Bertrand Russell. the limits of human powerSunday, July 21, 20245:25 AM

Bertrand Russell. the limits of human power

Sunday, July 21, 2024

5:25 AM

Man has existed for about a million years, and scientific technique for, at most, 200 years.

 

Seeing what it has already accomplished, it would be very rash to place any limits upon what it may accomplish in the future.

 

But scientific knowledge is an intoxicating draught, and it may be one which the human race is unable to sustain.

 

It may be that, like the men who built the Towel of Babel in the hope of reaching up to heaven, so the men who pursue the secrets of the atom will be punished for their impiety by providing accident the means of exterminating the human species, and perhaps of life on this planet.

 

From some points of view, such a consummation might not be wholly regrettable, but these points of view can hardly be ours.

 

Perhaps somewhere else, in some distant nebula, some unimportant star has an unimportant planet on which there are rational beings.

 

Perhaps in another million years their instruments will tell them of our fate, and lead them to agree on an agenda for a conference of foreign ministers.

 

If so, man will not have lived in vain.

 

성문종합영어 p22

 

 

 

 

A: Man has existed on this planet for how long?

 

B: for approximately a million years.

 

A: And after this amount of time we have reached the computer science, huh?

 

B: well, maybe in another million years, maybe humanity would have populated other galaxies !

 

A: I say, in about that time, we might find ourselves extinct

 

B: yeah, well, the fate of the dinosaurs, a comet might destroy us all before we….

 

A: no I think the nuclear bombs will clear us all….

 

B: so human fate met at the hands of human technology….do you think we don't know how to appreciate the principles of nature? This galaxy?

 

A: Well, I am thinking, will it have been worthwhile for a race with so much potential to go extinct.

Is that a victory for nature or major failure?

 

B: that would definitely be something to think about.