Techno-optimists believe technology can solve the world’s most pressing problems. With the right knowledge, we can find solutions to climate change like abundant clean energy. Can we acquire the knowledge to build nuclear fusion reactors? Can we do it in time?
The Beginning of Infinity lays out a detailed argument about why we should be optimistic that we can. We’re already in the habit of transforming inhospitable environments into support systems (we wouldn’t survive a winter day in New York otherwise). We have a way of building knowledge that is error correcting and can build on itself generation after generation. In the fullness of time, all knowledge is attainable and can therefore be transformed into technology used to solve problems.
Techno-pessimism is a parochial error. One must take the position that we lack the ability to make technological solutions to climate change or that it’s not possible in time. The only solution is to limit what we collectively do (e.g. austerity measures and degrowth) but that requires a great deal of optimism that people will work together on an extremely unpopular premise (loss aversion).
There are many instances where technology (and technologists) went wrongโFacebook ruined democracy, nuclear power disasters, weapons, so on. But using this as a reason against techno-optimism is also a parochial error because it presumes that we won’t acquire the knowledge to solve these problems (technology is an expression of knowledge, not knowledge itself).
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