Unfortunately, the brilliance of engineers is all to often turned around toward working out ways to more effectively eliminate humans.

Engineers, philosophers, psychiatrists, doctors — many have worked out ways to increase effectiveness of war, or increase the effectiveness of mind control, governmental control, or other means of population suppression. How many have worked out ways to increase freedom? To increase peace?

Let’s take a few items here:

• TNT: Created by Alfred Nobel as a brilliant way to increase mining effectiveness and speed moving land and other blasting operations like the ones needed for the Panama Canal. However, look at the way this was then used — resulting in whole cities decimated and millions of innocent people killed, prompting him to create the Nobel Prize.
• Psychiatry: Perhaps this started out innocent enough (or not) but this then turned into a whole science which has resulted in the killing of more Americans in psychiatric hospitals over the last 75 years than have died in all american wars combined.
• I could keep going…

This leads me to wonder what has been invented that actually has effectively resulted in peace and less war? I know of L. Ron Hubbard‘s The Way to Happiness, which when handed out in an area broadly has resulted in the area calming down.

Anyone have ideas?

Comments

P. Aarne Vesilind — February 21, 2009 at 5:01 pm

I would be very interested in responses to this question. I am working on a book entitled “Peace Engineering” that includes short bios of engineers who have devoted their careers to the pro-active search for peace. If anyone has ideas of people who would fit that description, I would very much appreciate hearing from you.

Aarne