M. GANAPOLSKY: Hello, “Matvey Ganapolsky” is back on air - the “Clinch” program - a principled dispute between people who have their own position. As soon as scientists declare that an exciting discovery has been made that can dramatically advance science, people immediately appear who ask about the ethics of this discovery. They are interested in the consequences that this discovery may have if it is used thoughtlessly and incorrectly. Nuclear energy, biology, cloning - all this is ready to make nations happy and destroy them at the same time. But if we don’t use it, then why did we open it? “Can progress be stopped by ethical prohibitions? 2 - I hope our guests today will argue about this - the director of the Institute of Humanity - there is such an institute.
B. YUDIN: It was.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Not anymore? Now what is it called?
B. YUDIN: This is now a department of the Institute of Philosophy.
A. MITROFANOV: The person is no longer there. There is no such person who needs to be dealt with. There is a philosophy.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Have you remained a corresponding member of the RAS?
A. MITROFANOV: There is no Marxist-Leninist philosophy yet.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Wait, let me introduce the guests. Boris Yudin, representative of the Russian Federation in the Steering Committee on Bioethics of the Council of Europe. Hello.
B. YUDIN: Hello.
M. GANAPOLSKY: And the famous politician Alexey Mitrofanov.
A. MITROFANOV: Hello.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Let me remind you how our program is structured. The ideal is when I don’t say anything, and our guests argue - I hope this will be the case. I read SMS messages - 970-45-45. Let me also remind you that we have two votes. The second vote is traditional - whose point of view is closer, one guest, or the other - you must listen carefully to what they say. But first we ask the main question of the program - should ethical prohibitions apply to scientific progress? Should they stop, should we take them into account - ethical prohibitions? Let's start voting. If you think that scientific progress should have ethical prohibitions - 660-01-13, if you think that there should be no ethical prohibitions - 660-01-14. And I would like each of you to answer this question now.
B. YUDIN: I don’t think the wording is good – about prohibitions. Because a ban is the most extreme, exceptional case, but in general it makes sense to take ethical considerations into account when doing science.
A. MITROFANOV: I think that there are ethical prohibitions, and they will exist, as well as the influence of the state. The state will always control scientific developments, including in sensitive areas. Moreover, our state, American or Chinese, is any. And science and scientists will not get rid of this. When they say that they are against prohibitions and restrictions, the state will always influence this, we must come to terms with this, this is natural, this is in the interests of the population.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Even in the interests of the population?
A. MITROFANOV: Yes.
M. GANAPOLSKY: It’s strange that you are on the same position - I don’t know how you will argue. So, the voting has come to an end. I am announcing the result - so, should ethical prohibitions apply during scientific discoveries - “yes” - 69%, 31% answered “no”. And we start talking.
B. YUDIN: I would like to start with some historical examples. Let's say, during the Second World War, studies were carried out on prisoners of concentration camps in Germany, the same thing happened in Japan, perhaps even more cruel. And those who were involved in this were later convicted as criminals - this was the Nuremberg trial, the trial in Khabarovsk in 1949. I saw such voices on the Internet that no one could ever ban anything - but there were such situations.
M. GANAPOLSKY: And what do you think, if we don’t dwell only on historical analogues?
B. YUDIN: I believe that this is the reality in which we live - some things are prohibited and should be prohibited. Let’s say that research that degrades human dignity causes harm to health.
M. GANAPOLSKY: What kind of research is this that degrades human dignity?
B. YUDIN: There are as many of them as you like - psychological studies, for example. The same famous example, when subjects were forced to cause pain to another person. It was actually a deception, but they believed that they were hurting another person.
M. GANAPOLSKY: What else should be prohibited?
B. YUDIN: Dangerous technologies, the use of which is fraught with unforeseen consequences. I can give another example - in 1973, when we came close to the possibility of making hybrid DNA molecules, that is, cutting out a piece from a molecule and sewing in a molecule of a completely different organism, the scientists themselves began to say that this was fraught with dangers - the creation of such forms lives that did not exist on earth, which can fill everything and destroy the life that exists. And they decided to declare a moratorium for a while and not engage in this research. It later turned out that these dangers were exaggerated, but, nevertheless, while there was a moratorium, gentle methods were developed - for example, conducting these studies in an artificially isolated environment, so that microorganisms into which new parts of DNA were sewn in, so that they could not survive in natural environment. That is, it is not that research was stopped - research went in other directions.
A. MITROFANOV: I think that no ethical standards can stop scientific research, and never have. Because the state is a cynical entity. The state will always, especially when in competition with other states, always patronize the scientific research that is needed, and do it in its own interests - absolutely always. Especially large states that play on this platform. Not a single state has ever limited itself for ethical reasons - among the major players. I'm not talking about the small ones who were simply banned. And when you name some experiments that were carried out in losing countries - yes, we know about them, because these countries lost the war. We are silent about the experiments that were carried out in the winning countries.
B. YUDIN: We are not so silent about this. But please note - we do not condemn what the Americans did, or anything else. Actually, the atomic bomb tests in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
A. MITROFANOV: But in addition to the military meaning, it was a natural scientific experiment. And no one knew how it would end.
B. YUDIN: Do you think that no one condemns this?
A. MITROFANOV: Condemns, but this will never be a reason. And now, in a broad sense, we must turn to what ethics is in general. Ethics of what? Christian, or Muslim, or the ethics of the big city, which is taking shape before our eyes and has nothing in common with the Christian. Or is it Christian ethics of the 19th-20th century. What is ethics in today's environment? - here's another question. What ethics have we developed, in accordance with what ethics? And that cynical states will never stop any research - despite all their rhetoric, conversations in front of voters - never. The state is the state, it fights for its primacy, for its interests and understands, having learned from its mistakes many times, that by stopping scientific research you can strategically lose - in 15 years others will do the same. Moreover, it is necessary to understand that a number of states are now controlled by an opaque government that has the ability to organize any research - I mean one large Asian state.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Well, China - tell me already. What's wrong with you? You don’t say this, you’re afraid to say it – what’s wrong with you? State Duma deputy, parliamentary immunity, state machine - afraid to name China. What it is?
A. MITROFANOV: Well, yes, China. But, by the way, the Americans have also shown that they can organize secret events - take the stories of secret prisons and what they do there.
B. YUDIN: Well, this is in the other direction.
A. MITROFANOV: It doesn’t matter. But they can organize secret events on foreign territory.
B.YUDIN: You never know what anyone says. If we start discussing what ethics is, it is...
A. MITROFANOV: This is the most important point. What are your ethics? Christian? But I don’t, I’m a supporter of the ethics of the Big City, where everything is different.
B. YUDIN: There is a US state where President Bush, who is cursed by many, operates. This president, having been in power for almost 8 years, is categorically against some research on stem cells.
A. MITROFANOV: A well-known thing.
B. YUDIN: And he has enough power to prevent research from being conducted.
A. MITROFANOV: I suspect that research is being conducted quietly in Latin American countries and other countries. The fact is that when Americans control three-quarters of the world, there is no problem. It is very important. Let’s say you can’t organize these studies in a quiet Latin American country, but he can do it with a whistle. Therefore, to refer to the Americans - they prohibit these studies in their country. But some doctor S. brazenly declares...
M. GANAPOLSKY: He goes to a biological offshore and does it there.
B. YUDIN: This is some kind of mythology.
M. GANAPOLSKY: I want to highlight the main thing. Now we are not saying what an ethical prohibition is - we all, in principle, understand what it is. We say - are these prohibitions good or bad?
A. MITROFANOV: By the way, I don’t understand what an ethical prohibition is.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Well, it doesn’t matter. Putin has already reached an agreement with Saakashvili, but we still cannot agree.
A. MITROFANOV: I didn’t know that they agreed.
M. GANAPOLSKY: The planes will fly. I’ll give you an example - this is an article that was published in 2000. A famous Russian scientist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, director of the Institute of Molecular Genetics, Evgeniy Sverdlov. I’m reading one fragment when the correspondent asks him – what’s the problem here? The correspondent says: “So, someone is worried that cloning Einstein might turn out to be an idiot? And someone sets themselves exactly this task - to make an idiot out of any person?” To which the academician answers: “Not an idiot, but a robot who will blindly obey other commands. But I think that the most likely overstepping of ethical prohibitions on human cloning awaits us when creating banks for organ transplants. Now patients are waiting in huge queues for a kidney to appear, but here a simple solution is offered - tissue is taken from the patient, a double is created, and transplantation is performed. But you understand that in our times and in our environment there will be traders who will offer this option to our nouveau riche, and they will have any money for it - the black market for cloning may be the worst thing that awaits us.” That is, he says correctly, but why does he say that it should be on the black market? Why not make it so that it is available to everyone?
B. YUDIN: This was said in 2000.
M. GANAPOLSKY: This is me as an example - that’s not the point.
B.YUDIN: Okay. If we talk about this problem, now these studies are being carried out quite openly.
A. MITROFANOV: Now cloning is prohibited in our country.
B.YUDIN: Cloning of a human individual, not an organ, is prohibited, firstly, and secondly, it was prohibited until 2007, because a moratorium was established in 2002, which expired last year.
A. MITROFANOV: I voted against it - I remember.
B.YUDIN: And now, please, clone for your health. But here again it went this way - yes, there is a ban on cloning a person, as an individual, as an integral individual, so they went the other way - they are now trying to clone through stem cells, clone tissues, organs. And this is a completely respectable activity.
M. GANAPOLSKY: So, the ethical ban now only applies to cloning what?
A. MITROFANOV: A person like that. You can’t have Einstein and Lenin – there are problems with them.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Why is there a ban on this?
A. MITROFANOV: For us this came through international means, this is international pressure from a number of countries.
B. YUDIN: Strictly speaking, ours was more lenient - because we adopted a moratorium, the Council of Europe adopted a protocol that prohibits human cloning. We had a moratorium for five years. Now neither the Duma nor the government find the time - we have elections - in general, I don’t know why - they should have returned to this law in 5 years. But no.
M. GANAPOLSKY: What do you personally think – is this ban on cloning necessary?
B. YUDIN: I would extend it further.
A. MITROFANOV: What does this give? Even then, in 2002, I opposed it - few deputies were against it. I think. That any restrictions are impossible here. One way or another, this will lead to...
B. YUDIN: At least during these 5 years that the ban was in force, no one was cloned in Russia.
A. MITROFANOV: Yes, but it was possible to clone in a quiet Latin American country. That is, science is developing there, but it will not develop here; we have already struggled with genetics and cybernetics. And we can also say - what did cybernetics give us? 80% of the Internet is pornography - here we are, - you can argue like that. But now no one will tell you this, but 50 years ago they reasoned this way.
B. YUDIN: It’s not like that.
A. MITROFANOV: But they also rotted. You can’t rot a scientific direction. All flowers must be allowed to develop, and the state must control in its own interests, see what happens, but there can no longer be ethical restrictions, because there is no, including - I want to object to you on formal grounds - there is no this ethics, which is dominant in society. There is no communist ethics, there is no code, Christian ethics is not for everyone. What is she like?
B. YUDIN: Well, there are people who have Christian, urban ethics - I don’t really know what it is, but in some situations they come to an agreement.
A. MITROFANOV: This is a different question. But you cannot tell me that according to some ethical standards this should be prohibited. I’m asking you a formal question: what are the standards, where are they written down?
B. YUDIN: According to those that all people understand and recognize.
A. MITROFANOV: I don’t understand, for example.
B. YUDIN: This is a private problem.
A. MITROFANOV: no, this is not a private problem. I believe that ethics can be one thing - I behave non-aggressively, I don’t attack anyone, I don’t hit anyone, I don’t interfere with your life. You don't interfere with my life. I sit quietly in my apartment and clone someone - why should you stop me from doing this? I don't understand. We have now taken up cloning, but there are many questions - and there are some projects in aircraft projects that raise the question - if everyone does it, it is necessary to limit it, this research cannot be introduced.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Explain this, I don’t understand - don’t speak in half-phrases. What could happen in the aircraft industry?
A. MITROFANOV: cabinless helicopter. So I sit on a chair, four propellers up. And with the help of a joystick I can fly 150 kilometers.
M. GANAPOLSKY: So there is Discovery. Why do we need to develop this if we can buy it - it’s sold in stores in America - they showed it on the Discovery Channel. It costs 5 thousand dollars - take it, I don’t want it.
A. MITROFANOV: that’s not quite right. But that’s not the point – it’s cabinless, flies, and so on. The question arises - how do we not allow people to fly and do this, because it violates this and that - the same approach. But sooner or later, they will do it, in 15 years they will allow it here - they will allow it anyway, like everyone else has allowed it. We were against sheepskin coats at one time - as a fashion. I refer you to the history of the issue - but then everyone wore sheepskin coats. Miniskirts were banned, then they were allowed.
M. GANAPOLSKY: I didn’t wear a miniskirt for one reason, and a sheepskin coat for another - because I didn’t have money. Some deputies wore sheepskin coats.
A. MITROFANOV: No, look - against what they fought for 15-20-30 years ago - all this has become banal, and no one is fighting for it.
B. YUDIN: I just don’t understand what progress in science has to do with it?
A. MITROFANOV: The same thing.
M. GANAPOLSKY: So why ban it?
B. YUDIN: Okay, let's return then to research in which the subject will be exposed to mortal risk - let's allow it, why ban it, anyway, in 15-20 years someone will be like that...
M. GANAPOLSKY: This is how they are exposed. They are subjected to their own free will. And you and I know what is exposed - in offshore medical zones.
B. YUDIN: No need to talk about these offshore companies.
M. GANAPOLSKY: But there is this.
B. YUDIN: We didn’t check there.
A. MITROFANOV: In Russia, research is being carried out on certain foreign drugs, and people sign up for some money and are involved in testing - this was, I don’t know how it is now, the last 5-7 years, but in the 90s it was all the time - dubious ones were tested Western drugs, people signed -= all this happened. But it’s one thing if people were deceived - they were tested. But if a person is told that this is a new drug, although there is a risk, sign up. But not by force.
B. YUDIN: If they say that there is a risk and he signs – for God’s sake. But this just means that the experiment is carried out in compliance with ethical standards - the person is informed, and only with his consent.
A. MITROFANOV: It’s clear, because if deception is too much, it’s a crime.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Here I will once again return to the interview that I read. Probably, now our hero, about whom we read, thinks somehow differently, but what he says is very significant here. The correspondent asks: “What to do with the consciousness, the brain of the double, if he begins to comprehend all this?” The scientist replies: “But he is a person, and for normal people this is an insurmountable prohibition from a moral, legal, and indeed from any point of view.” For example, after watching a film with Schwarzenegger, what is this film called? Where they made his double, he comes home, and there is his double, and it is not clear which of them is the double. It seems to me that lawyers should now calmly sit down to develop the rights of a clone. Do not laugh. I don't know if he's real or a clone. We don't know this. So he went somewhere on vacation, to the islands - what if he was replaced? Let's take a short break and get back on air.
NEWS
M. GANAPOLSKY: We continue. Matvey Ganapolsky is not a clone yet. And the guests, in my opinion, are not clones yet. Boris Yudin and Alexey Mitrofanov. And the opinions of radio listeners: “Science itself should not be subject to ethics - the application of scientific achievements is another matter, otherwise Prometheus is a criminal.” Kirill from Moscow: “Puerto Rico is a center of genetic research for the United States” - he probably knows. They recalled that the film with Schwarzenegger is called “The Sixth Day” - quite adequately shown. I ask a question - everything in this film is also logical - it is such a scary movie. It all starts with a dog that needs to be cloned because it died. I ask the question - why can't I clone my dog? I love her so much.
A. MITROFANOV: You can have a dog.
B. YUDIN: Who forbids you?
A. MITROFANOV: Go to the academy, to academician Ernst, and clone - if you are not afraid.
M.GANAPOLSKY: Is Konstantin Ernst already an academician?
A. MITROFANOV: No. Leo, dad.
B. YUDIN: If you are not afraid that a freak will be born from this cloned embryo, then please.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Let them be afraid, they are taking money from me for this.
B. YUDIN: But your freak will be.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Okay, but if a mother’s only small son died during childbirth, why can’t he be cloned?
B. YUDIN: The same thing - if she is not against the fact that it will turn out with a very high degree of probability - much greater than the probability that a genetically identical copy will turn out. But if it turns out to be a freak, then...
M. GANAPOLSKY: Wait, but we are talking about the fact that this is prohibited.
B. YUDIN: Okay, what were the reasons for the bans? The first is that there is a very high probability that some ugly creatures will appear. The second is society, people who live in the world are not ready, do not want this - because they were carried out in many countries of the world, including Russia. Polls - somewhere at the level of 80-90% - in different countries - were against human cloning. And when we established a moratorium, there was, by the way, an article - and this corresponds to international standards - over these 5 years, maybe technologies will change, maybe some safe ones will appear, and most importantly, some t public discussions, discussions - if views in society change, and the majority of people consider - please, go ahead - accordingly, then some of the grounds for this ban will disappear. That's all.
M. GANAPOLSKY: But there is a church that categorically objects.
A. MITROFANOV: Again, the church neither here nor in Western countries rules. Although you are right - behind all these discussions, of course, there are Christian teachings. And when Bush did this, it was clear that his electorate was conservative Christian groups, of which there are an awful lot in America, by the way, and they all support the Republicans - there are 35 million of them, they live in different cities, of different movements, but these are very conservative people , and he works for them. The question is different. As a certain technology takes shape in the world, it takes shape politically. All this talk about ethics is very good, but very specific things are developing. Specific things are that there is a certain club of countries that can - and in military terms, a lot can be done, and politically and scientifically, they can - they will rule. The rest are simply prohibited. All countries that potentially could are being withdrawn from this club, and the Americans have the opportunity to deploy it on any territory without worrying - as we saw how they deployed the prisons in Guantanamo Bay.
B. YUDIN: Actually, I’m not very worried about them.
A. MITROFANOV: This is how a model is built in which some people build a scheme for themselves, while they forbid others - when telling them about ethical standards, they say - guys, but you can’t. We will do this, we take supersensitive things in all areas, and only we, the exceptional people and forces of the nation, will do this. And you - sew slippers, Chinese, Russians - stokers and woodcutters - you cut down for us, and sit. You don't have these studies. You will buy from us later, when we advance in this technology - then you will buy from us. As they tell us now, buy foreign cars and create screwdriver production. And you will ruin your materials science, and there are 6 thousand people sitting at VAZ, doing materials science.
B. YUDIN: You are talking about something else again.
A. MITROFANOV: So it’s the same scheme everywhere.
M. GANAPOLSKY: About this.
B. YUDIN: About something else.
A. MITROFANOV: This is the same scheme - for some it’s all.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Maybe he’s a cynic?
A. MITROFANOV: Think about this phrase - “civilized countries” - this means that there is someone in an exclusive club, and there are uncivilized ones. For us, civilized people, this is possible, this is our club, we will conduct high-level research, but you have not learned yet. Therefore, the Chinese should be banned, the Russians, the Indians - you don’t need to do this.
B. YUDIN: But I told you that the Americans prohibit it at home. By the way, there is no need to say about the Chinese that they sit and sew slippers - the Chinese are now investing a lot of money in science and are progressing very successfully.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Perhaps the Americans publicly stated, looking honestly into each other’s eyes, that they prohibited it. But are you sure they banned it?
B. YUDIN: Then you can’t be sure of anything at all. About any word you say, you can say that you said “A”, but thought “B” - so what?
M. GANAPOLSKY: I, the presenter, do just that.
A. MITROFANOV: That is, one way or another, we are slipping into the political sphere.
B. YUDIN: I don’t want to slip into the political sphere.
A. MITROFANOV: What do you think, the ban is not a political moment? The Council of Europe, where you are an expert, is not a political organization? What kind of organization is this?
B. YUDIN: This is an organization that is designed, first of all, to protect human rights.
A. MITROFANOV: But it is not political in nature, in your opinion? It is purely political in nature - you understand perfectly well. And all these discussions about ethics are of a substantive nature, absolutely substantive.
B. YUDIN: What does it mean – subject-matter?
A. MITROFANOV: They don’t call it, but this is their ethics. She has nothing to do with us. Their ethics are different - Protestant, Catholic. It is customary for them, excuse me, to keep a diary of their wife’s expenses. But if you offer this to your wife, I don’t think she will be happy, to put it mildly - mine won’t be happy, she’ll hit me with her slippers, I know that for sure.
B. YUDIN: I won’t even suggest it.
A. MITROFANOV: But for a German wife this is normal - an expense diary. So what? The German wife understands. So let's not talk about ethics - these are very complex things, we were brought up in different cultures.
B.YUDIN: Okay. Then another example. Suddenly, in 2005, UNESCO is not the Council of Europe, it is an organization that unites all countries of the world, representatives of different cultures - it adopted a declaration called the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. I myself was there when work was underway on this declaration, when its options were discussed, and I saw that India participated there - it was very active, and China, and African countries, and South American ones - please. This means that they are also interested in this and they also do not think that ethics is something from the 50s.
A. MITROFANOV: The Chinese will be happy to participate in all international events, moreover, they will sign 5 conventions. And secretly in the province of such and such - I don’t know which one - where no foreigner goes or will ever go - they will quietly start working there. And they don’t care - just like the USSR didn’t care. They said one thing, but did another.
B. YUDIN: I cannot discuss pointlessly that something secret is being done somewhere. If I don't know.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Wait, we are discussing something else.
B.YUDIN: But it all comes down to the fact that somewhere someone is doing something, doing something on the sly.
M. GANAPOLSKY: No, the question is whether technical progress can be stopped by ethical prohibitions. We are not talking now about whether the Chinese are deceiving or not, or whether the United States is doing it secretly or not.
A. MITROFANOV: All states deceive – they have to.
M. GANAPOLSKY: We are talking about something else - is it worth talking about ethical prohibitions? Aren't they just a screen and cover? Like the black market, we can’t officially change dollars, we’ll change them below. After all, the price of the issue is not the dollar or the euro, the price of the issue is human life, organs - the most expensive thing there is.
A. MITROFANOV: Is it ethical for a child to wait a year for surgery? Here's the question.
M. GANAPOLSKY: We say - maybe admit that these are just words?
B. YUDIN: What - just words? Ethical prohibitions?
M. GANAPOLSKY: Yes.
B.YUDIN: How easy are words if the corresponding laws are adopted? Violation of which is followed by sanctions. Why are these just words?
M. GANAPOLSKY: Who were the sanctions against?
B. YUDIN: Against those who violate, against the same researchers who conduct experiments without normally obtained consent, without properly informed information.
A. MITROFANOV: But what about the fact that transplantation is in a difficult, difficult situation? We will not discuss the problems of this industry separately now, but is it good that children wait for years for operations? I don’t understand – is this ethics? We say - we won’t allow this to be done, then we won’t allow it - but is this ethics?
B. YUDIN: I don’t understand. This is also permitted.
A. MITROFANOV: Organs are allowed, but do you know that selling organs is not allowed? Here too - you cannot sell organs - this is also ethics. B. YUDIN: Yes, this is ethics.
A. MITROFANOV: Why can’t I buy an organ for my child? They showed it recently on Channel One, when a mother was forced to give her kidney to her daughter, who had been suffering for 5-6 years, and here they are walking together, holding hands - this is some kind of tragic story - maybe they could buy it, but she’s waiting , you can’t buy it - you know, a complex topic has been developed there - also for ethical reasons. Wrong.
M. GANAPOLSKY: But then it will be a championship of purses - then only those who paid money will have kidneys.
A. MITROFANOV: But then it appears... and today it is a black market. It’s the same as let’s save the black caviar population by closing the official trade. Okay, so the trade will be black and under the control of the secret services. This is what you have achieved. You need to clearly see your interests behind every step. Transplantology, due to the complexity of its situation and restrictions, including ethical ones, has been placed under some kind of control, when each doctor can be taken and dragged to deal with him - that’s what has been done. I do not understand this. I believe that everything that is economically profitable is ethical. All. As Nikolai Petrovich Shmelev said 20 years ago in his article in “Advances and Debts” - everything that is economically profitable is all ethical, and everything should be allowed.
B. YUDIN: Probably, if everything is economically profitable, do you know what problems we have with the pension fund? So let’s take all the pensioners to “this mother” - it will be ethical and economically profitable. How much money will we save?
A. MITROFANOV: This is completely unprofitable economically.
B. YUDIN: How is that?
A. MITROFANOV: It is economically beneficial for me to have millions of rich pensioners, so that they go to the cinema with me, buy milk, beer, and then I am a producer. You are reasoning incorrectly; you have the view of a Marxist-Leninist teacher.
B. YUDIN: What are you saying?
A. MITROFANOV: I have another one. Because I know that Khodorkovsky alone will not replace the millions of pensioners who will come to see “Night Watch” in my cinema. But I need a cash register - so that a hundred million people can be sent there - and these will be mostly pensioners.
B. YUDIN: But these pensioners must first be fed, given a pension.
A. MITROFANOV: That’s why rich pensioners benefit, not poor ones.
B. YUDIN: Where can we get them, the rich, if the pension fund...
M. GANAPOLSKY: It turns out that ethical prohibitions to some extent shorten the lives of pensioners rather than prolong them? Do you understand?
B. YUDIN: I don’t understand.
M. GANAPOLSKY: well, how - we are talking about ethical prohibitions in those areas that should prolong people's lives. Right?
B. YUDIN: I don’t really understand. For example?
M. GANAPOLSKY: Well, you can’t clone something, but something that could have been cloned could have saved someone’s life. Yes?
B. YUDIN: No, if a new cloned person appears, whose life will he save? Life of a pensioner?
M. GANAPOLSKY: No, not this case.
B. YUDIN: But exactly this is prohibited.
A. MITROFANOV: It will save the life of some family who wanted to clone their child, for example. People have an obsession, they lost their child - here is a German couple in the GDR, their child was stolen from them 20 years ago - apparently, our military personnel - NTV showed - they would clone - well, an obsession, this is how they see the world. There is no need to limit anything, it is impossible to limit. And moreover, remember me, in 15 years everything that was previously prohibited will be permitted. But we will lose 15-20 years
B. YUDIN: I don’t understand why we’ll lose. Well, it will be allowed, and it will be allowed.
A. MITROFANOV: Because in other countries...
B. YUDIN: Yes, it is also prohibited in other countries.
A. MITROFANOV: But you don’t have technology.
B. YUDIN: In other countries, cloning is also prohibited.
A. MITROFANOV: In all countries?
B. YUDIN: yes.
A. MITROFANOV: Where is it prohibited? In all 157 countries? No.
B.YUDIN: There is a document that was adopted by the UN banning human cloning.
A. MITROFANOV: well, it’s clear, but national laws are not brought into line everywhere. And it is clear that somewhere they are and can be carried out.
B. YUDIN: I don’t know of a single case where a person was cloned somewhere - except for these very ones...
A. MITROFANOV: well, it happened in Korea.
B. YUDIN: No, he actually turned out to be a fraudster, he was exposed, kicked out of his job and deprived of his degree - and that’s all.
M. GANAPOLSKY: I have a question. Boris, you are on the steering committee on bioethics of the Council of Europe. You have all sorts of meetings, you gather - what are you talking about, what issues are you considering, how do they relate to the hot and important issues that we are considering now?
B. YUDIN: The last time we met - it was in December last year - we talked about a document that has already been adopted - it concerns genetic tests carried out for medical purposes. And in connection with these tests, many ethical problems also arise. The first problem is obvious - privacy. The problem is that if a test is carried out, if something is discovered in me, so that it does not become the property of those whom I would not want them to know about it.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Well, yes, so that there is no base, otherwise they won’t hire you later.
B. YUDIN: Yes. The second problem associated with genetic tests is that it is now possible to determine - there are diseases such as Alzheimer's disease - with a probability close to 100% it can be determined at a young age, to say that this person will develop Alzheimer's disease in old age - the problem is , whether he needs such information, what he will do with it. Then the problem is that parents want - and these are real situations - they want to test their young children in order to - well, let's say, find a predisposition to Alzheimer's disease.
M. GANAPOLSKY: And what was your decision? Is it possible for a person to know that he will have Alzheimer's disease in the future?
B.YUDIN: There are no unambiguous answers for all situations. \
M. GANAPOLSKY: But what did you decide?
B. YUDIN: We decided that if a person wants to know about it, then he has the right to take this test and find out. But he must be instructed - this is called a medical genetic consultation - before he goes for the test, he must undergo this consultation. And they will tell him - if you have a positive test result, this means that you will know that you will someday develop an incurable disease - and maybe you will not even live to that age - you never know what will happen. And please, decide for yourself. But this is not a ban.
A. MITROFANOV: This is a serious discussion on a scientific topic, which, by the way, also pushes us to the question of what ethics is. I think that with such conversations, there will be no indigenous Europeans at all in 20-30 years. Because in Asian countries, where they don’t worry about the issue of genetic tests, there are simply seven bare-legged children running around, one of whom is stronger and will pull them all out - that’s the bet.
B. YUDIN: In Asian countries, genetic tests are used much more widely than in European countries, including China. Much wider.
A. MITROFANOV: But they are used as scientific research.
B. YUDIN: What scientific research? There are already quite a lot of statistics there - the ratio of boys and girls is changing.
A. MITROFANOV: Are there genetic tests in China? And this affects a billion people?
B. YUDIN: Yes, because girls are aborted.
M. GANAPOLSKY: And now it is important for us to hold a traditional vote - whose point of view is closer to you. We have two guests, whose point of view is closer to you? The first option is Boris Yudin, I would formulate his point of view this way - we still have to deal with some ethical issues - 660-01-13, if Alexey Mitrofanov - 660-01-14. And A. Mitrofanov’s version - away from restrictions, right?
A. MITROFANOV: No restrictions are possible - even if we really want to introduce them. They are impossible.
M. GANAPOLSKY: While the voting is underway, I’ll tell you a simple story. I won’t name her, although this story is in the magazine “Big City” - this journalist is Russian. And foreign, she travels around countries and has done genetic tests. The test showed that she may have cancer. She said - I don’t have it now. She was told that there is a 90% chance that you will have it, especially since you have parents. And she performed an operation on herself - a difficult and painful operation. But she took it away. And so I think - what would happen if there were some ethical prohibitions that would prohibit her from knowing? She honestly wrote about it in the magazine “Big City”. And now she will live, because there was no prohibition for her to know this.
B. YUDIN: Well, he doesn’t exist.
M. GANAPOLSKY: But you were dealing with this issue.
B. YUDIN: So there is no such ban - no one is going to introduce it.
M. GANAPOLSKY: Well, thank God. We stop voting. A lot of people voted - 69.7% sided with Boris Yudin. His point of view is that some elements of ethics - regulatory, prohibitive - must exist. But 30.3% are close to the point of view of A. Mitrofanov. Here's the story. Thank you very much. Let's continue this conversation somehow?
A. MITROFANOV: This is a big question.
M. GANAPOLSKY: That's it, say the final words.
A. MITROFANOV: Too big a question.
M. GANAPOLSKY: But in fact, we are three clones, and the next program will be hosted by the real ones. But the deputies are generally all clones. You are all clones.
A. MITROFANOV: From whom?
M. GANAPOLSKY: On my own behalf. I don't know from whom. From Gryzlov.
A. MITROFANOV: From Ivan Petrovich Rybkin. We are all going from Rybkin.
M. GANAPOLSKY: It was the “Clinch” program, the program was hosted by Matvey Ganapolsky. Goodbye.
According to the forecasts of a number of scientists, civilization is on the verge of a technological leap that could lead to a global catastrophe. Progress has become so rapid that we simply do not have time to master new things. And in the period from 2020 to 2040, technologies will be obtained over which a person may lose control altogether. Here are the most likely scenarios for such a “doomsday”.
The robots are coming!
In the WEF report, one of the main risks of the 21st century. called the development of robotics. This causes real panic among economists: people will begin to lose their jobs en masse. There are forecasts that almost every second specialty is threatened by automation, and, say, in Russia, by 2024, machines will leave every fourth resident unemployed. Recently, one Russian bank announced that thanks to the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, it will be able to free up about 3 thousand jobs. The technology that threatens us with unemployment is called machine learning. AI, analyzing arrays of accumulated data, is capable of self-learning and imitating human thinking. Robots are also superior to humans in endurance, accuracy and speed of action, and do not allow defects. They are ready not only to stand behind the assembly line, but also to take away jobs from teachers, doctors, cashiers, waiters, police officers, lawyers, and accountants. There will be millions of dissatisfied people on the street. But that's not the worst thing...
“Due to the fact that AI will be able to self-learn indefinitely, and its power will grow like an avalanche, it will begin to create its own mechanisms of influence on the world,” I am convinced Alexey Turchin, futurologist, global risk researcher. - It will not be difficult for him to take control of any computer networks, including government control systems and the Internet. It is possible that in the course of rapid development he will begin to perceive people as a threat - a person simply will not be in his value system. And he will find a way to get rid of us. For example, using controlled robots. Therefore, one of the tasks of scientists is to prevent the very emergence of artificial superintelligence that is unfriendly to people.”
Click to enlarge
Greenhouse disaster
The past 2016 became the warmest in the history of climate observations: the average temperature of the Earth's surface was almost a degree higher than in the middle of the last century!
Most scientists believe that the cause of global warming (over the 20th century, the temperature of the lower layers of the atmosphere rose by 0.8 °C, which is very fast for natural processes) is human activity. Technical progress is associated with more and more burning of fuel, and this increases the content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane), which lead to an increase in temperature. And even though the threat does not seem significant to us now, the rate of heating is increasing year by year. Climate anomalies provoke migration and social cataclysms - people in some regions of the Earth are gradually deprived of food and water. It is also worth thinking about the fate of descendants: due to climate change, many biological species, including humans, may disappear within 200-300 years!
One of the hypotheses describing how this will happen is proposed by the Russian scientist, physicist Alexey Karnaukhov. “Once people started talking about global warming and the greenhouse effect, I decided to use equations to describe the relationship between carbon dioxide in the air and temperature,” he says. - This was a traditional study, and I first used the term “catastrophe” in a mathematical sense. But when I built the model, I gasped: the word took on a literal meaning. With continued emissions into the atmosphere, the temperature on Earth will rise by hundreds of degrees in the next two to three centuries!”
Warming causes an avalanche-like effect: carbon dioxide and methane begin to be released from natural “storages” (the ocean, the earth’s crust, permafrost, etc.), which makes it even warmer, and the process becomes irreversible. Calculations show that the planet’s climate system is capable of transitioning to a new stable state in a couple of centuries. The temperature will be like on Venus: +500 °C. Life on Earth will become impossible.
Gray slime
This scenario has been described Eric Drexler, nanotechnology pioneer, 30 years ago. Miniature (cell-sized) robots created from nanomaterials go out of control and fill the entire planet, devouring biomass and turning it into gray goo.
“We are talking about nanorobots capable of self-reproduction, that is, creating their own copies. Scientifically, they are called replicators,” explains Alexey Turchin. - The most attractive medium for them is biomass, since it contains both carbon and energy that can be extracted through oxidation. Calculations show that uncontrolled nanorobots will be able to process the entire biomass of the Earth (including people) in just two days! Mechanisms invisible to the eye, out of control, can secretly attack people by injecting them with toxins or penetrating the brain. Imagine that they fell into the hands of terrorists. How will this turn out?
The development of nanorobots is currently being studied at specialized scientific conferences. Sooner or later they will appear. The trend is obvious: military equipment (the same combat drones) is becoming smaller, but it is from this industry that the most promising scientific ideas and developments come out.
Latest news on the topic: scientists from Bristol have created a robot capable of eating living organisms and thereby obtaining the energy it needs. They are going to use it to clean water bodies. What if he doesn't stop at eating bacteria and duckweed?
Virus from the garage
If at school you had an A in biology, and now you have a few hundred dollars in your pocket, you can set up a mini-laboratory in your garage or barn, including for creating new viruses. Biohacking is a hobby of independent amateur scientists that can turn into a new pandemic and infect all of humanity.
At the origins of the movement was US graduate physicist Rob Carlson. He dreamed of making biotechnology accessible to the masses and was the first to organize a laboratory at home. The example turned out to be contagious. Now biohackers are creating glowing yoghurts, searching for the formula for promising biofuels, and studying their own genomes. All necessary equipment (including synthetic DNA samples) is purchased via the Internet, and microscopes are made from cheap web cameras.The problem is that the genetic codes of many viruses are freely available on the World Wide Web - Ebola fever, smallpox, Spanish flu. And if you wish, from studying E. coli extracted from your toilet bowl, you can move on to constructing living cells with any given properties - viruses, bacteria, deadly pathogens. It is one thing to do this for fun and curiosity, and quite another to do it for the purpose of blackmail and intimidation. Futurologists do not exclude such a “doomsday” scenario, when a disease that will wipe out a significant part of humanity comes from the laboratory of an amateur biologist.
In the USA, the problem was recognized 10 years ago. The FBI has created a unit to combat biohacking. Biohackers have to explain what exactly they are doing and for what purpose.
Progress the savior
The same experts make a reservation: if humanity prevents the man-made “end of the world,” then by the middle of the 21st century. it will enter a qualitatively new stage of evolution. Progress and technology will give people more freedom and bring an abundance of cheap goods and services. And the person himself will become different, sort of... not quite human.
Cyborg or superman?
While some scientists are frightening about the invasion of robots, others are proving that machine intelligence, on the contrary, will save the economy. Automation makes goods cheaper, increases purchasing power and creates jobs in other industries. In addition, robots take on routine work, and where a creative approach is needed, they cannot replace a person.
However, people themselves are increasingly merging with computer systems. This process cannot be stopped. “There are already services that predict our desires, and in the future everyone will have a personal electronic assistant,” I am sure Pavel Balaban, Director of the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. - Our brain will be maximally combined with a computer and various devices. Because of this, the speed of assimilation of new knowledge and the volume of memorization will increase. Cognitive abilities will increase and even additional senses will appear!”
Thus, devices have been created that help us consider what lies outside the visible spectrum we are used to. For example, see what the food on the plate or medicine in the package consists of. The Japanese implanted a device for observing infrared and ultraviolet radiation in a person. Our scientists from St. Petersburg have written a program that turns thoughts into music.
The merging of man and robot is already happening - in the form of “smart” prostheses and suits that increase muscle strength; all kinds of chips implanted under the skin and in the brain. For example, in the USA they made transferable tattoos that can be used to control smartphones and computers, store and transmit data sets. There is a forecast that by 2040, man and machine will become one: our body will be able to take any shape formed by a cloud of nanorobots, and our organs will be replaced by cybernetic devices.
Doctor in your pocket
“Smart” patches have already been developed that continuously measure blood glucose levels, and stickers that administer the necessary medications to the patient through the skin. There are implants that introduce the drug into the body in portions, either according to a pre-designed program, or according to an external signal.
Among the technologies that will have the greatest impact on our lives in the coming years, scientists name methods for diagnosing mental illness by speech and wearable biochemical laboratories on chips, which will detect diseases at the earliest stages. Handheld devices will be able to diagnose diseases that are difficult to detect in the early stages, primarily cancer.
Nanorobots are being developed that can treat the body from the inside (for example, purify the blood) and even perform surgical operations! Russian scientists are even ready to give vision to completely blind people with the help of light-sensitive bacteria.
Cheap and environmentally friendly
Soon people will learn to keep environmental pollution under control - sensitive sensors are being created for this. But the search for a new type of fuel is still necessary: from hydrocarbons in the 21st century. will have to refuse.
Since January 1, all trains in Holland are powered by... wind energy. No, they are not driven by sails - they run on electricity generated by wind generators. One such “mill” provides a 200-kilometer train run within an hour.
A consortium to promote hydrogen as the fuel of the future was presented at the Davos forum. It is absolutely environmentally friendly - when it burns, water is formed. Maritime transport is gradually switching to hydrogen and liquefied gas, and in Germany in 2017 the world's first passenger train powered by hydrogen fuel will be launched. In developed countries (in Russia too) work is underway to create unmanned vehicles - robomobiles. It will most likely be electric. Modern electric cars are already made at the production stage with autonomy in mind. There is a forecast that people will soon stop buying cars and will use robotaxi services - this will be more economically profitable.
Church opinion
Vladimir Legoyda, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations of the Church with Society and the Media:
If the invention of electricity has become an unconditional benefit for humans, then whether the information and technological breakthrough of recent years has become one is a big question. Today, both those engaged in manual labor and the so-called white-collar workers are under attack. The church will remind you of the importance of a person, of what is most important in life.
At Slowdown in scientific and technological progress
The scientific and technological progress of humanity is slowing down, contrary to the predictions of transhumanists about its acceleration. The highest speed of scientific and technological progress was achieved in the middle of the 20th century and will never happen again. Then it seemed that at the beginning of the 21st century we would have intelligent robots, thermonuclear energy and a base on Mars. But there is none of this and there won’t be for a long time. The only thing that developed faster than predicted was the Internet and mobile communications. But this is the only exception - everything else developed more slowly.
It’s just that most people have not yet realized this - after all, the textbooks that we read in school were written by people who grew up in the era of accelerated scientific progress. Even in 1985, Marty McFly, traveling 30 years into the future, sees many miracles, from flying cars to holograms in every home. But, if Marty actually went back to 2015, he would be surprised that practically nothing has changed: the same houses, the same cars... This is a real “future shock”.
ZY However, in the near future we will see some acceleration of scientific and technological progress due to the end of the Kondratiev cycle and the transition to the 6th technological structure. Although we will not reach the pace of the middle of the last century, and then there will be a new slowdown. In any case, the general trend is to slow down.
Does society need technological progress?
"Like there is no inventor who,
Damn the car, I never dreamed of it
To do good to a person
So there is no machine that did not bring into the world
The gravest poverty
And new types of slavery." (Voloshin)
Technological progress provides many interesting things. In the 19th century, these were steam locomotives, aircraft, steamships - it became possible to move more quickly in space. The age of industrial development, which, along with great advantages, also gave rise to great disadvantages. There was a surplus population in the village. And the villagers were forced to leave their homes and land, moving to the cities. The most efficient were able to survive and get rich there. And most of them became workers, and they were always under the threat of unemployment, unprotected old age, and illness. In 1830, the average life expectancy of workers in the World was 30 years. Metallurgists suffered burns, miners inhaled dust, printing workers suffered from lead disease, many textile workers inhaled thread lint and contracted tuberculosis. The workers saw the only way to change the unbearable working conditions - by destroying the machines. The village began to use fertilizers.
The progress of technology today would have amazed the imagination of people living in the 19th century. But the minus has also increased. Over the past centuries, the Earth has been rapidly dying, ahead of progress: rivers, lakes, seas, and air have been poisoned. Synthetic food products are produced. Especially European society, where technological progress is widely used, has become rich, but has not become happy. In 1999, a mammoth that lived 23 thousand years ago was found on the Taimyr Peninsula. Researchers are developing a fantastic project: they want to extract a DNA molecule from the frozen remains of an animal, and then try to clone this species. Interesting. And then they clone the person. And a little more progress and on Earth it is already a rarity to meet just a person with a living soul. But there are many clones who live like machines. So does society need technological progress? But the rocket has already taken off and cannot be stopped.
Olga Bakhareva
Does society need technological progress? I think yes it is necessary. Technological progress is what has allowed us to achieve what we have. That is, we don’t need to get up in the morning and go hunting to feed our tribe, we don’t need to sleep in a cave and keep the fire going, because if it goes out, darkness will come and a predator will come who will kill us all. And the basis of this technical progress is laziness. Although, yes, labor made a man out of a monkey, laziness helped man make a wheel, tame a horse (after all, it’s lazy to walk 20 km), and use a stick. Yes, you can say, this is bad and we are polluting the planet or there is a high level of crime, but wasn’t it even 500 years ago that people died in batches from a common cold or do you think that at that time people did not steal, did not kill, and even more than now? You can whine about the fact that our life is bad - you were not a serf in the Middle Ages. In short, we can talk about this topic for a long time, but what am I getting at? You can talk about how bad this is, but are you ready to leave your house, car, bed and go somewhere far away from people, and live alone without amenities, but without progress? Of course, you will say: yes, in words we are all good, but in reality we are 0. Although it is useless to argue (after all, I am right). And finally, I will say: laziness is even good.
Pavel Grigoriev
Of course you need it!
Otherwise, how would I now sit in a chair and write in the dark without lamps and chandeliers?
How would we buy warm jackets for the winter if it were not for looms... How would we call our friends?..
Technical progress is needed. We must always move forward!
Right now, at the same time as I am writing this, I am writing to my mother (a tautology, but nothing).
Of the minuses, this is, of course, dependence on games... In games we play a better life (the theme (scenario) depends on the game itself)... This is a way to brighten up your life, to take your mind off your problems for a while...
There are, of course, more advantages, but there are also many disadvantages.
Progress is always important, and even more important are the goals that humanity sets for itself.
Lisa Spevak
Does a person need technological progress?
To answer this question, you must first understand what Tech is. progress, and understand why it is needed. Man is by definition a very lazy creature, and historically man has developed technology only to do a little less. All Tech. progress is needed only so that you can rest more and work less. Since I am also a human being, and like everyone else I like to do nothing, then, at first glance, it seems that technological progress is something wonderful. But if you look deeper, you can find several significant disadvantages, the most basic being: land pollution, overpopulation and Morality. With Tech. With progress, some things have appeared, the appearance of which contradicts morality, natural selection and many other factors. There is a simple rule: to get 1 unit of energy, you need to spend 1.5 units of energy, that is, this means that if people continue to use the technologies that Tech gave them. progress, then someday the resources will run out, and progress will kill us. Progress also contributed to the development of medicine, which contributed to overpopulation, which disrupts natural selection, and the ecosystem. The further progress goes, the less the value of ordinary workers becomes, because a machine can do the same thing as a person, in addition, it will do it better, faster and cheaper, soon no one will need human labor, and then the person himself. Previously, hundreds of people were involved in making a kilogram of paper, but now you don’t even need one. In general this means that Tech. progress is needed in order to completely remove physical labor from our lives. And the pinnacle of all progress will be the moment when physical activity completely disappears from our lives, and only mental activity remains. In ancient times, the main thing was the one who was the most physically strong, but years and centuries passed, and progress slowly began to change everything, the process has already begun, and it can no longer be stopped, we will develop and the importance of physical strength will weaken and weaken. And if we return to the question “Is Technological progress necessary?”, then I will answer: “It is not just needed, but necessary.”
Mitya Kozlov
If we consider the need for technical progress for a small country, isolated from external influences, then we can imagine a country in which manufactures remained and bloody revolutions did not occur.
Most likely, such a country can only exist if its history does not have the infamous experience of slavery. Since it was slavery that repeatedly stratified society to the limit and because of this there are rich and poor in the country, but the middle layer is not enough to hold back the pressure of the deprived masses.
From these assumptions we conclude that such an ideal country would require a population balanced in terms of wealth. That is, we have 5 percent of the cream of society, 85 percent of the middle class, which is approximately single in terms of property, and 10 percent of the poor. Yes, in such a country there must be at least three layers of the population for people to want to get rich.
Well, so, it turns out that traders, owners of factories, and members of government make up 5% of the cream.” Workers of factories, banks, hospitals - 85% of the middle class. And 10% of the beggars we love so much.
In such a country, without wars and other strong blows to the stability of the country, we can imagine that there will be no major revolution in it. But in it, technological progress will be a useful, but not necessary, breakthrough.
Sergey Semenov
Is technical progress necessary?
Now is the time that literally every two years some new technologies and equipment appear for completely different purposes and purposes. But earlier in the 19th century, everything was different; if something new appeared, it was either the greatest discovery or useless rubbish.
Partly, technological progress is needed to move forward, because without it we would not have computers, phones, tablets, and in the end we would never fly into space, because we simply would not know how.
But if you look at progress through the eyes of a worker at a factory in the 19th century, then progress for him is simply terrible, at the beginning of the 19th century the first cars, locomotives, factories appeared, which means there was smoke and stale air, and work in factories at that time - this is absolute hell, and adults and children had to work 20 hours with an hour break for mere pennies.
Of course, the authorities tried to do something so that their progress would not stop, for example, they built so-called workhouses and tried to reduce the work time by several hours, some things worked, some didn’t.
But the conclusion is this: technical progress is needed, but not at the cost of the 19th century.
Vanya Rusanov
Technical progress is the replacement of human labor with machine labor; the end of technical progress is considered to be the end of the 19th century, when a machine began to make another machine.
Let me return to the topic of this ESSAY. Does a person need technological progress?
I believe that humanity does not need “technical progress”, but people need it. Technological progress is an integral part of the human revolution.
Another question automatically arises: why does a person need technical progress?
Humanity has two ways: the first is to move forward, and the second is to move backward (in other words, to degrade). I also consider standing still and not moving forward to be a form of degradation. I think we don’t have a certain level of development to which we could reach and not develop anymore. Our humanity is always developing and coming up with something new.
So, to avoid regression, you need to move forward and develop. Step over each step of the endless evolutionary ladder leading up.
Imagine your life without such amenities as running water, gas, electricity, etc., etc. You wouldn’t even live a day! All this was created by man. Over the years, our humanity has developed and invented new inventions, and tried to simplify our lives as much as possible.
This is why man needed technical progress. Man has always strived and, I believe, will strive to simplify his life, this is the essence of man. It's not bad! Laziness is what drives every person to some extent.
There is a good saying on this topic:
“laziness is the engine of progress”
Polina Peskovskaya
"TOMORROW". Today our guest is the editor-in-chief of the online newspaper “Journalistic Pravda” Sergei Zagatin. The topic of our conversation is technological singularity. In the West, over the past ten years, they have been very actively promoting this philosophical concept, the author of which is the American inventor and futurist Raymond Kurzweil. He once stated that soon, literally in 2030, a certain super-entity should arise, a surrogate for an all-planetary superintelligence. Kurzweil saw such a singularity in the image of artificial intelligence, a pervasive network, a certain mind that will replace everything in the future - culture, science, history, the meaning of the future, after which humanity must retreat to some kind of secondary role, giving way to the further evolution of an artificial super-entity, like biological life itself at one time became subordinate to the human mind.
But when discussing such a singularity and its objective prerequisites, we must say something else: at this moment, a gaping void appears in the purpose of humanity. Because it turns out that artificial intelligence should not only work for us, but also “have all the goodies”: and not only in the material sense (here, most likely, no one will die of hunger), but first of all - in terms of development and evolution. It turns out that humanity, at the moment of singularity, suddenly realizes itself as secondary and unnecessary. Your opinion: how will scientific and technological progress develop in the near future, which supposedly should lead us to these yawning peaks? And how possible is Kurzweil’s singularity? Are we again inventing a false “god ex machina” for ourselves?
Sergey ZAGATIN. Let's say right away: Raymond Kurzweil was by no means the “inventor” of the technological singularity. They began to talk about it as a philosophical concept back in the 1970-80s against the backdrop of the successes of science and technology - when it became clear that each subsequent human invention requires less and less time to create, implement and widely disseminate. This is generally a feature of any nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems that develop with an evolutionary crisis. And in general, humanity is not unique here - the singularity can be described both by the process of sudden crystallization of a supercooled liquid, and by the process of a nuclear explosion as a result of a chain reaction. The mathematical and philosophical picture will be the same: first, exponential development, then a rupture and crisis, comparable in suddenness to an explosion, and then a transition to a different state, atypical from the point of view of the previous development of events. Therefore, having observed such an explosive growth of technology throughout the twentieth century, the concept of technological singularity was realized and described quite a long time ago, long before Kurzweil. Here he acted rather as a popularizer of the “boring” philosophical ideas of Prigogine, Forrester or Meadows.
"TOMORROW". But there have always been critics of the idea of singularity. I remember that in the 90s, against the backdrop of the collapse of the USSR, a different concept even prevailed in the Western world - they say, “everything has stopped, there will be no more revolutions.” Francis Fukuyama then wrote a programmatic book with such criticism - “The End of History”, in which he said that nothing else would happen in the world.
Sergey ZAGATIN. Well, I must say, no one seriously believed in the “end of history” even then. Indeed, in the 1990s, NTP did not stop at all; rather, on the contrary, it moved forward by leaps and bounds. It was then that everyone realized that Moore's law was in effect, which showed the doubling of the number of transistors in processors every few years. Everything in that period, as it should be within the framework of an evolving nonequilibrium system, developed. There were very great achievements in science and technology - despite the apparent calm in world politics. And, as a result, the end of the story turned out to be a fiction. History met all expectations - and moved forward again. Rather, the world then overestimated some other aspects of development - for example, we remember what overheated expectations there were regarding the role of the Internet in business, in sales and in everyday life.
"TOMORROW". Yes, “the refrigerator will call the iron and arrange how to iron your trousers.”
Sergey ZAGATIN. Exactly. This approach ended with the collapse of the dot-coms, about which now many fans of Apple or Elon Musk know nothing, because they literally “went to the potty” back then, this happened back in the late 1990s. And it is because of this that I will criticize the “inevitability” of the technological singularity. Because the exponential graph itself looks nice, but there are a couple of things that make this technological singularity a pipe dream. This is my main concern, that “we built and built,” but in the end we built not a singularity, but a “civilization of C students.”
"TOMORROW". So we became stupid even before the singularity arrived? But this must be proven. They will object to us: “We studied well at school, why are you telling us about C-grade students!”
Sergey ZAGATIN. Maybe everyone studied well at school, but in total we have built a civilization of C students, because many engineering solutions, say, of the 1980s, now seem to be an unattainable peak. What single scientists did, armed only with a slide rule and a simple calculator, cannot be repeated today by entire research institutes with 3D modeling programs and supercomputers. That is, the abundance of artificial intelligence spreads rot on our natural intelligence - just look at the development of programming itself, when from machine codes and assembler we reached object-oriented programming, and purely visual: “grab, drag, click.” You can put any “person on the street”, even a trained macaque, behind a visual interface - and they will be “programmers” by today’s standards. But all these would-be programmers, compared to the monsters of the 1980s, are pure C students; they wouldn’t have been allowed near the computers of that time, and they wouldn’t have understood how to work with them.
"TOMORROW". Okay, but sometimes they say: “Okay, we have a lot of C students, but overall we have become smarter, we have become more powerful. Our civilization has such superpowers that even C students are suitable for us! We will put them, like monkeys, on buttons to press, and in another place we will put creators such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. And they will come up with everything new.” Is such a scenario even possible - or not?
Sergey ZAGATIN. Let's immediately put the situation on the “sinful earth”. None of the people you listed are any kind of “creator” - they, like Kurzweil, only took ready-made concepts and “sold” them to people, those same “C” users for whom the smartphone is a scientific and technological revolution. Therefore, let's be honest: today's Western civilization has largely lost its historical purpose, replacing it with beautiful pictures and videos. Where did all the gigahertz and terabytes that became possible after the computer revolution of the 1980s-2000s go?
For example, now everyone is rushing around with the idea of a reusable first stage in a launch vehicle, which Musk is pushing to the market. But at the same time, few people asked themselves: are there any reserves at all in the very concept of launching into orbit using chemical thrust? After all, by and large, vertical takeoff on a chemical rocket exhausted itself back in the 80s; Musk today is doing what they did on the Space Shuttle, designing it in the 70s. There are a lot of alternative concepts for launching cargo into low-Earth orbit: launch platforms with electromagnetic acceleration, a “space tram” with superconducting magnets holding a tunnel through the atmosphere, there are engine projects for three environments - but these are not projects for Musk, he understands that in such projects he has no competence. He's a PR manager, not an engineer. Therefore, he takes projects from the 1970s and sells them again to “C” students. At the same time, in Russia such an engine for three environments, which operates in the troposphere, in the stratosphere and in space, has actually been created - this is the Solodovnikov engine. He is being pushed and tested - and I have no doubt that in the current situation the Ministry of Defense will “put the pressure” on him. This will be both innovation and revolution - and not all of Musk’s fashion projects.
"TOMORROW". But now the question arises: do people actually want to go into space? The same people, even if we call them “C” students, say: we need cats, we need Kardashian or Lopez bulges, go away with your space!
Sergey ZAGATIN. No, people want to go into space, people dream about space. It is these feelings that Musk exploits - after all, he understands advertising and the mass unconscious. But the problem is that he does this based on the needs of a generation spoiled by computer games, a generation of C-grade students with clip-based thinking. Those who are accustomed to the fact that every space station has a brothel and a bar, as we are always shown in American science fiction. And therefore, in Musk’s project with a brothel and bar, it is necessary to fly to Mars. He seriously wrote this in his presentation. Musk takes into account the mass unconscious and the level of consciousness of the masses - explaining to these people that there is physics, there is mathematics, there are a lot of restrictions in flight, when you will not be in the mood for a bar, is quite difficult. For example, I have a large number of friends - Tesla fans, fans of electric vehicles. I’m already tired of hearing: “electric cars will change the world, they are environmentally friendly, they charge quickly...”. I begin to explain that Tesla has more than 10 thousand AA lithium batteries, the production of which violates all conceivable environmental standards; they are made in China, pouring all the waste into the neighboring river. Not to mention how stupid the concept of such a battery of individual “fingers” looks on a production electric car.
And then I ask a simple question: guys, let's take the New York metropolitan area. Let’s say that out of 20 million residents, at least 150 thousand decided to buy an electric car. After all, a car is started to be driven. Right? And now imagine how 150 thousand users simultaneously plug their Tesla into a 40-amp outlet. We multiply 40 amperes by 150 thousand such happy owners.
"TOMORROW". And we get a completely insane number.
Sergey ZAGATIN. We find that one-time consumption in the city increases by 20%. Blackout. Not only New York is flying out, but also Canada, because there is a lot of pressure there.
"TOMORROW". Well, they promise us that Kurzweil’s superintelligence will be responsible for everything, and not the “C” dispatcher. And superintelligence will say: “you - charge, and you - wait.”
Sergey ZAGATIN. All superintelligence is broken by the fact that Manhattan and the Bronx are powered by virtually one 380-volt power line, and there is nowhere to install new generating capacities and power lines. This means that it is necessary to include the most severe administrative resources - but how to do this in modern America, which is all built on the primacy of “unlimited freedom”? There is no Stalin there, but there are a lot of well-armed, mentally unstable men who know their rights. Therefore, the question of even 150 thousand electric vehicles in one and only New York is a question of hundreds of billions of dollars. Therefore, this is not a program of action, but a simulation of moving forward. This is why I say that the technological singularity is not coming and will not come, because in the modern world we see in many ways a simulation of activity, and not the creation of something new. Remember the magazine “Technology for Youth” of the 80s?
"TOMORROW". “Technology for Youth”, “Young Technician”, “Chemistry and Life”, “Science and Life”...
Sergey ZAGATIN. Every year, every month then in “Technology - Youth”, until the collapse of the USSR, they published a message about higher and higher temperature superconductivity. Then there was a large-scale revolution in superconducting ceramics - and we, according to all calculations, should have had superconducting ceramics at room temperature today. But the world has come up against two points: the physical limitations of the highest temperature conductivity and... the misuse of funds allocated for science. There were a lot of publications about this, where they examined the total ineffectiveness of the grant system, which they decided to “move science forward” at the end of the 1980s.
And there are a lot of such examples. There is a well-known story with the American agency DARPA, which frightened ordinary people with terrible running robots, which they created for eight years, and then closed the project due to internal problems, primarily organizational ones. And in Russia, the same problem was solved in a year and a half with much less funding.
Or, for example, the concept of the terrible Zamvolt-class destroyers, which the Pentagon used to terrorize the world quite recently. Like, let's build 30 stealth destroyers that will approach the coast and, with the impact of electromagnetic guns, mow down everything 300 km inland. The problem here is the very concept of an “invisible destroyer” with an electromagnetic cannon that completely unmasks it, the very first shot of which can be aimed at the destroyer from the Moon or from Jupiter. The concept completely contradicts not only physics, but also common sense - and this again means billions and billions of dollars. And they made “Zamvolta” because it was “beautiful” and “cool”; someone in the Pentagon liked to shoot at Russians from over the horizon in their dreams. Such a beautiful future of the nation can be shown!
But with superconducting ceramics... What is superconducting ceramics? These are, first of all, super accumulators. What are super batteries? Greater degree of freedom for any individual.
"TOMORROW". And yet the question is: who ruined the superconducting ceramics: the “C” students, the misuse of funds, or some kind of “conspiracy of the elites” that you hinted at?
Sergey ZAGATIN. The premises and plot are not so important - the result is important. Today we have neither high-temperature superconductivity nor superaccumulators. But instead, people are being sold smartphones and electric cars that will not change the world in any way - because they simply cannot. And most scientific research now is, in fact, a device from a Soviet joke - a “nichevometer”. Real equipment, after all, looks unsightly, so in order for the inspection commission to be filled with the importance of the moment, in the USSR such equipment was often demonstrated with a remote control with buttons and lights, and a device with arrows. And now in science only this props remains. This is sad.
"TOMORROW". Okay, let's accept that Western civilization has indeed reached a dead end. But there are the Chinese, they seem to be building some kind of alternative model to the Western world under the strict leadership of the Communist Party of China? They have Soviet-style five-year plans and clear objectives. To what extent is the Chinese structure of society, of consciousness, ready to pick up the fallen banner of the Western world, which is already lying, and the C students let it go to the “cat litter”?
Sergey ZAGATIN. This is generally difficult. In my opinion, the most creative nation in the East is, of course, the Koreans. Today, the same Samsung has moved from copying to expansion, to developing its own unique technologies. A very interesting question is what will happen to the Korean nation if the North and South unite and converge. Because, speaking about the South, which created Samsung, Daewoo and a huge number of other creative mega-corporations, we must not forget that the North, in conditions of complete isolation and total blockade, was able to create missile weapons and a nuclear bomb - projects no less large-scale and no less technologically advanced.
On the other hand, the Chinese, of course, have a huge potential for hard work, powerful industrial and scientific potential, which they are now actively developing, trying to catch up with almost half a century of lag behind Russia and the West. Of course, you cannot take and grow a scientific school in two years. But they have a systematic understanding of what they will do next, a planned economy, an emphasis on science and industry, a northern ally in Russia who will help China with resources and technology - in exchange for Chinese goods.
"TOMORROW". And this northern ally... When we say that Russia has its own path, its own history, its own approach, we always count on the uniqueness of the Russian people, the Russian character. But, on the other hand, we clearly see that the new generation, which was brought up in large cities and especially, unfortunately, in both cosmopolitan capitals, is extremely westernized. It’s all in the already mentioned “seals”, in the worship of Musk and Apple, they are ideal Russian “C” students. Does Russia still have a unique identity of its own - or are there only “niche meters” lying in Russian bins on the destroyed ruins of Soviet-era mega-aggregates?
Sergey ZAGATIN. The question is that Russia has now become part of the global world. There is no point in denying this. We are so intertwined with the West that even attempts to rock the Russian boat from the Western side look quite idiotic - it is not Russia that suffers from them, but in many ways it is the West. On the other hand, there is also a danger in this for Russia: we have always had our own unique technological culture, which is now also intertwined with the Western one and absorbs not only the best of it, but also all Western vices. Here we must take into account that we historically grew up with the West on virtually the same roots, and it depends on us how critically we will perceive the branch of humanity that is related to us, but still separate from us. This is already a question of the reasonableness of the filter, which would allow all the best to pass through, but would retain vices and errors.
"TOMORROW". So, there is still hope for both the world and Russia in particular - to survive the future singularity and not slide into the “new Middle Ages”, trying to hide from the inevitable, producing a “generation of C-grade students”? After all, usually those people who criticize Kurzweil’s singularity do not believe in technological progress, they immediately say: “there is no progress,” “everything is going downhill, and especially in Russia.” They say we are sliding into a new Middle Ages, where new landlords will monitor their serfs, but through smartphone applications. What can we expect in 10-15 years?
Sergey ZAGATIN. I think we need to survive this inevitable crisis of the next 10-15 years with honor and common sense, taking into account all the problems that I have already mentioned in our conversation. When the current global project collapses, Russia needs to be the winner, with people who will be ready to separate themselves from the ruins of the old world, and who will have more than a “solid C” in their competencies. There will be enough C students in the new world without them. And now we are creating the fortress of Eurasia, both politically and economically. That is, two-thirds of the planet's population will be the largest market.
"TOMORROW". But for this it will be necessary to take India and China into these “two-thirds”, right?
Sergey ZAGATIN. Yes, Russia needs to rely not only on itself, but also on other Eurasian countries, India and China. Russia may well become a super-arbiter in such a new world - precisely a “judge”, but by no means an “overseer” or “boss”. Russians have never built relationships with the outside world from a position of strength - this is our uniqueness and our chance in the world of the future. And then the singularity will come, but then we’ll think together about how to survive it. It will be interesting - that's for sure.
The conversation was conducted by Alexey Anpilogov
Alexey Anpilogov