility of unintended launches. Here's an article which describes some near misses.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/world-war-three-by-mistake

Nuclear weapons do have the benefit of teaching us a lot about ourselves. The truth is that we don't really care that much about all the work so many generations did to create modern civilization, nor do we care that much about whether future generations will get to enjoy what's been built. We have the goodies right now, and that's pretty much all that matters to us. Sobering, but instructive.

From the New Yorker article....

On June 3, 1980, at about two-thirty in the morning, computers at the National Military Command Center, beneath the Pentagon, at the headquarters of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), deep within Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, and at Site R, the Pentagon’s alternate command post center hidden inside Raven Rock Mountain, Pennsylvania, issued an urgent warning: the Soviet Union had just launched a nuclear attack on the United States. The Soviets had recently invaded Afghanistan, and the animosity between the two superpowers was greater than at any other time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

U.S. Air Force ballistic-missile crews removed their launch keys from the safes, bomber crews ran to their planes, fighter planes took off to search the skies, and the Federal Aviation Administration prepared to order every airborne commercial airliner to land.

President Jimmy Carter’s national-security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was asleep in Washington, D.C., when the phone rang. His military aide, General William Odom, was calling to inform him that two hundred and twenty missiles launched from Soviet submarines were heading toward the United States. Brzezinski told Odom to get confirmation of the attack. A retaliatory strike would have to be ordered quickly; Washington might be destroyed within minutes. Odom called back and offered a correction: twenty-two hundred Soviet missiles had been launched.

Brzezinski decided not to wake up his wife, preferring that she die in her sleep. As he prepared to call Carter and recommend an American counterattack, the phone rang for a third time. Odom apologized—it was a false alarm. An investigation later found that a defective computer chip in a communications device at NORAD headquarters had generated the erroneous warning. The chip cost forty-six cents. — The New Yorker

So, if one is willing to face the possibility of human error and unintended launches, one is then required to understand that the policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) which we are counting on to keep us safe is largely an illusion.

MAD assumes that all parties will have technical control of their weapons at all times, an assumption undermined by a series of incidents where such control was lost.

MAD assumes that the players involved are sane intelligent actors who will make rational calculations. While this is typically true, it's also sometimes not true. As example, it was nuts for Hitler to invade the Soviet Union, as his generals tried to tell him, but Hitler was a high stakes gambler addicted to the next roll of the dice.

Please forgive this bump, have a new idea which I thought would be useful. As a quick review the premise of this thread is...

This article will argue that the "more is better" relationship with knowledge which is the foundation of science and our modern civilization is simplistic, outdated and increasingly dangerous. — Jake

NEW ARGUMENT:

Let's consider gun ownership. There is of course a great deal of debate here in the U.S. about what exactly the limits of gun ownership should be. But as far as I know, pretty much no one is arguing weapon ownership should be unlimited. You know, the NRA is not arguing that attack helicopters, surface to air missiles, and nuclear weapons should be legally available at the local Army Navy store.

So within the realm of weaponry we have wide agreement that our access to weapons should be somehow limited, and we are arguing only over the details as to what degree that access should be limited.

This group consensus regarding weapons is compatible with the thesis of this thread, which is that the power available to human beings should be somehow limited. I don't claim to know exactly how it should be limited, or to what degree, I'm arguing only that a "more is better" relationship with knowledge, and thus power, is simplistic, outdated and dangerous.

And, I ask members again to reflect upon the fact that modern science is pretty much defined by a simplistic "more is better" relationship with knowledge, and thus power. The mantra seems to be, if we can learn something, we should learn it.

This "more is better" relationship with knowledge and power really makes no sense, just as selling nuclear weapons at the Army Navy store would make no sense.

Thus, I am claiming that the intellectual, scientific and political elites of our civilization are selling us a theory which makes no sense. The selling of such assumptions is understandable, but not logical. Their intentions are generally good, but their reasoning is not.

PS: I respectfully ask members to please don't turn this thread in to a gun control debate. I've used that issue only as an example to illustrate that we already readily accept limits to our power in some important respects.