|
AN EDGE
QUESTION
WHAT NOW ?
|
You can read the individual responses
to this Edge Question, which are linked to the excerpts
below. and presented in the order of most recent first.
Or, click on the "Printer
version", for a printable file containing
all the responses to date.
|
Marvin Minsky: I agree with much of the rest of what David Deutsch says — but
I feel that he has missed Dawkins' point: that one way
that we can defend ourselves is by finding ways to reduce
the huge numbers of people who have been trained to follow
charismatic leaders by suspending their critical thinking
and commonsense.
Now that especially applies to religious people, especially
from the more orthodox sects. And of course, again, there
are exceptions — but a very large proportion of people
on this planet do grow up in "faith-based" sects.
.... [click here] |
| David Farber: After
the tragic attack of September 11th, the Bush administration
is calling for, and receiving, increased powers to listen
to our conversations, monitor our e-mail, see who and
where we visit in cyberspace — all with the stated
intention of protecting us from terrorists. I could fill
this column with the implications of the mechanisms that
have been proposed for aiding law enforcement. As with
any legislative mechanism behind which there is so little
technical understanding, many of the changes may create
greater dangers than they hope to eliminate. I would like,
however, to focus on the security of the basic communications
infrastructure we count on. .... [click here] |
David Deutsch: It
is not true that the recent attacks on the US were motivated
by a state of mind similar to that which is currently
motivating the Western response. The Western stance —
and even Western mistakes, including appeasement and moral
relativism — are driven fundamentally by respect
for human beings, human choices and human life. Western
values are life-affirming and life-seeking. The murderers
worship death. There is no symmetry between life and death.
There
is no "cycle of violence" that we have to "break" by making
the murderers and their sympathisers feel less angry with
us. Their anger is unjustified: To cleanse the Arabian
peninsula of non-Muslims is an immoral aim, violating
the human rights both of non-Muslim residents and of Muslims
who wish to associate with them (and, perhaps more pertinently,
to seek their assistance in defending themselves). To
cleanse Israel of Jews is an aspiration similar in kind
but much more evil both in its racist motivation and in
its intention to destroy an entire nation. To replace
secular or less-than-fundamentalist governments by religious
fundamentalist ones in all Islamic countries is an utterly
tyrannical agenda. And there is a fourth unjustified 'grievance'
that goes implicitly with those three: they demand the
right to punish the West, by mass murder, with impunity,
if anyone in the West opposes them in pursuing any of
those other 'grievances'. .... [click here] |
| Mark Stahlman: Not understanding that North and South are merely antipodes of a common
"environmental field" — as we so surely understand
— these people-from-a distant-time wouldn't have grasped
that they were both committed to the same environment. Earth.
They wouldn't have comprehended that they were all dependent
on both the North and the South . . . neither of which could
exist without the other. ...How does this relate to the
Edge question, "What Now?" ....
[click here] |
| Richard Rabkin: I think I should contribute something from the "strategic" point of view
to the "what now?" discussion since it seems to be sadly missing,
or, perhaps, simply obvious to all.... [click here] |
| Derrick de Kerckhove: The other biggest mistake made by the same token is to have given bin Laden a huge PR effect by affording him the dignity of the
enemy. Declaring war — even on "terrorism"
was disastrously wrong, not only at the military level (how
do you fight an enemy without an army?), but much much more
at the symbolical level (the one that counts for the perpetrators
of the September 11th massacre) because it immediately elevated
a bunch of criminals to a heightened status, and provided Bin
Ladin with the only military power he and the Taliban have,
that is to be recognized officially as an opponent worthy of
huge media attention and also have access to the minds of millions
who see him as a hero and not as a terrorist.... [click
here] |
| Margaret Wertheim: Science, like religion, is a double
edged sword — neither inherently good nor inherently evil,
but rather a tool in the hands of its users. If Osama bin Laden's
fundamentalist brand of Islam is a perversion of that fairth,
I would suggest that so too it is a perversion of the "faith"
of science to lend that faith to the production of landmines,
napalm, cluster bombs, biological weapons and other such attrocties
of war. If we in the scientific community can send any message
at this time of crisis I suggest it should be that our "faith"
will not be co-opted to the service of mass destruction. ....[click here] |
| Kevin Kelly: The Taliban are kind of
like Nazis to the Afghanis, but we should remember that while
the Nazis had resistance and passive obedience among the Germans,
they also had supporters. And so do the Taliban. But it's true
most of the Afghanis, like the Germans, are just getting screwed.
...[click here] |
| Paul W. Ewald: The puppet masters who orchestrated the
September 11th attack might be as strategically suicidal as many
people make them out to be. That assumption leads to an oft-mentioned
scenario for this episode of our history. They destroy a symbol
of free enterprise and thousands of civilians. We get mad and
blow them away. End of story....[click here] |
| Roger C. Schank: The U.S. is the most highly
educated and highly entertained country on earth. We export entertainment.
All around the world, people, watch American television and see
the latest Hollywood movies. But, instead of exporting education
we import the best and brightest of every country, educate them
in the U.S, and keep them here. The time has come to seriously
consider how we can create an education industry to rival the
entertainment industry....[click here] |
| Steven Strogatz:
Several newspapers have called me to ask how many handshakes separate
us from someone who worked in the WTC. Using the sociologists'
best estimate of about 300 acquaintances per person in the US,
and assuming no overlap in anyone's friendship circles (very crude
but no one knows how to do better), I estimate that about 1 in
20 of us knows someone who worked in WTC....[click
here] |
| J. Doyne Farmer: If we are to avert even worse disasters, we need to understand what caused
the events of Sept. 11. It's clear that Osama bin Laden is a
really bad guy, and these were really misguided people, and
we need to do something about disabling them in the future.
But if we are to ever return to a more lasting state of peace,
we have to address the root causes of terrorism. The best method
to control something is to understand how it works....[click here] |
| Esther Dyson: Where were you? In years to come, everyone
will remember where they were on Sept. 11, 2001... I was in
Sofia, Bulgaria, with people who had every reason to be grateful
to America and Americans: I was speaking at a conference of
men and women engaged in bringing democracy and open markets
to the post-Soviet world, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for
International Development. ...[click here] |
| David Berreby: I take your "what now?" question literally
— what should "we" do — the people reading and writing
these? Not "we" the political entities of the West or "we"
the heirs of civilization. It strikes me that in these times,
the answer is actually quite clear, and it has to do with
the great flexibility of that concept of "we."...[click
here] |
| Sylvia Paull: One must ask what role women have played
since September 11, and it seems to me that our voice has
been lost....[click here] |
| Julian Brown: As the guardians of reasoned thought, scientists
have a special responsibility in impressing on the wider public
the distinction between the rationality of science and the
irrationality of religion....[click
here] |
| Julian Pollack: My "What now?" question is whether we
can ever overcome our own mass psychology. Can humanity achieve
group adaptation at the cognitive level? ...[click here] |
| Cliff Barney: I do not think you can discuss the bombings
and not talk about mideast policy and a lot of other social
issues. Kevin Kelly is quite right, the bombings have nothing
to do with technology; they are about social rage and pain.
This is my hard-edged comment after many years of feeling
some of that pain as I watched the brutal politics that produced
it. ...[click
here] |
| James Ogilvy: Scenarios can provide anticipatory disaster
relief, a way of avoiding trouble by rehearsing futures in
our minds so we don't have to live them as fact. Alternatively,
scenarios can inspire us to raise our sights. By imagining
positive outcomes, we can see more clearly the steps that
will be necessary to get there. ...[click here] |
| Timothy Taylor: When Martin Heidegger famously observed
that 'science does not think' he was referring (in part) to
the fact that it does not, of itself, supply a system of values.
Thus the perversion of science known as Lysenkoism occurred
(also in part) because the USSR, in becoming as wholly atheistical
as Richard Dawkins, lost the touchstones of ethics, truth,
and humility. ...[click here] |
| The Editors of Nature: Perhaps the least to be expected of those in
a position to make a difference is some reflection on the
roles of science in the cultures and societies caught up in
this conflict. How might contacts between scientists and between
scientific organizations, of a sort that proved valuable during
the cold war, play a constructive role in long term relations?
...[click here] |
| Mary Catherine Bateson:The first lesson
to learn and act on is not that terrorists are uniquely evil
but that all targeting of civilians is immoral. This includes
the destruction of infrastructure, which is equivalent to
the Biblically prohibited poisoning of wells, the material
basis, of survival and the disruption caused by economic sanctions.
Economic disruption creates unemployment and lost savings
in industrialized nations; in the third world it can create
famine and uncontrolled epidemics. The casualties are real....[click
here] |
| Richard Dawkins: When we bend over backwards to see the
other point of view and blame ourselves for everything; when
we fall over ourselves to sympathise with religious 'hurt',
'offence' and legitimate grievance; when we tie ourselves
in knots to avoid anything that could conceivably be misinterpreted
as racist, let us keep a sense of proportion. The chips are
down, and I suddenly know whose side I am on....[click here] |
| Robert Axelrod: The US must not let the war on terrorism drive
out other priorities. For example, we should still pay attention
to human rights, non-proliferation, free trade, and democracy.
We should not make the mistake of the Cold War where we let
our anti-Soviet priority lead to collaboration with brutal
right-wing dictators....[click here] |
| David Farber: One of the most important issues facing
the United States and its like is to prevent 2004 from becoming
1984 (Orwell's story of a dismal future). In defense of liberty
and in order to defeat those who attempt to subvert it by
terror, we must avoid so changing our society that they will
have won. ...[click here] |
|
Geoffrey Miller: Why does the rest of the world hate
Americans so much? I agree with Roger Shank that we must
face this question...One reason surely concerns the unthinking
zeal with which we export our brand of American consumerist
capitalism — a zeal comparable in irrationality and
intensity to fundamentalist religion....[click here]
|
Freeman Dyson: The only wisdom that I can extract from these memories
is that the problem of terrorism is not a military problem.
It is a problem of people's hearts and minds. Attempts to
solve it by military means will only make it worse. I don't
pretend to know how to solve it.
...[click
here] |
| Robert Provine: Decision theory offers
guidance for national security policy and associated civil
liberty issues introduced by the tragic events of September
11. Signal Detection Theory, the state-of-the art procedure
for decision making considered here, provides a powerful model
for detecting the presence of a "signal," whether a sensory
stimulus in the laboratory, a bomb, or a terrorist. Although
the underlying mathematical model is complex, predictions
from the model are straightforward and will be explored in
a few of the many possible security-related applications.
...[click here] |
| Jaron Lanier: I must first address some remarks to "Leftist"
readers in Europe. Many of you have suggested to varying degrees
that we Americans brought this attack on ourselves through
our horrid foreign policy. The claims vary from the mild—
that we can't expect to extend our will around the world without
somebody striking back — to the insane, as exemplified
by the words of Karlheinz Stockhausen , who said the attack
was "the greatest work of art ever." I'm a composer, and I
fear these words will tarnish the tradition of Western music
forever. That someone could even think to say this is an indictment
of our esthetics. Could one of our most prominent artists
really have lost touch with all concerns other than the quest
for extremity and public notice? ...[click here] |
| Timothy Taylor: Depressed-aggressive suicide-murderers
are likely to be people who feel unloved and unvalued, the
very opposite of the New York firemen and self-sacrificing
passengers aboard the fourth plane, scuppered in the Pennsylvania
woods. Actions that create more desperate and bitter people
will contribute to the world becoming more dangerous for us
all. What now? — it depends on the quality of our humanity.
...[click here] |
| Joel Garreau: There's been a lot written about our
military limits, as if it were impossible to combat a network....Actually,
we've learned a great deal in the last ten years about how
to degrade, detach and destroy human trust networks (as distinct
from electronic networks). Ironically, it's the flip side
of what we've been furiously learning about how to make ours
work better. ...[click here] |
| George Dyson: The eloquent statements made by people
much closer to this tragedy and its root causes than I am
prompt me to consider how we should deal with one of its effects:
not just the crash of the four airliners, but the crash of
the airline system which followed. ...[click here] |
| John McCarthy: Oppressive Islamic fanaticism is in
part a recent development — perhaps from the 1970s. Before
then intellectual youth were modernists, but in the 70s political
Islamism became dominant in many countries. Perhaps this is
related to the loss of confidence in Western society among
the Western media elites and among Western youth, at least
as depicted in the media....Fanaticism is therefore not a
permanent feature of these countries, and will probably die
down again as new generations come to see it as a dead end.
...[click here] |
| Chris Stringer: But beyond these issues, I have another sadness
and even greater fear: that the world will forget the even
greater threat we all face from global warming. If we do not
start to face up to this threat properly, the chaos that will
ensue over the next century as half the Earth tries to relocate
to find food and water will make these recent events, awful
as they are, pale into insignificance. ...[click here] |
| Steve Grand: Since this question has been posted on Edge.
I've been casting around for something useful I could say
— something that I could recommend we do. I've failed.
Most of the techno-fix and cultural solutions that occurred
to me were either unworkable or simply closing one of many
stable doors after the horse has bolted. So instead I've decided
what to do at a personal level: as my tiny contribution to
this learning experience I am going to become less tolerant.
...[click here] |
Robert Aunger: The "first war of the new millennium"
— with its very different targets, and hence tactics
— provides an excellent opportunity to make use of what
has become one of the most sophisticated, but relatively unknown,
corners of contemporary social science: the formal study of
social networks.
...[click here] |
| David G, Myers: Dawkins is perhaps right to suggest
that a warped religious idea of martyrdom and the afterlife
was at work here. And he's surely right that religion at its
worst can be toxic and superstitious — which is something
healthy religion must ever be vigilant about (much as science
is vigilant about pseudoscience). Witness Jerry Fallwell's
initial explanation of the disaster. But on balance, is religion
good or bad for us? (Medicine, twisted, can kill people. But
we'd want further evidence before deciding that medicine is
bad.) ...[click here] |
| Piet Hut: I find it fascinating that, notwithstanding John's
initial urge to limit the discussion to "hard-edge"
comments, most writers have focused on what we normally consider
rather "soft" topics, such as culture and ways of
viewing one-self and one's world, as well as suggestions for
changing the current global economic situation. This is a
remarkable shift, especially among a group of intellectuals
with a background in science and technology....[click here] |
| John Maddox: The first thing Edge must do is to emphasise
the obvious: there is no "technical fix" for terrorism.
Terrorists fit into normal society, are trusted by their colleagues
and then they betray that trust. Until so much is known of
how the human brain thinks that it will be possible to read
out people's secret thoughts by some non-existent non-invasive
technique, diagnosing the condition of "terrorist"
is science-fiction. In my opinion, it will always be so.
...[click
here] |
| Keith Devlin: Humans do not act irrationally. When a
human acts in a way the rest of us view as irrational, there
is inevitably a context or background within which the action
makes perfect (if sometimes horrific) sense. To refer to the
actions of the September 11 terrorists as "cowardly" or "mindless,"
as far too many world leaders have, is a massive misunderstanding
of the situation. Moreover, it is a misunderstanding that,
when perpetrated by those in a position to influence subsequent
events, is likely to have dangerous consequences. ...[click
here] |
| Frank
Schirrmacher: President George W. Bush did not say what was in the script.
One could even write that he did not say what Americans until
now believed one should say at such a moment. He has withstood
the pressure of succumbing to the collective consciousness
and — if one interprets the impressions correctly —
by doing so he has reinvented a piece of America. ...[click here] |
| Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: I have seen this idea that consumerism will win the war
resurface again and again. It seems to me equivalent to someone
having been bitten by a malarial mosquito in a swamp who then
says: "I won't let that bug change my lifestyle; I will go
back to the swamp and live there." Ironically, the evidence
is rather conclusive that fancier dishwashers and dreamier
cruises don't make our lives better in any meaningful sense.
The material goals that have become our raison d'etre have
a very short shelf life. People are happy when they have a
job that is fulfilling, a family they can rely on, a faith
that sustains them, and a government that respects their freedom.
...[click here] |
| Todd Feinberg, M.D.: Complacency or Denial? According
to reports, after the first plane hit Tower One of the World
Trade Center, and the evacuation of the second tower was in
progress, there was an announcement that the second tower
was secure and everyone should go back to their offices. Upon
hearing this, some workers unfortunately returned to their
desks and some of these persons perished when that building
later collapsed....As a neuropsychiatrist who has studied
psychological defense in patients who have neurological disease,
I found the account of these events quite extraordinary. How
could anyone who was responsible for the safety of that building
declare that the building was "secure" when the tower next
door was in fact in flames and the cause of that unfolding
disaster was still unknown? ...[click here] |
| Martin Rees: The most immediate concern is that an ill-judged
US response to the WTC attack could heighten tension still
further. But recent events should be a "wake-up call", alerting
us to the risk of even more devastating attacks, using nuclear
devices. A long-range missile carrying a compact warhead —
the kind of weapon that "star wars 2" is supposed to defend
the US against — may be beyond the resources of dissident
groups. Not so, however, detonation of a stolen weapon transported
in a truck or ship, or a crude device assembled, using stolen
fissile material, in a city apartment....[click here] |
| Douglas Rushkoff: In his speech to Congress, Bush —
perhaps unintentionally — presented the choice before
us: we will either bring justice to the nations of our enemies,
or bring our enemies to justice....Although he probably didn't
mean it this way, his two alternatives represent two completely
different tacks. The former suggests extending the ideals
of the Enlightenment on which this nation was founded into
regions where human rights are not honored. The latter implies
nothing less than accepting the fundamentalists' invitation
to holy war....[click here] |
| Tor Nørretranders: The time has come to
realize this:..."We will soon be living in an era in which
we cannot guarantee survivability of any single point." ...
This statement was made in 1964 in the first of a series of
reports from RAND Corporation authored by Paul Baran, an electrical
engineer, striving to solve the problem of a nuclear war triggered
by a mistake. ...[click here] |
| Michael Nesmith: Certainly I have wanted to see such
issues as are current tackled by scientific method. Morals
and morality, right and wrong, good and evil, need a good
shaking out in the scientific world. They lurk always in the
wings of scientific work, and the community has too long parked
them in the rag pile of the irrelevance of the non-quantifiable.
...[click
here] |
| Bruce Sterling: In addressing the question of "What
Now?" I want to speculate freely on what might happen on a
large scale in the near term. Here are some rough scenarios,
with my even vaguer estimate of their likelihood. ...[click here]
|
| George Lakoff: As a metaphor analyst, I want to begin
with the power of the images. The images we see and recall
interact with our system of metaphors. The results can be
powerful...There are a number of metaphors for buildings.
A common visual metaphor is Buildings Are Heads, where windows
and doors are openings in the head like eyes, nose, and mouth.
For many people this metaphor interacted with the image of
the plane going into South Tower of the World Trade Center,
producing via visual metaphor the unconscious, but powerful
image of a bullet going through someone's head, the flame
pouring from the other side blood spurting out. ...[click
here] |
| Nicholas Humphrey: The only sanity-preserving way
to think about what happened on September 11th is as a 'natural
disaster', in which human beings were caught up as tragic
agents as well as tragic victims....Had it been an earthquake,
we would not have mourned the less, we would not have been
any the less determined to prevent a re-occurrence. But, by
now, we would have been energised by our capacity to explain,
and on the back of this to make good and to overcome....Our duty as scientists in response to the
present crisis is no different. We must try to explain the
shifting plates of human psychology and culture, and show
why and how these can erupt in individual acts of such madness.
This is not to recommend forgiveness — no one forgives
a volcano or a hurricane — but it is to oppose any interest
in retribution. ...[click here] |
| Peter Von Sivers: The unspeakable events of Sept. 11 have resulted in inquiries
from students, friends, and acquaintances about my reaction
as a professor of Middle Eastern history. I did a brief summary
(following below) which you might find of general interest
also for readers of Edge because it summarizes new
insights gained during the past fifteen years. Recent scholarship
has subjected the history of Islamic origins to the same kind
of historical questioning that scholars dealing with ancient
Israel, early Zoroastrianism, and early Christianity are used
to. Such a questioning, in which Islam is put into its historical
context, improves our approach to contemporary Islamic religiosity....[click here]
|
| Cliff Pickover: We've come to realize that no amount
of airport security with respect to carry-on items will prevent
a high jacking. Three strong men armed with ball point pens
and shouting that they have shampoo bottles full of anthrax
could be successful in a highjacking. In this respect, it
is not useful to overly restrict the nature of items carried
onto planes. ... Instead, we should add a voice-activated system in the cockpit such
that when the pilot says the word "Zanzibar," the plane can't
be highjacked. The code word also triggers an emergency alert
to air traffic controllers. The plane is sent into autopilot
mode. Other biometric devices, such as fingerprint readers,
might be useful. ...[click here] |
| Terry Bristol: Attack and defense strategies are limited
short-term responses. Given that there are 10,000 symbolic
targets, largely indefensible, and a number of decentralized
terrorist networks, these short-term strategies — while
worth doing to some extent — can not be expected, by
themselves, to produce an acceptable long-term solution.
...[click here]
|
| James J. O'Donnell: Victor Klemperer's harrowing diaries of life as a Jew in
Nazi Dresden have been my intermittent bedside reading for
many months. In the end, Klemperer and his wife escaped deportation
and death because the firestorm bombing of Dresden set them
free, but only after a dozen years of living with the terror.
This week I find it hard to pick him up again because I suddenly
feel a small piece of what he felt — a quite impersonal
fear that the world I have come to live in is more threatening
than I had surmised. ...[click here] |
| Colin Tudge: I continue to think science is wonderful
and that in principle it really should help us to understand
human nature and the human condition. But I continue to be
disappointed by the contributions of scientists to this end;
even outstanding scientists. ...[click here] |
| Karl Sabbagh: Violence of the sort we are trying to
avoid is not, in the end, caused only by American power and
oppression, Israeli occupation, religious antagonism, the
evils of capitalism. Such grievances are necessary but not
sufficient. After all there are many people who endure these
without strapping explosives to themselves or bombing buildings.
There is always an additional factor, almost too trite to
mention — the willingness of a person to use physical
violence against other people with whom he disagrees. To reduce
violence we need to understand this. And, in various ways,
we do already. ...[click here] |
| Luyen Chou: Even left-leaning people now speak of destroying
terrorism "root and branch". What are the roots of terrorism?
How far and how deeply do they extend? We can all see the
leaves and some of the branches, but the roots are less visible
to the naked eye, and they are undoubtedly where the real
problem lies. So far as I know, there is no substantive,
high-profile national dialogue about this. ...[click here] |
| Yossi Vardi: This time the answers are not all in the
hi-tech world of physics and electronics, but in psychology,
sociology, knowledge-assembling. to the extent physics and
computers can be harnessed to serve those areas, hi-tech can
do a job. but the human factor , the human thinking , dedication,
perseverance; awareness , belief in the cause, will be much
more important then just the sheer hi-tech. ...[click here] |
| Todd Siler: Somehow we're going to have to face the emergent
reality behind Martin Rees's reflection on those terrors to
come from under the horizon of our fears. Because they will
come. As Martin and others have noted: 'biological advances
will offer new 'weapons' that could cause world-wide epidemics,
etc; moreover such catastrophes could be caused by a single
individual.' I refuse to abandon my optimism, or succumb to
pure pessimism. I believe there is a realistic way
of handling this new world of perils and risks. But we're
all going to have to think, work, live and act together very
differently than we're currently doing. ...[click
here] |
| Roger C. Schank: Why are these people so angry at us?
It is odd, but that question is rarely voiced. It is all too
easy to say that they are crazy, but we might wonder, even
so, how it is that we incurred their wrath. They don't attack
Italy or Sweden. Anyone who has spent significant time abroad
can tell you that in most countries there is love-hate relationship
with the U.S. Most of our citizens fail to understand why
this is the case and instead back mistaken notions of patriotism,
waving flags, and talking about bombing people who don't like
us. It really isn't all about the U.S. support of Israel.
That is too easy an answer. We need to look for more difficult
answers and do the very thing the terrorists want us to do,
reexamine the role of the U.S. in the international arena.
Just because that is what the terrorists want us to do, does
not make it the wrong thing to do.
...[click here] |
From the Introduction: I believe that the Edge
community can mount a serious conversation about the
catastrophic events of the past week that might do some
good. Within the community is invaluable expertise in
many pertinent areas, not to mention the intelligence
that the "Edgies" can bring to the
subjects. I am interested "hard-edge" comments, derived
from empirical results or experience specific to the
expertise of the participant. Edge is not the
proper venue for people to vent their justified rage
at the acts of terrorism, displeasure with the administration,
U.S. Mid-East policies, etc. But it is the right venue
for an informed, intelligent commentary......So how about a new Edge question: WHAT
NOW?"... [click
here]
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