Can 'Hackstability' Save Civilization? [View all]

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/04/24/151269428/can-hackstability-save-civilization

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif]April 24, 2012

[font size=5]Can 'Hackstability' Save Civilization?[/font]

[font size=3]The future looks bright, a gleaming utopia of sky-spanning cities run for us by benign, sentient machines. The future looks grim, a wasteland of failed — even hostile — technologies and the depleted resources they depended on.

When we think about the future, we almost always find ourselves caught swinging between the poles of this utopia vs. dystopia dichotomy. It's an easy trap to fall into. The civilization we've hastily constructed appears to groan under the weight of its own complexity, even as it continues to create miracles unimaginable just a century or two ago. But are the paired futures of techno-singularity or societal collapse the only possibilities awaiting us?

Might there be a third option?


Somewhere between acceleration and decay there may be a more realistic future whose outline we can see right now. Between the singularity and collapse there just might exist the relative equilibrium of "hackstability."

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