Adapt or Collapse

Apocalyptic thinking is frequently found in certain future scenarios, especially when those scenarios are created by people concerned with military conflict, climate change, artificial intelligence, disease outbreaks, or other scary possibilities.

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Posted by Brian  on  03/13  at  08:01 AM

This is somewhat off topic, please bear with me:

"We live in the post 9/11 world:a world in which we have legitimate cause to be fearful of superterrorism and hyperterrorism."

Superterrorism, ok, I can understand what that is. But what is hyperterrorism? Is it like a hypercube, a four dimensional extrapolation of terrorism? What's the fourth dimension? Or is it like Baudrillard's (sp) hyperreality, where it is not a thing but a simulacrum, so instead of actually carrying out terrorist attacks, terrorists focus on producing an image of terrorism?

I'm not being a smartass, I'm honestly curious. Apologies if this is inappropriate.

To the article, I've heard a fair bit about this before, and am puzzled by why it is commenters mostly believe, given the difficulty most governments are having dealing with the freedom, ubiquity, and accessibility of new technology (internet especially), that authoritarianism is the first conclusion that springs to mind.

Posted by Mike Treder  on  03/14  at  11:42 AM

Brian, I've asked George Dvorsky if he would respond to your comments/questions, since he wrote the article I quoted and you were wondering about. It may take him a few days, though, because he's snowed under right now with work.

Posted by george  on  03/14  at  07:05 PM

I actually meant to use the term megaterrorism and not hyperterrorism. Thanks for pointing this out. Megaterrorism involves the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of people (pandemics, nuclear devices, etc.).

As for my suspicion about authoritarianism, my article is pretty clear as to why. If you could provide specific counterarguments to my own I would be all ears.

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