[wernercd]

Why not neither?

The greatest danger to Civilization, in my not-so-humble opinion is tribalism. My country is better. My religion. My political philosophy. My color. My sex. My gender.

And I'll riot and kill if you don't agree.

Capitalism? Socialism? AI? Those won't overcome the stupidity of large populations of humans.

[ng12]

Counterpoint: tribalism is what makes us do great things. The US went to space because we wanted to beat Russia. Spain re-discovered America because they wanted to beat the Portuguese. Rome built an empire because they wanted Romans to be wealthier, stronger, more civilized than everyone else.

I like to think of ancient China as the counter-example. China built a huge, self-sufficient empire. It had almost everything it needed and a stable trade network for the few things it didn't. It was well-protected by natural borders and had a large army for keeping the peace. It developed enough technology to lend it's people a relatively good standard of living. The end result was that China stagnated and lost the ~2,000 year head start they had over Europeans. China's goal was to provide stability, and it did that very well, at the cost of progress.

[wernercd]

I don't disagree... "us vs them" has lead to some great races (and Super Bowls).

The problem is the extreme version that ends in Nuclear War.

We can survive quite a few races - race to the stars. Race to solar. Race to the Super Bowl.

We can only lose the Nuclear Arms race once.

And North Korea ai'nt lookin pretty.

[laretluval]

Tribalism has been around for the entire course of civilization, and has decreased over time since we got the idea that it's a bad thing. So if civilization seems like it's in trouble now then it seems unlikely that tribalism is the cause.

[Id15eba6u]

Tribalism is not a bad thing, neither is nationalism, it is only a problem when it turns sour. Just like everything else. It's horribly limiting to think in only black and white.

[bitdeveloper]

If an AI subscribes to the tribalism of its creators, then it could be the AI vs. everyone. That sounds (potentially) dangerous to me.