Is it a coincidence that right after we develop nuclear weapons, we enter the Information Age? Along come weapons of mass destruction, and we immediately enter the age of mass communication and mass storage.

The problem with Darwinian evolution is its lack of efficiency. It can take thousands of generations for a useful trait to appear, thousands of years for the new species to dominate, and thousands of years for the gene to spread. It's a very slow process.

Ten thousand years ago, a virus appeared that made genetic evolution completely irrelevant. The virus can reproduce at an amazing rate. It continues to grow a million fold each generation. Very soon, it could even extinguish all human life.

The virus, is knowledge. Why is it that we hold in high esteem geniuses? It is the optimum survival conditions for the virus. The Information age came after nuclear weapons because there was a threat to its future survival. Like the bacteria in your stomach, the virus reproduces massively when it feels there's danger. However, when the bacteria multiplies at such a massive rate, it kills its host. The virus is no different...

The virus is very communicable. It passes easily from human to human, from human to computer, from computer back to human. The computer is simply a storage center for the virus. The computer, expanding the powers of the human brain, now has the perfect place to thrive. However, the virus has built a better host for itself. Computers will soon be able to build robots, and improved versions of themselves (or rather, the virus will). This post-genetic evolution will surpass normal evolution a trillion fold, on a scale even more massive than when the virus was first introduced.

It is the computers that threaten humanity now. The virus has a new host, a host we made with out own hands. In the end, it is we humans who will build the machines that will be our undoing.
Thanks to Eric L. Harry for Society of the Mind, the book that inspired me to write a node on this idea.
Aargh!

*lashes self for being a carrier*

Knowledge will be the _downfall_ of society?

*pounds head repeatedly into wall*

The one thing that brought us out of the trees, out of the caves, the one thing that enables us to live longer, better, easier lives?

*throws self out of window*

Morons! With my last breath-

*hits ground after four feet*

Ow! Dammit...

Anyways... How can you say that?

Bear with me, my roomate has 'Return of the Mack' going behind me... some of this might get twisted...

Look, your problem is that our knowledge and intelligence will destroy all we have gained in the last 10,000 years. But, regardless of whether it will happen or not, we would not have all this to lose in the first place if we hadn't pursued knowledge.

And you think it will extinguish all human life? Why? There is NO reason to think that. Ballistic missiles? Get a missile shield. Backpack bombs? Get better detection equipment. That simple. Fight idiots who have tech with better tech.

Looking at something like knowledge, which enables everything we hold dear, like a _virus_, as if it was something that should be scared of... That's sick.

Look forward. Don't be scared of it. About half my posts are along this line. They have to be, because the prevailing attitude is so paranoid and schizophrenic. Check out Modern life is rubbish and a dozen others. Saying technology will be our downfall is rather ridiculous. It's the reason we're here and not crouching in a cave afraid of the sun.

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