Freeman Dyson, physicist and philosopher who gave us the Dyson Sphere, believes the future needs a few good heretics.
In the commencement address Dyson delivered last December at the University of Michigan, he presented his speech layered between the introduction and the conclusion of a fable containing the heresy that misfortune is a gift in disguise. Once he had his audience’s attention, he then proposed three heretical scenarios for the future:
First Heresy: Global warming is grossly exaggerated
“There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global. The warming happens mostly in places and times where it is cold, in the arctic more than in the tropics, in winter more than in summer, at night more than in daytime. On the whole, the warming happens most where it does the least harm. I am not saying that the warming does not cause problems. Obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it better. I am saying that the problems are grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are more urgent and more important, such as poverty and infectious disease and public education and public health, and the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.”
Second Heresy:Biotechnology will soon be domesticated.
“…there is a close analogy between von Neumann’s vision of computers as large centralized facilities and the public perception of genetic engineering today as an activity of large pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto. The public distrusts Monsanto because Monsanto likes to put genes for poisonous pesticides into food-crops, just as we distrusted von Neumann because von Neumann liked to use his computer for designing hydrogen bombs. It is likely that genetic engineering will remain unpopular and controversial so long as it remains a centralized activity in the hands of large corporations.
I see a bright future for the biotechnical industry when it follows the path of the computer industry, the path that von Neumann failed to foresee, becoming small and domesticated rather than big and centralized.”
Third Heresy:The United States has less than a century left of its turn as top nation.
“Since the modern nation-state was invented around the year 1500, a succession of countries have taken turns at being top nation, first Spain, then France, Britain, America. Each turn lasted about 150 years. Ours began in 1920, so it should end about 2070. The reason why each top nation’s turn comes to an end is that the top nation becomes over-extended, militarily, economically and politically. Greater and greater efforts are required to maintain the number one position. Finally the over-extension becomes so extreme that the whole structure collapses. Already we can see in the American posture today some clear symptoms of over-extension. Who will be the next top nation? You should be asking yourselves, not how to live in an America-dominated world, but how to prepare for a world that is not America-dominated. That may be the most important problem for your generation to solve.”
Read the entire transcript.