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On the other hand, though in these ways and many others, psychoanalysis seems to promote the sorts of subjective dispositions and habits requisite for a thriving democracy, and though in a variety of ways psychoanalysis contributes to personal emancipation— say, by releasing individuals from self-defeating, damaging, or petrified forms action and reaction, object attachment, and the like—in light of the very uniqueness of what it has to offer, one cannot but wonder: to what extent, if at all, can the habits and dispositions—broadly, the forms of life—cultivated by psychoanalytic practice survive, let alone flourish, under modern social and political conditions? If the emancipatory inclinations and democratic virtues that psychoanalytic practice promotes are systematically crushed or at least regularly unsupported by the world in which they would be realized, then isn’t psychoanalysis implicitly making promises it cannot redeem? Might not massive social and political transformations be the condition for the efficacious practice of psychoanalysis? And so, under current conditions, can we avoid experiencing the forms of life nascently cultivated by psychoanalytic practice as something of a tease, or even a source of deep frustration? (2) Concerning psychoanalysis as a politically inclined theoretical enterprise, the worry is whether political diagnoses and proposals that proceed on the basis of psychoanalytic insights and forms of attention partake of a fantasy of interpretive efficacy (all the world’s a couch, you might say), wherein our profound alienation from the conditions for robust political agency are registered and repudiated? Consider, for example, Freud and Bullitt’s (1967) assessment of the psychosexual determinants of Woodrow Wilson’s political aspirations and impediments, or Reich’s (1972) suggestion that Marxism should appeal to psychoanalysis in order to illuminate and redress neurotic phenomena that generate disturbances in working capacity, especially as this concerns religion and bourgeois sexual ideology. Also relevant are Freud’s, Žižek’s (1993, 2004), Derrida’s (2002) and others’ insistence that we draw the juridical and political consequences of the hypothesis of an irreducible death drive, as well as Marcuse’s (1970) proposal that we attend to the weakening of Eros and the growth of aggression that results from the coercive enforcement of the reality principle upon the sociopolitically weakened ego, and especially to the channeling of this aggression into hatred of enemies. Reich (1972) and Fromm (1932) suggest that psychoanalysis be employed to explore the motivations to political irrationality, especially that singular irrationality of joining the national-socialist movement, while Irigaray (1985) diagnoses the desire for the Same, the One, the Phallus as a desire for a sociosymbolic order that assures masculine dominance. Žižek (2004) contends that only a psychoanalytic exposition of the disavowed beliefs and suppositions of the United States political elite can get at the fundamental determinants of the Iraq War. Rose (1993) argues that it was the paranoiac paradox of sensing both that there is every reason to be frightened and that everything is under control that allowed Thatcher “to make this paradox the basis of political identity so that subjects could take pleasure in violence as force and legitimacy while always locating ‘real’ violence somewhere else—illegitimate violence and illicitness increasingly made subject to the law” (p. 64). Stavrakakis (1999) advocates that we recognize and traverse the residues of utopian fantasy in our contemporary political imagination.1 Might not the psychoanalytic interpretation of powerful figures (Bush, Bin Laden, or whomever), collective subjects (nations, ethnic groups, and so forth), or urgent “political” situations register an anxiety regarding political impotence or “castration” that is pacified and modified by the fantasmatic frame wherein the psychoanalytically inclined political theorist situates him- or herself as diagnosing or interpretively intervening in the lives of political figures, collective political subjects, or complex political situations with the idealized efficacy of a successful clinical intervention? If so, then the question is: are the contributions of psychoanalytically inclined political theory anything more than tantalizing menu cards for meals it cannot deliver? As I said, the worry is twofold. These are two folds of a related problem, which is this: might the very seductiveness of psychoanalytic theory and practice—specifically, the seductiveness of its political promise—register the lasting eclipse of the political and the objectivity of the social, respectively? In other words, might not everything that makes psychoanalytic theory and practice so politically attractive indicate precisely the necessity of wide-ranging social/institutional transformations that far exceed the powers of psychoanalysis? And so, might not the politically salient transformations of subjectivity to which psychoanalysis can contribute overburden subjectivity as the site of political transformation, blinding us to the necessity of largescale institutional reforms? Indeed, might not massive institutional transformations be necessary conditions for the efficacy of psychoanalytic practice, both personally and politically? Further, might not the so-called interventions and proposals of psychoanalytically inclined political theory similarly sidestep the question of the institutional transformations necessary for their realization, and so conspire with our blindness to the enormous institutional impediments to a progressive political future?

By his own admission, Stavrakakis does not provide blueprints (which is unsurprising), nor does he provide prescriptions, political direction or policy proposals (pp. 13-14, 30). This leaves the work of dubious relevance to people doing politics whether as activists, politicians or administrators. The aim is rather to argue for radical democracy as 'the institutionalization of a mechanism which enables the continuous re-articulation of the symbolic field constituting society' (p. 129). The author makes very broad claims about this function of democracy, which is 'the most pressing task' of politics (p. 60), the only way to ensure permanent creation of the new (p. 60) and the only legitimate form of hegemony (p. 256). The argumentation backing up these claims mostly amounts to assertion and exegesis. However, this is not simply a case for existing liberal democracies. Radical democracy is contrasted with existing democracies (pp. 255-256) and is taken to imply a change in the arrangement of jouissance . Instead of the fantasies pervasive today, typified by their blaming of the other for the incompleteness of the self, Stavrakakis proposes a passage to feminine jouissance that encircles the lack (pp. 22-23, 111, 144, 268, 278-279). Present democracies have been hit by an assault on the two pillars of modern democracy -- equality and liberty -- by the neoliberals and neoconservatives, respectively, leading to a 'post-political' world in which conflict is avoided and thus returns as social problems, and in which a new, almost pre-democratic despotism is taking shape (pp. 263-264). Despite this, democracy can still function as 'the mobilising force, the common denominator, for a politics of alternatives' (p. 258).

These political conclusions are dubious. Liberal democracies in fact tend to be quite closed to change and to be supplemented with aggressive nationalist and racist identities. The liberal state, like the authoritarian state, tends to essentialize itself as a form in such a way as to deny its own contingency. It is not clear that the radical democratic framework guarantees basic rights or prevents the state from making essentialist claims on others. Stavrakakis assumes that the democratic form itself directly achieves the goal of recognizing contingency (p. 141). Yet this cannot be the case, since as Stavrakakis admits, this form does not prevent actually existing democracies from being inflected with fantasmatic projects such as ultranationalism, or degenerating into a 'post-political' disavowal of conflict. Further, whichever party gets in power -- by majority will or procedural hitch -- is generally able to ignore intransigent realities, pursue its own fantasmatic actings-out and repress, foreclose, disavow or otherwise silence whatever forms of social otherness are not to its tastes. Beyond this, there is a fantasmatic frame of the liberal-democratic state that pits the permanent institutions such as the police, bureaucracy and secret service against semi-permanent Others, hence displacing real social antagonisms into narratives of 'crime', 'disorder', 'terrorism', 'madness', 'anarchy' and so on. Can this fundamental fantasy be traversed without shattering the frame of the 'democratic' state itself? One might also wonder if the 'politics of alternatives' has not already emerged -- and passed by entirely the radical democrats -- in the form of the anti-capitalist and anti-neoliberal movements.

WE SHOULD congratulate the Science Museum for setting up an exhibition on psychoanalysis. Exposure to pseudoscience greatly helps understand genuine science, just as learning about tyranny helps in understanding democracy. Over the past 30 years, psychoanalysis has quietly been displaced in academia by scientific psychology. But it persists in popular culture as well as being a lucrative profession. It is the psychology of those who have not bothered to learn psychology, and the psychotherapy of choice for those who believe in the power of immaterial mind over body. Psychoanalysis is a bogus science because its practitioners do not do scientific research. When the field turned 100, a group of psychoanalysts admitted this gap and endeavoured to fill it. They claimed to have performed the first experiment showing that patients benefited from their treatment. Regrettably, they did not include a control group and did not entertain the possibility of placebo effects. Hence, their claim remains untested (The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol 81, p 513). More recently, a meta-analysis published in American Psychologist (vol 65, p 98) purported to support the claim that a form of psychoanalysis called psychodynamic therapy is effective. However, once again, the original studies did not involve control groups. In 110 years, psychoanalysts have not set up a single lab. They do not participate in scientific congresses, do not submit their papers to scientific journals and are foreign to the scientific community - a marginality typical of pseudoscience. This does not mean their hypotheses have never been put to the test. True, they are so vague that they are hard to test and some of them are, by Freud's own admission, irrefutable. Still, most of the testable ones have been soundly refuted. For example, most dreams have no sexual content. The Oedipus complex is a myth; boys do not hate their fathers because they would like to have sex with their mothers. The list goes on. As for therapeutic efficacy, little is known because psychoanalysts do not perform double-blind clinical trials or follow-up studies. Psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience. Its concepts are woolly and untestable yet are regarded as unassailable axioms. As a result of such dogmatism, psychoanalysis has remained basically stagnant for more than a century, in contrast with scientific psychology, which is thriving.

DT. It seems to me that a frequent critique of psychoanalysis and politics is that in its inability, and perhaps unwillingness to propose concrete policy reforms or political projects, it falls back on a notion that everyone should just undergo analysis. Do you think that a political project that is informed by psychoanalytic teachings implies that we should all undergo analysis? You write in your book for instance that fantasy is a crucial point for facilitating a sort of un-bonding process from the larger capitalist mode of subjectivity. What do you see as the role of analysis and political emancipatory work?¶ TM. I will alienate many of my analyst friends with this response, but I have no political investment at all in psychoanalytic practice. I’ve undergone some analysis myself. However, I don’t believe that everyone undergoing psychoanalysis would change much at all politically. What is important about psychoanalysis to me is its theoretical intervention, its discovery of the death drive and the role that fantasy plays in our psyche. This is the great advance. And political struggle can integrate these theoretical insights without any help from actual psychoanalysis. What allows one to disinvest in the capitalist mode of subjectivity is not, in my view, the psychoanalytic session. Instead it is the confrontation with a mode of enjoyment that ceases to provide the satisfaction that it promises. This prompts one to think about alternatives. Obviously, not everyone can become a theorist, but in a sense, everyone already is a theorist. We theorize our enjoyment when we think through our day and plan out where we’re going to do. Even watching a television show requires an elaborate theoretical exercise. Making this theorizing evident and thus arousing an interest in theory is to me much more important than having a lot of people undergo psychoanalysis. In response to your question about the universalization of psychoanalytic practice, I have more faith in a universalization of psychoanalytic theory.

This article pointed out that psychoanalysis — not only on its classic, but also with its contemporary version — ends up checking all of the seven items in Hansson’s multicriteria list. It also fits the eighth item that was introduced in this work. So, in this way, psychoanalysis checks eight out of eight demarcation of pseudoscience’s items. The evidence presented in this article suggests that with both Popper and Hansson’s demarcation proposals, and taking into account its traditional and contemporary versions, psychoanalysis is indeed a pseudoscience. Even if the impression that it represents the most reliable human psychological theory is created by its proponents, that is not the case, because it considerably deviates from scientific standards of quality.

Although research in psychoanalysis is widespread in Brazil, its objections are not being discussed in the literature, and this may be an indicator of alienation [46]. The maintenance of a dogmatic approach on a doctrine inserted in the academic environment is dangerous, since it can lead to scientific stagnation and prevent the full development of its disciplines, which in the case of psychoanalysis are psychology and psychiatry. It is important to further discuss criticisms of psychoanalysis, given that it is still treated as one of the main theoretical and clinical models for the comprehension of human behavior inside the academy. Even from an ethical perspective, it is important to carry out practices and build theories that are compatible with the best scientific evidence. There is no good moral justification for believing in whatever the theory, if it does not have enough evidence in its favor [47].

WHAT I SOON REALIZED is that our society’s fascination with psychology has a dark side: many half-baked ideas—ideas that may not be 100 percent bunk but which are severely overhyped—are being enthusiastically spread, despite a lack of hard evidence in their favor. The IAT is one example, but there are numerous others. The popularity of these ideas, as well as the breathless manner in which they are marketed by TED Talks and university press offices and journalists and podcasts, is not harmless. It misallocates resources to overclaiming researchers when others are experiencing a funding crunch, and it degrades the institution of psychology by blurring the line between behavioral science and behavioral pseudoscience.

Perhaps most important, these ideas are frequently being adopted by schools, corporations, and nonprofits eager to embrace the Next Big Thing to come out of the labs and lecture halls of Harvard or the University of Pennsylvania. As the decision-makers who work in these institutions have grown more fluent in science and cognizant of the need to look to behavioral scientists for guidance (a good thing), they’ve also become more susceptible to half-baked behavioral science (a bad thing). And this explosion of interest in psychological science has occurred at a time when, if anything, people should be more cautious about embracing new and exciting psychological claims. As we’ll see, many findings in psychology—including those featured in introductory textbooks—are failing to replicate, meaning that when researchers attempt to re-create them with new experiments, they are coming up short. This so-called replication crisis has cast a giant shadow over the entire field of psychology, and the best available evidence suggests that a sizable chunk of published psychological findings may be false (though the size of that chunk is a source of heated debate). Many psychologists themselves may be unwittingly helping to promote half-baked science that seems to be built upon a solid foundation of published research. In all likelihood, we’ll look back wincingly at some of the popular theories being taught and developed today and, all too often, transformed into sleek interventions that promise to alleviate our ills.*

Perhaps, then, what distant consumers express when they sit glued to the television watching a disaster replayed over and over, when they buy t-shirts or snow globes, when they mail teddy bears to a memorial, or when they tour a disaster site, is a deep, maybe subconscious, longing for those age-old forms of community and real human compassion that emerge in a place when disaster has struck. It is a longing in some ways so alien to the world we currently live in that it requires catastrophe to call it forth, even in our imaginations. Nevertheless, the actions of unadulterated goodwill that become commonplace in harrowing conditions represent the truly authentic form of humanity that all of us, to one degree or another, chase after in contemporary consumer culture every day. And while it is certainly a bit foolhardy to seek authentic humanity through disaster-related media and culture, the sheer strength of that desire has been evident in the public’s response to all the disasters, crises and catastrophes to hit the United States in the past decade. The millions of television viewers who cried on September 11, or during Hurricane Katrina and the Virginia Tech shootings, and the thousands upon thousands who volunteered their time, labor, money, and even their blood, as well as the countless others who created art, contributed to memorials, or adorned their cars or bodies with disaster-related paraphernalia— despite the fact that many knew no one who had been personally affected by any of these disasters—all attest to a desire for real human community and compassion that is woefully unfulfilled by American life under normal conditions today. ¶ In the end, the consumption of disaster doesn’t make us unable or unwilling to engage with disasters on a communal level, or towards progressive political ends—it makes us feel as if we already have, simply by consuming. It is ultimately less a form of political anesthesia than a simulation of politics, a Potemkin village of communal sentiment, that fills our longing for a more just and humane world with disparate acts of cathartic consumption. Still, the positive political potential underlying such consumption—the desire for real forms of connection and community—remains the most redeeming feature of disaster consumerism. Though that desire is frequently warped when various media lenses refract it, diffuse it, or reframe it to fit a political agenda, its overwhelming strength should nonetheless serve notice that people want a different world than the one in which we currently live, with a different way of understanding and responding to disasters. They want a world where risk is not leveraged for profit or political gain, but sensibly planned for with the needs of all socio-economic groups in mind. They want a world where preemptive strategies are used to anticipate the real threats posed by global climate change and global inequality, rather than to invent fears of ethnic others and justify unnecessary wars. They want a world where people can come together not simply as a market, but as a public, to exert real agency over the policies made in the name of their safety and security. And, when disaster does strike, they want a world where the goodwill and compassion shown by their neighbors, by strangers in their communities, and even by distant spectators and consumers, will be matched by their own government. Though this vision of the world is utopian, it is not unreasonable, and if contemporary American culture is ever to give us more than just an illusion of safety, or empathy, or authenticity, then it is this vision that we must advocate on a daily basis, not only when disaster strikes.

The problem is that psychoanalytic concepts (e.g., "super-ego," "Oedipus complex," and "death drive"30 ), unlike them of say physics ("electron," [End Page 67] "muon," and "quark"), are logical constructs that have not been corroborated by precise observations and replicable tests. Hence Freud's logical constructs as proto-concepts are not even adequate as working hypotheses. As early as 1934, J. F. Brown, who claimed he was in sympathy with Freud's new science, urged, "But, and here almost all critics of psychoanalysis are in agreement, the theory has never been precise enough to allow formulation of working hypotheses for which adequate experimental situations could be found" (1933, p. 333). He went on to acknowledge, perhaps somewhat prophetically, given the amount of attention Freud gets today in philosophy of mind, "Freud's discoveries probably are the most striking and original contributions made to the science of mind in our time." He added, in a manner that vitiates the compliment, that Freud is more prophet than scientist—more Bruno than Galileo (1933, p. 226).

Freud was aware of that. His own view of the concepts of psychoanalysis is ambivalent. At times, he shows impatience and becomes intolerant of his critics. "Only in psychology [is obscurity not tolerated]; here the constitutional incapacity of men for scientific research comes into full view. It looks as though people did not expect from psychology progress in knowledge, but some other kind of satisfaction; every unsolved problem, every acknowledged uncertainty is turned into a ground of complaint against it" (1916–7, S.E., XXII: 6). At other times, Freud seems to agree with his critics. In "Autobiographical Study," when he mentions difficulties with "compulsion to repeat," he adds:

Guattari's critique of psychoanalysis makes clear the myths which underlie it.  'Psychoanalysis transforms and deforms the unconscious by forcing it to pass through the grid of its system of inscription and representation.  For psychoanalysis, the unconscious is always already there, genetically programmed, structured, and finalized on objectives of conformity to social norms'104.  Similarly, Reich has already exposed a predecessor of the idea of "constitutive lack" - the Freudian "death instinct" - as a denial that "I don't know".  It is, he says, a metaphysical attempt to explain as yet inexplicable phenomena, an attempt which gets in the way of fact-finding about these phenomena105.  He provides a detailed clinical rebuttal of the idea of the "death instinct" which is equally apt as an attack on Lacanians (who seem unaware of Reich's intervention).  In Reich's view, the masochistic tendencies Freud associates with the "death instinct" are secondary drives arising from anxiety, and are attributable to 'the disastrous effect of social conditions on the biopsychic apparatus.  This entailed the necessity of criticizing the social conditions which created the neuroses - a necessity which the hypothesis of a biological will to suffer had circumvented'106.  The idea of the "death instinct" leads to a cultural philosophy in which suffering is assumed to be inevitable, whereas Reich's alternative - to attribute neurosis to frustrations with origins in the social system - leads to a critical sociological stance107.  The relevance of Reich's critique to the political theory of constitutive lack is striking.  The "death instinct" is connected to an idea of primordial masochism which, in the form of "aphanisis" or "subjective destitution", recurs throughout Lacanian political theory.  Zizek in particular advocates masochism, in the guise of "shooting at" or "beating" oneself, as a radical gesture which reveals the essence of the self and breaks the constraints of an oppressive reality108, although the masochistic gesture is present in all Lacanian theorists.  The death instinct is typified by Zizek as a pathological (in the Kantian sense), contingent attitude which finds satisfaction in the process of self-blockage109.  It is identical with the Lacanian concept of jouissance or enjoyment.  For him, 'enjoyment (jouissance) is not to be equated with pleasure: enjoyment is precisely "pleasure in unpleasure"; it designates the paradoxical satisfaction procured by a painful encounter with a Thing that perturbs the equilibrium of the pleasure principle.  In other words, enjoyment is located "beyond the pleasure principle"'110.  It is also the core of the self, since enjoyment is 'the only "substance" acknowledged by psychoanalysis', and 'the subject fully "exists" only through enjoyment'111.  Primordial masochism is therefore central to the Lacanian concept of the Real, which depends on there being a universal moment at which active desire - sometimes given the slightly misleading name of the "pleasure principle" - is suspended, not for a greater or delayed pleasure, but out of a direct desire for unpleasure (i.e. a primary reactive desire).  Furthermore, this reactive desire is supposed to be ontologically prior to active desire.  Dominick LaCapra offers a similar but distinct critique to my own, claiming that Lacanian and similar theories induce a post-traumatic compulsion repetition or an 'endless, quasi-transcendental grieving that may be indistinguishable from interminable melancholy'112. Reich has already provided a rebuttal of "primordial masochism", which, paradoxically given Zizek's claims to radicalism, was denounced by orthodox Freudians as communist propaganda.  In Reich's view, masochism operates as a relief at a lesser pain which operates as armouring against anxiety about an underlying trauma113.  Regardless of what one thinks of Reich's specific account of the origins of masochism, what is crucial is his critique of the idea of a death drive.  'Such hypotheses as are criticised here are often only a sign of therapeutic failure.  For if one explains masochism by a death instinct, one confirms to the patient his [sic] alleged will to suffer'114.  Thus, Lacanian metaphysics conceal Lacanians' encouragement of a variety of neurosis complicit with oppressive social realities.  Politically, the thesis of primordial masochism provides a mystifying cover for the social forces which cause and benefit from the contingent emergence of masochistic attachments (i.e. sadistic power apparatuses).  One could compare this remark to Butler's claim that Zizek 'defends the trauma of the real... over and against a different kind of threat'115.

Bostrom recently suggested another possibility, the “Vulnerable World Hypothesis,” Bostrom (2019) where a technological advance occurs that will by default lead to extinction. He suggests that this is concerning, but notes that it is unclear if there are in fact such technologies in humanity's future. It is far more clear, however, that there are already technologies or events which would lead to global catastrophic risks short of extinction, and it seems implausible that more will not be found. Such events would create widespread devastation, could at least severely limit humanity's potential future advancement, and would at the very least cause tremendous human suffering and death in the short term. Bostrom, 2003; Bostrom (2003), Parfit (1984)

The philosopher Martin Heidegger saw most clearly that modern technology has its own point of view which is completely separate from any other structure of human aims and purposes. The critical feature of modern technology is its willingness to treat anything as a resource to be reordered in the furtherance of other aims, usually its own. Heidegger, in his essay “The Question Concerning Technology,” concludes that modern technology is an independent force in human existence. It builds a new and incompatible order on top of what was there, primarily in order to extract and store energy for later uses (Heidegger, 1955, pp. 14-17).

The point of view of modern technology regards everything as a potential resource, as “standing reserve” to be used or reused later in other related processes. A forest has status only as a timber resource. Land itself is only a resource for the building industry. Even human beings themselves become “human resources” from this point of view. Or they become “consumers.” Or ill people become a “supply of patients for a clinic”. Many distinctive modern technologies embody this notion of “standing reserve” in their very conception. Thus, electric power, whether in the form of available current or batteries, is always entirely standing reserve, on hand for potential use. This way of looking at things, insofar as it ignores the previous pattern of processes, uses, and ends, is inherently “violent” in its effects on those processes, especially concerning the environment.

Achieving space colonization capabilities means obtaining sufficiently advanced technology for venturing beyond Earth and permanently sustaining human life there. In order to achieve that goal, maximizing the pace of technological development seems like an instrumentally desirable goal: The faster we technologically innovate and develop, the higher the probability of obtaining space colonization capabilities. However, the problem with such a technological push is that the increased pace of technological development might also result in an increased pace of existential risk creation.

As I argue above in subsection 2.1, anthropogenic existential risks correlate with human technological development. All non-natural existential risks are the result of our technological progress, and more technological progress is likely to beget more existential risks. Of course, this should not be misunderstood as a quasi-Luddite argument against all technological progress in general. Scientific and technological progress has made life enormously better and removed tremendous amounts of suffering from the world, to the bene t of current as well as all future generations. However, existential risks are an unprecedented challenge, and the more numerous and probable they are, the more difficult it is to mitigate them in time. In the context of space colonization, this issue is of elevated importance because, as I argue above in subsection 3.1, delaying space colonization has an almost imperceptible impact on the long-term future of humankind, whereas existential risks and our attempts at mitigating them (or failing to do so) has an enormous impact.

2. Novel Technologies Reframed as an Explore/Exploit tradeoff

Bostrom's recent “Vulnerable World Hypothesis” lists several ways in which “there is some level of technological development at which civilization almost certainly gets devastated by default, i.e. unless it has exited the 'semi-anarchic default condition.”’ He illustrates this with an analogy modeled on a classic type of explanation in probability theory, that of an urn from which we draw balls. In his analogy, each ball represents a technological advance, and the balls can be white, black, or any shade of gray – representing the impact on humanity. Since we do not know what the future of technology will bring, the distribution of the colors of the balls inside the urn is unknown. He then discusses four scenarios which posit the existence of a “black ball” technology drawn from the urn, which, unlike those found so far with positive effects or mixed effects of humanity, “invariably or by default destroys the civilization that invents it.”

This section turns to an empirical analysis of the forces of destruction, based on evidence from four cases of anthropogenic existential threats: nuclear war, climate change, bioengineered pathogens, and artificial intelligence. The analysis identifies three empirical trends in the evolution of the forces of destruction (see table 2). First, there are now three modes of human agency that constitute the threat of physical destruction: violence between human actors, destruction of the natural environment, and loss of control over technology. Second, the scale of physical destruction has reached the critical point at which it becomes an existential threat to human civilization and survival—the forces of destruction have become “total.” Third, the diffusion of technology has made it so nationstates no longer possess a monopoly over the forces of destruction—non-state actors have become potential “agents of destruction.”

Modes of Destruction

Most notable in this regard is the scathing social criticism of the prolific techno-skeptic Evgeny Morozov, who goes so far as to argue that the very term “the Internet” is a meaningless construct.20 He engages in a sort of radical deconstructivism that suggests we are all somehow being fooled into thinking the Internet is as important or meaningful as most of us, quite rationally, believe it is. Morozov also rails against what he regards as the irrational exuberance of digital innovators, who supposedly believe technology can solve all the world’s hard problems. He refers to this as “solutionism” and castigates all those who would engage in a “mindless pursuit of this silicon Eden” or “romantic and revolutionary” thinking about how new technology might improve our lives.21 The critiques set forth by the latest crop of critics have become even more specialized, zeroing in on emerging technologies such as robotics,22 artificial intelligence,23 sensors,24 and the Internet of Things.25 Again, the concerns range from social (e.g., privacy, safety, and security) to personal (e.g., impact on learning and concentration) to economic (e.g., fears about automation and job dislocation). And it is not unusual to also hear a fair share of end-of-world dystopian scenarios thrown around in many of their books and essays, including Terminator-inspired tales of killer robots destroying humanity.26

The critics often fail to devise a coherent political or regulatory agenda for countering what they see as an overreliance on technology. However, when they do come clean about their policy intentions, they are usually calling for quite radical policy interventions, often aimed at imposing sweeping political control over the future course of technological innovation.27

The challenge, however, goes beyond guiding “human friendly AI” to ensuring “Earth friendly AI”. As the scale and urgency of the economic and human health impacts from our deteriorating natural environment grows, we have an opportunity to look at how AI can help transform traditional sectors and systems to address climate change, deliver food and water security, build sustainable cities, and protect biodiversity and human wellbeing.

To this end, in a new Forum-PwC report launched at Davos this year, we showcase the significant opportunity to harness AI for the Earth. Here we outline eight of the identified “game changer” AI applications to address this planet’s challenges:

We believe artificial intelligence technologies should largely be governed by a policy regime of permissionless innovation so that humanity can best extract all of the opportunities and benefits they promise. A precautionary approach could, alternatively, rob us of these life-saving benefits and leave us all much worse off.

The Risk of Avoiding All Risks

These Notices are part of Treasury’s ongoing efforts to engage a broad spectrum of taxpayers and stakeholders to inform its work implementing the Inflation Reduction Act. Nearly three-quarters of the bill’s $369 billion climate change investment - $270 billion – is delivered through tax incentives, putting the Department at the forefront of this landmark legislation.

In addition to these Notices requesting public comment, the Department has also been hosting a  with key stakeholder groups representing thousands of companies, millions of workers, and trillions of dollars in investment assets, as well as climate and environmental justice advocates, labor unions, community-based organizations, and other key actors that are critical to the success of the Inflation Reduction Act.

. Microsoft, a company that symbolizes American innovation, is now holding $108 billion of its profits overseas. Just sitting there. 

And why?

Republicans in Congress argue that federal spending has grown so out of control and created such a severe budget deficit that we should default on the national debt accumulated under previous Congresses of both parties if the President doesn’t agree to substantial spending cuts. They know full well that such a debt default would spark an , but the premise underlying their argument – that overspending by the federal government has caused the budget deficit – is wrong, according to a  from the Center for American Progress. The real problem is that tax cuts have drained trillions of dollars from federal coffers – tax cuts that have mostly enriched the wealthiest Americans.

The report points out that as recently as 2012, the Congressional Budget Office projected the federal government would indefinitely collect more than enough revenue to cover federal spending outside of interest payments on the debt, meaning the debt would fall over time. But the situation changed that year when Congressional Republicans pushed to extend the Bush tax cuts past their expiration date at the end of 2012 and then-President Obama compromised and made some, but not all, of the tax cuts permanent. The fiscal outlook further deteriorated with the enactment of the Trump tax cuts in 2017.