Extreme solutions

Humans are interesting biological creatures. We are the greatest generalists and the greatest specialists. We have been able to fill any niche (through technology) that we can think of. We have forced our way successfully into every environment the globe has to offer. We take everything to the extreme. We innovate our way out of problems, which causes more problems, and so we innovate more.  We are masters of creativity and creation. 

Genius invention

It is for this reason that we are also masters of destruction. We are too effective at creating solutions. When we find ourselves in times of conflict, we innovate technology that can wipe out the majority of our population. We have created the very real possibility of nuclear war. We have pushed scientific exploration to the extremes as we experimented with gain-of-function research. This resulted in our current COVID-19 situation. Curiosity is known to kill the cat. Will this exploration of extremes be the down-fall of the human race? Will we create solutions to problems that lead to our extinction? Is this the great filter that all civilisations eventually arrive at? 

Can't wait to get gobbled up by these bad boys

We must be very careful to properly examine our ideas. Extreme ideas do not come from extreme individuals. They come from echo-chambers and from the inability to remove biased viewpoints. If humans are so effective at pursuing extremes, we must therefore hypothesise the use of our solutions to the extremes. Shall we continue into the unknown at the cost of ourselves?

Even as fans we take things to the extreme

We must be extremely careful not to seek out echo-chambers, and to weigh up all sides of an argument. We must look for logical fallacies in our ideas and perform large studies that may disprove our hypothesis. We must push our ideas to the most extreme arguments and see if they hold up to moral scrutiny. We should use data to improve our models and our medicines, not to simply back up our political agendas or arguments. Scepticism and questioning should be encouraged. It is terrifyingly becoming more demonised in our society. Although it is easy to forget what we were all like as children, let me remind you. We asked questions about everything. We asked Why.