Originally Posted by schnee
The thing is, you're not going to stop progress towards those hideous futures, any more than we could stop the atom bomb, genetic engineering, cloning, or the car usurping bikes. People will push and push and push for reasons banal and sublime, and there are enough of us, and enough cats out of the bag, that it's inevitable.
Besides, the most instructive lessons are often the ones that involve the most suffering. Surely you don't think someone's going to, say, not push towards nano-surveillance drones because some futurist said it's bad, right?
i agree with this fully. advances will always be made that can be used in a variety of ways - some positive and some negative. generally whether the uses are ultimately positive or negative won't be clear to most people without examples to support the reasoning. the reasoning will of course exist prior to the proof, but people won't heed it without the suffering that schnee mentions.