The presented dilemma omits the possibility that we can allow for technological progress while limiting the deployment of some technologies—like coal power plants and fossil fuel burning cars. That’s what makes it a false dilemma—it presupposes that the only alternative is to stop all technology, which isn’t the only alternative.
but this is differential technological development, which the authors strongly reject. The author and commenter explicitly ask us to consider how well we would fare if we stopped technological progress entirely
The authors don’t reject differential technological development as much as they claim that no real case has been made for it in the relevant domains. Specifically, “why this is more tractable or effective than bans, moratoriums and other measures has not been fully explained and defended.”
But that statement by the authors, and others I have found, aren’t claims that all technological progress should be stopped. So I think this is a false dilemma. For example, their suggested approach applies to the way that the world has managed previous dangerous technologies like nuclear weapons and bioweapons—we ban use and testing, largely successfully, instead of the idea they reject, which would be, I guess, differentially preferring to fund defense-dominant technology because use of nuclear and bioweapons is inevitable, and assuming that due to the technological completion hypothesis, the technology can’t be stopped.
The presented dilemma omits the possibility that we can allow for technological progress while limiting the deployment of some technologies—like coal power plants and fossil fuel burning cars. That’s what makes it a false dilemma—it presupposes that the only alternative is to stop all technology, which isn’t the only alternative.
but this is differential technological development, which the authors strongly reject. The author and commenter explicitly ask us to consider how well we would fare if we stopped technological progress entirely
The authors don’t reject differential technological development as much as they claim that no real case has been made for it in the relevant domains. Specifically, “why this is more tractable or effective than bans, moratoriums and other measures has not been fully explained and defended.”
But that statement by the authors, and others I have found, aren’t claims that all technological progress should be stopped. So I think this is a false dilemma. For example, their suggested approach applies to the way that the world has managed previous dangerous technologies like nuclear weapons and bioweapons—we ban use and testing, largely successfully, instead of the idea they reject, which would be, I guess, differentially preferring to fund defense-dominant technology because use of nuclear and bioweapons is inevitable, and assuming that due to the technological completion hypothesis, the technology can’t be stopped.