Introducing the X-Risks Institute (for the Study of Extremism)
What will the future look like? The further upwards one moves from the basement domain of physics, the harder it often gets to predict long-term trends. Nonetheless, we have some fairly good clues about what to expect moving forward. Moore's law, for example, enables us to anticipate with some degree of accuracy, at least on a timescale of decades, how the development of computer hardware will likely proceed. And many nanotechnology experts concur that it's only a matter of time before personal nanofactories become as common as the personal computer (or even more so, given their potential for self-replication).
But technology isn't being developed in a vacuum. This is a crucial point that constitutes, in my view, a major weakness in a lot of (otherwise good) work being done by secular futurists. To my knowledge, virtually no one is asking questions about the important relationship between advanced technologies and religion, the latter of which is one of the most pervasive and influential cultural phenomena in the world.
But technology isn't being developed in a vacuum. This is a crucial point that constitutes, in my view, a major weakness in a lot of (otherwise good) work being done by secular futurists. To my knowledge, virtually no one is asking questions about the important relationship between advanced technologies and religion, the latter of which is one of the most pervasive and influential cultural phenomena in the world.