Re: catastrophes with Shock Level < 4

From: Christian Szegedy (szegedy@or.uni-bonn.de)
Date: Wed Feb 25 2004 - 04:06:29 MST


Randall Randall wrote:

> This is the broken window fallacy.
>
> The specific advances would have been different,
> probably, but more advance would surely have
> happened without the destruction, since more
> funds and time would have been available for it.

I am not so sure. Progress does not only depend on
resources, but also on efforts and motivation.
New chellanges and practical problems may lead
to increased scientific efforts. I think, there is a good
chance that some global environental catastrophy
would speed up the progress in nanotechnology or AI.



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