First elucidated in an
article in Science in 1998,...
As an example of the misuse of science and technology for destructive
and immoral ends (usually quite contrary to the inventor's genuine
intent as well), the guillotine hardly merits a glance compared with
such efficient agents of wartime destruction as gunpowder, napalm, or
atomic weaponry—not to mention the truly unintended and purely
consequential impacts of technology on global environments, human social
problems, and biodiversity...
The essence of human tragedy... lies in the power of
politics, reaction, and irrationality to overwhelm the still, small
voice of science, and even to use its tools of intended benevolence for
perverse ends...
Homo sapiens is not an evil or destructive species. But the
architecture of structural complexity—the great asymmetry of my
title—permits moments to undo what only centuries can build. The
essential human tragedy, and the true source of science's potential
misuse for destruction, lies in the ineluctable nature of this great
asymmetry, not in the character of knowledge itself. We perform 10,000
acts of small and unrecorded kindness for each surpassingly rare, but
sadly balancing, moment of cruelty...
... Gould reaffirmed his view in a
NYT opinion piece in 2001:
Good and kind people outnumber all others by thousands to one. The
tragedy of human history lies in the enormous potential for destruction
in rare acts of evil, not in the high frequency of evil people. Complex
systems can only be built step by step, whereas destruction requires but
an instant. Thus, in what I like to call the Great Asymmetry, every
spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts of
kindness, too often unnoted and invisible as the ''ordinary'' efforts of
a vast majority.
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