Desolation from Best Intentions

Most people have heard the saying "Two wrongs don't [do not] make a right". Slowly over the last few years some of us have become aware that the saying has a frightening flip-side. Since the end of the Nineteenth century with the growing self-assurance of Science, the World has witnessed increasing adverse feed-back from often the most noble endeavour efforts of humanity.  To list just a few more well known examples;-

  • The Manhattan Project developed the Atomic Bomb, with the expressed purpose of stopping a mad-man (Hitler) reeking great untold destruction. Tragically with-in a decade this advanced had mushroomed to cold-wars threat of destroying the whole planet! 
  • The invention of a string of famous life saving drugs in the Twentieth century softened the hard-hearted inevitability of ones mortality, allowing many a longer fuller life.  Unfortunately without Death's harsh break, humanity's population raced headlong to  precipitous highs.
  • The Green Revolution was heralded for saving millions from mass starvation. But increased cropping rates are squandering top-soil as desertification runs unchecked. Monoculture farming's resulting loss of biological diversity has dramatically increased the risk of some new planet disease catastrophically devastating the whole world's foods supplies.  The Irish potato famine of the nineteenth century would then look like as kindergarten picnic.

Enough with the historical examples, what is the pattern here?Well meaning people become personally concerned about some problem, deciding that something must be done to fix what-ever.  Next those engaged in meeting the challenge are often drawn from some highly specialised area of scientific or academic endeavour. A solution to the narrowly defined problem is eventual found after much hard work. Then the moral and commercial pressure is on to make the most of the latest breakthrough. But no-where in this business as usual process has the wider implication even been mentioned, let-alone seriously considered.

Taking this wider perspective we all should be getting very worried about many yet un-explored, unintended interactions exploding around us;-

The Copyright Law & Patents were intented to protect artisans and promote innovation, but with the Knowledge Economy this has all gone awry of late;-

  • See Free Patents and also BoyCot Amazon  
  • Richard Stallman’s analysis of the Hague Treaty shows the deepening dangers rising from honarable reform of the international legal system. .

Then there is the worry of Tiny Little Robots in league with some Big Brainy Boxes taking over the World;-

 

Last updated 20-June-2001
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