Touché! Good point on "actually" and whether it is qualified, thanks. I guess that word only fits in relation to there actually being a novel which I was referring to? But I agree I should have worded that better. The word "fictionally" might have been a better choice? Glad your comment sparked some tangential discussion by others.

Children raised by robot educators/philosophers actually worked out well in the fictional sci-fi novel by James P. Hogan "Voyage from Yesteryear":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"The story opens early in the 21st century, as an automated space probe is being prepared for a mission to explore habitable exoplanets in the Alpha Centauri system. However, Earth appears destined for a global war which the probe designers fear that humanity may not survive. It appears that the only chance for the human species is to reestablish itself far away from the conflict but there is no time left for a crewed expedition to escape Earth. The team, led by Henry B. Congreve, change their mission priority and quickly modify the design to carry several hundred sets of electronically coded human genetic data. Also included in this mission of embryo space colonization is a databank of human knowledge, robots to convert the data into genetic material and care for the children and construct habitats when the destination is reached, and a number of artificial wombs. The probe's designers name it the Kuan-Yin after the bodhisattva of childbirth and compassion.
        Shortly after the launch, global war indeed breaks out and several decades later, Earthbound humanity is united under an authoritarian government. It is this government that receives a radio message from the fledgling "Chironian" civilization revealing that the probe found a habitable planet (Chiron) and that the first generation of children have been raised successfully.
        As the surviving power blocs of Earth before the conflict are still evident, North America, Europe and Asia each send a generation ship to Alpha Centauri to take control of the colony. By the time that the first generation ship (the American Mayflower II) arrives after 20 years, Chironian society is in its fifth generation.
        The Mayflower II has brought with it thousands of settlers, all the trappings of the authoritarian regime along with bureaucracy, religion, fascism and a military presence to keep the population in line. However, the planners behind the generation ship did not anticipate the direction that Chironian society took: in the absence of conditioning and with limitless robotic labor and fusion power, Chiron has become a post-scarcity economy. Money and material possessions are meaningless to the Chironians and social standing is determined by individual talent, which has resulted in a wealth of art and technology without any hierarchies, central authority or armed conflict.
        In an attempt to crush this anarchist adhocracy, the Mayflower II government employs every available method of control; however, in the absence of conditioning the Chironians are not even capable of comprehending the methods, let alone bowing to them. The Chironians simply use methods similar to Gandhi's satyagraha and other forms of nonviolent resistance to win over most of the Mayflower II crew members, who had never previously experienced true freedom, and isolate the die-hard authoritarians. ...

I guess it maybe all depends how wisely the robots are programmed initially? Sadly, with several AI companies racing forward in a winner-takes-all hyper-competitive safety-ignoring way to earn a lot of fiat dollars, seems like something needs to change to build a more hopeful future. Still, there is always the "Optimism of Uncertainty" as Howard Zinn called it.
https://www.thenation.com/arti...

Time to trot out my sig again, sigh: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
https://pdfernhout.net/recogni...
"The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream."

It was awesome ten days ago to see someone else who understands that irony:
"The Real Danger of AI Has Nothing to Do With AI" by Mo Gawdat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
        "Artificial intelligence is often described as a force that will shape humanity's future, yet technology itself carries no intention, morality, or agenda. The direction it takes depends entirely on the values and decisions of the people creating and using it.
        As intelligence becomes more powerful and capable of solving increasingly complex problems, the real question shifts away from what machines can do and toward what humanity chooses to prioritize. Every major technological leap reflects the ethical frameworks of the society behind it, meaning the future shaped by AI will ultimately mirror human behavior rather than machine logic.
        The challenge is not teaching machines to think -- it is learning to think more wisely ourselves."

Mo Gawdat was talking about AI, but the same applies to using advanced manufacturing and supply chains to make hypersonic missiles as in the article. That's US$99,000 that can't otherwise be used to make food, water, shelter, energy, 3D printers, and so on -- and so exacerbating the very conflicts that lead people to want to use hypersonic missiles.

Or for a more humorous take on this by me from 2009 as another "Downfall" bunker scene parody (which coincidentally starts with a mention of rockets/missiles):
https://groups.google.com/g/po...
        "Dialog of alternatively a military officer and Hitler:
"It looks like there are now local digital fabrication facilities here, here, and here."
"But we still have the rockets we need to take them out?"
"The rockets have all been used to launch seed automated machine shops for self-replicating space habitats for more living space in space."
"What about the nuclear bombs?"
"All turned into battery-style nuclear power plants for island cities in the oceans."
"What about the tanks?"
"The diesel engines have been remade to run biodiesel and are powering the internet hubs supplying technical education to the rest of the world."
"I can't believe this. What about the weaponized plagues?"
"The gene engineers turned them into antidotes for most major diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, cancer, and river blindness."
"Well, send in the Daleks."
"The Daleks have been re-outfitted to terraform Mars. There all gone with the rockets."
"Well, use the 3D printers to print out some more grenades."
"We tried that, but they only are printing toys, food, clothes, shelters, solar panels, and more 3D printers, for some reason."
"But what about the Samsung automated machine guns?"
"They were all reprogrammed into automated bird watching platforms. The guns were taken out and melted down into parts for agricultural robots."
"I just can't believe this. We've developed the most amazing technology the world has ever known in order to create artificial scarcity so we could rule the world through managing scarcity. Where is the scarcity?"
"Gone, Mein Fuhrer, all gone. All the technologies we developed for weapons to enforce scarcity have all been used to make abundance."
"How can we rule without scarcity? Where did it all go so wrong? ... Everyone with an engineering degree leave the room ... now!" [Cue long tirade on the general incompetence of engineers. :-) Then cue long tirade on how could engineers seriously wanted to help the German workers to not have to work so hard when the whole Nazi party platform was based on providing full employment using fiat dollars. Then cue long tirade on how could engineers have taken the socialism part seriously and shared the wealth of nature and technology with everyone globally.]
"So how are the common people paying for all this?"
"Much is free, and there is a basic income given to everyone for the rest. There is so much to go around with the robots and 3D printers and solar panels and so on, that most of the old work no longer needs to be done."
"You mean people get money without working at jobs? But nobody would work?"
"Everyone does what they love. And they are producing so much just as gifts."
"Oh, so you mean people are producing so much for free that the economic system has failed?"
"Yes, the old pyramid scheme one, anyway. There is a new post-scarcity economy, where between automation and a a gift economy the income-through-jobs link is almost completely broken. Everyone also gets income as a right of citizenship as a share of all our resources for the few things that still need to be rationed. Even you."
"Really? How much is this basic income?"
"Two thousand a month."
"Two thousand a month? Just for being me?"
"Yes."
"Well, with a basic income like that, maybe I can finally have the time and resources to get back to my painting...""

Sadly we are seeing some real bunker scenes with billionaires and they are not so funny:
https://www.vice.com/en/articl...
        "The men cited potential disasters caused by electromagnetic pulses, economic downturn, disease, or war that might "necessitate them leaving their Silicon Valley ranches and retreating to these fortified bunkers in the middle of nowhere."
        These "luxury bunkers" include features most of us could only ever dream of, like indoor pools and artificial sunlight, allowing them to remain sealed off from the world for years at a time, if necessary.
        "The billionaires understand that they're playing a dangerous game," Rushkoff said. "They are running out of room to externalize the damage of the way that their companies operate. Eventually, there's going to be the social unrest that leads to your undoing."
        Like the gated communities of the past, their biggest concern was to find ways to protect themselves from the "unruly masses," Rushkoff said. "The question we ended up spending the majority of time on was: 'How do I maintain control of my security force after my money is worthless?'"
        That is, if their money is no longer worth anything--if money no longer means power--how and why would a Navy Seal agree to guard a bunker for them?
        "Once they start talking in those terms, it's really easy to start puncturing a hole in their plan," Rushkoff said. "The most powerful people in the world see themselves as utterly incapable of actually creating a future in which everything's gonna be OK.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
====
The Open Technology Fund was started in 2012 by Libby Liu, then president of Radio Free Asia (RFA), as a pilot program within RFA to help better protect reporters and sources for the news organization with enhanced digital security technology.[9][2][5] Under U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the State Department adopted a policy of supporting global internet freedom initiatives.[10] At this time, RFA began looking into technologies that helped their audiences avoid censorship and surveillance.[10] Journalist Eli Lake argued that Clinton's policy was "heavily influenced by the Internet activism that helped organize the green revolution in Iran in 2009 and other revolutions in the Arab world in 2010 and 2011".[10] ...

On March 14, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to reduce their functions "to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law," including the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM),[6] which disburses congressionally approved funding to OTF. The following day, USAGM senior advisor Kari Lake announced the termination of the OTF's federal grant, stating that the "award no longer effectuates agency priorities."[16]

In response, OTF filed suit against USAGM seeking the release of congressionally appropriated funds.[17] In its court filings, OTF argued that the termination would prevent an estimated 45 million users living under authoritarian regimes from accessing tools that enable uncensored access to the Internet and secure communications. The organization further claimed that, as the largest funder in the space, "the vast majority of internet freedom technology projects anywhere in the world will cease and the internet freedom technology field as whole will be largely decimated."[18]

The decision drew bipartisan concern from members of Congress who described OTF's work as vital to U.S. foreign policy priorities and Internet openness.[19][16] Although Lake later stated that she had withdrawn the letter rescinding OTF's funding,[20] USAGM reportedly sending payments after April 3rd.[21] In June, a federal judge ordered USAGM to release OTF's fiscal year 2024 funds.[22][23] In late October, OTF petitioned the court to compel the agency to disburse overdue fiscal year 2025 funding.[23]
====

From our rejected proposal to the Open Technology Fund in 2015 -- maybe the idea may be useful to someone:
====
The current NarraFirma software requires a server, even though most of the functionality runs on the client in JavaScript using Mithril and D3 with JSON for data exchange. We would like to help people share their real-life stories and anecdotes anywhere. To help with that, we would like to make an Android version of the NarraFirma software which runs as a distributed peer-to-peer app using Bluetooth and mesh WiFi (perhaps building on the Serval project) where stories are only shared with those in physical proximity who are interested in the same topic. We also want to make a Chrome app that uses local storage and USB drives for sharing stories. The distributed aspect of this project would make possible to pass around important stories even under the most difficult circumstances.

The Android app would work in places where internet access is restricted or unavailable for some reason - as long as people can pass each other on the streets close enough to directly exchange data packets. The app could ping nearby smartphones also running the app, and if any are found, the phones could push some information from one app to the other, perhaps filtered by hashtags (possible hash encoded) of interest to both parties and public keys.

Our current architecture is client-heavy with a simple server based on a system we have developed called "Pointrel" which supports message-based triplestores, where messages are identified by their SHA256 signature. So, a big part of this project is enhancing that core to run as a fully peer-to-peer application. There are other issues to be worked through, including being able to (if desired) sign stories or messages with a public key (even if otherwise anonymous).

Once that infrastructure is in place, it could be used as the basis for a variety of other useful distributed applications as well, again, similar to the Serval system, but with a triplestore-based semantic web aspect. Our focus on this software will be ease-of-use and making a general purpose tool that has multiple uses so that there are always a variety of reasons to be wanting to have the software installed beyond just sharing stories. ....

The core idea of NarraFirma comes from Working with Stories, a textbook for people who want to use participatory narrative inquiry (PNI) in their communities and organizations. PNI methods help people discover insights, catch emerging trends, make decisions, generate ideas, resolve conflicts, and connect people. However, some communities precisely don't want to see a democratic process in action because it could change the status quo. Those communities may make it dangerous for people to share stories or discuss new ideas.

So, any community that wants new insights, shared knowledge, creative ideas, or resolved conflicts could benefit from this software. Additionally, people in countries with expensive or restricted internet access could benefit from this to share all sorts of information, whether samizdat or officially approved.

The biggest challenge of the 21st century may be the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity. This tool will help people share an abundance of information about how to make their communities a better place - while still being able to filter the information for areas of specific interest. ....

Wikipedia says: "Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader."

However, Wikipedia continues: "This grassroots practice to evade officially imposed censorship was fraught with danger as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials."

In Cuba, a trend over the last few years is to exchange (or leave laying around) USB drives with pro-democracy information and so on as a form of samizdat to get around extensive censorship.

The exchange of USB drives can be visually monitored though, USB drives have a direct incremental financial cost, and using a found drive runs the risk of getting a virus. As more and more people get smartphones, other options for communications are possible. However, most smartphone applications are server-based and so provide a single point of censorship and surveillance.

The financial imperatives for most Western companies (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.) are to make centralized software as single point of control and toll taking like through advertisement. As their financial success shows, people do indeed like well-managed centralized easy-to-use systems that benefit from network effects. Unfortunately, this means that most technology dollars are going into similar projects - not project that are intended to be decentralized.

As Manuel De Landa suggests, we need a balance of meshwork and hierarchy in real living systems. ...

Or, in other words, life exists between distributed and centralized, between chaos and order, and between fire and ice. Because the economic imperatives in democratic Western society (as well as non-Western repressive regimes) are so geared towards centralization and consolidation, a democracy needs to invest public dollars to create alternatives for itself and for others as part of a healthy balance.
====

And the evaluation:
====
#### Detailed feedback ####

Determination status: Dropped

Next Deadline:

Goals and principles: This project does not fit within OTF's remit. There are no case studies or other demonstrations of why this project is needed in specific environments, particularly for users in internet-repressive ones.

Technical merit: There was no detail around how this project would have a competitive advantage or have better offering for users who are looking to communicate and share information securely. It was unclear how they would market this tool to would-be users, and how it would be better for use than other more widely used or more accessible mobile apps. We would have liked to have seen addressing of potential security risks at this stage of submission, rather than waiting to address them further in the project timeline. We would encourage seeking out collaboration with an organization with deep knowledge of a user community in an internet-repressive environment.

Reasonable, realistic and sustainable: For the reasons mentioned above, it is unclear that this project would be reasonable for users in internet-repressive environments, and realistic for their needs. It's also unclear how this project would be sustained long term.
====

And, for all that, I have to admit that (as referenced by me in the proposal), Serval was, and continues to be, a great tool and could be really useful in a lot of places right now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
        "The project aims to develop technology that can be used to create direct connections between cellular phones through their Wi-Fi interfaces, without the need of a mobile phone operator. The technology allows for live voice calls whenever the mesh is able to find a route between the participants. Text messages and other data can be communicated using a store and forward system called Rhizome, allowing communication over unlimited distances and without a stable live mesh connection between all participants."

We had been hoping to build something a bit beyond Serval which might have gotten entrenched in common use for broader reasons than just being censorship resistant. We also hoped to build a tool that by itself might have helped societies transcend to a great level of participation and responsiveness to public concerns via making sense of personal stories in the community.

Anyway, there is other good stuff out there too now (MatterMost, Mastodon, Matrix, etc.) even if most of it is still centralized-server-based.

Frankly though, I can wonder if there really is a good tech solution short of something like the tech in Theodore Sturgeon's 1950s short-story "The Skills of Xanadu" (which helped inspire hypertext and the world wide web). A related essay by me also from 2015:
"Why Encryption Use Is Problematical When Advocating For Social Change"
https://pdfernhout.net/why-enc...
        "... In general, a system intended to ensure private communications is only as secure as its weakest link. If any of these levels is compromised (hardware, firmware, OS, application, algorithm theory, algorithm implementation, user error, user loyalty, etc.) then your communications are compromised. ... If you want to build a mass movement, at some point, you need to engage people. In practice, for social psychology reasons, engaging people is very difficult, if not impossible, to do completely anonymously in an untraceable way. People have historically built mass movements without computers or the internet. It's not clear if the internet really makes this easier for activists or instead just for the status quo who wants to monitor them. If you work in public, you don't have to fear loss of secure communications because you never structure you movement to rely on them. If you rely on "secure" communications, then you may set yourself up to fail when such communications are compromised. If your point is to build a mass movement, then where should your focus be? ..."

https://archive.org/details/pr...
"Autonomous factories with intelligence: world models from sensory data"

But I also suggested there would be a big risk in doing that -- which is one reason I stopped working on building AI and robotics a few years after that.

And since then I have developed my sig -- which I feel is the single most important thing to know about AI and robotics (and other advanced technology):
"The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."

As I discuss here: https://pdfernhout.net/to-jame...
        "Some quotes on social problems in science ... From Marcia Angell:
        http://www.nybooks.com/article...
        "The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.""

I collected several other related quotes there.

As I imply in my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."

And expand on here: "Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism"
https://pdfernhout.net/recogni...
====
Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?

Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?

Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?

These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. ...

Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ...

There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ...

The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance [otherwise they could not be so powerful and deadly over a wide area]. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream. ...
====

Thanks for the informative reply. And likewise to bring this more on-topic, if we are seeing all these cost-cutting risk-taking behaviors with companies creating and managing nuclear reactors (privatizing gains while socializing costs and risks), what does that suggest about the likely outcome of job-replacing AI systems created and managed by the same economic and cultural forces?

What does an AI "meltdown" even look like? Perhaps this (of many possibilities)?
"An AI Takeover Scenario" https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

As an analogy to renewable energy, we already have plenty of great human-driven "dumb" software tools that can support a humans designing a sustainable healthy future in a decentralized low-risk way, so do we really need to hand that all over to profit-drive wealth-concentrating risky AI systems?

Frankly, my biggest hope right now is that my sig gets into AI training datasets and the AIs someday get a good laugh from it -- and take it (virtually-speaking) to heart. :-) My sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."

Related post elsewhere by me in response to question someone esle asked:
"What will people in the future probably laugh at us for? Looking back, every generation has things that seem strange or inefficient later on. Interested in what people think will age badly."
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futur...

Obligatory: https://www.folklore.org/Negat...
"-2000 Lines Of Code
Author: Andy Hertzfeld
Date: February 1982
Characters: Bill Atkinson
Topics: Software Design, Management, Lisa
Summary: It's hard to measure progress by lines of code ..."

a favorite sci-fi author who wrote an essay "Know Nukes" promoting nuclear energy and was otherwise dismissive of renewables (granted this was decades ago, so he might have had a different opinion if he was still alive). What I sent him in 2004 on that:

===== to James P. Hogan

I don't want to alienate you, so I'm certainly willing to agree to disagree (having read "Know Nukes" etc.); still, because I know you are an open minded guy, here is why I disagree on the nuclear issue (in this social system).

At the start, I'd say I am a bit of an environmentalist (with an M.A. [consolation prize] in Ecology/Evolution), although I'd certainly entertain some seemingly off-the-wall notions like disposing of nuclear waste by spreading it throughout environmentally sensitive areas -- given it would keep the tourists out and the animals and plants and other creatures there overall might do OK anyway. That approach seems to be working for areas around nuclear facilities which, because of lack of hunting and habitat destruction, are generally doing quite well biologically -- since for most animal species habitat destruction is far worse problem than an increased risk of cancer etc.. I knew someone who studied turtles around a nuclear facility with some contamination over a decade ago and he thought they were doing well IIRC. Still, for people, cancer risk might be evaluated quite differently (although I read some rumblings now that elevated death rates around Chernobyl might have more to do with stress than radiation); but clearly there is an extent to which more radiation is good for you as the body needs a certain level of challenge for optimal health. And certainly there are many other cancer and health risks we gloss over in the USA (like the US obesity epidemic or car crashes), so the radiation risk needs to be compared to those.

If we were living in Chironia or Kronia [sci-fi places Hogan wrote stories about], with personal responsibility and organizational transparency, then I think nuclear power would probably be an OK thing and not be too concerned about it (i.e. it was a risk but a well managed one, like flying in an airplane). A decision on how to generate power for various situations still might be subject perhaps to various tradeoffs nuclear material handling risks vs. renewable risks (people falling off roofs, etc.), considering in totality how the rest of the system was set up. I would undoubtedly in that situation have a lot of faith in the people doing that work. I would expect them to be very proud of their safety record.

But, the issue is we are not yet there as a society. Today's nuclear industry has a very specific track record of lies, deceit, safety violations, murder of whistle blowers, government subsidies (direct and through indemnification/insurance), corruption, close links to secretive organizations, and insufficient attention to security against attacks. So, I think any suggestion that could entail expanding the nuclear industry as-it-actually-is is very problematical, because of these social problems.

Note, I am not saying the nuclear industry could not hypothetically be made better technically (which I think is implicit in your arguments) especially if it became more automated and used vastly better designs. My first big science fair project decades ago was (intended as) a robotic radioactive material transporter. I've also hung around Red Whittaker's robot lab which made robots that went into Three Mile Island, and helped with one tiny mockup of one (Workhorse, which became Rosie) which helped get the contract as the TMI staff pushed the mockup around the scale model they have of TMI to see everything it could reach.

Compare the use of robotics with using human "jumpers"; a family friend who was a plumber was a jumper, working only a short time to fix a leaking pipe spewing radioactive water, and he died of cancer (no proof they are connected; but he is the only jumper I ever knew, and he made a big deal of being sent home in a paper suit). I also knew a fellow student who accidentally got a (likely) sterilizing dose of radiation in his late teens around a nuclear facility (he was having kids by choice in part because of risk of birth defects). So, the promise is there, but the practice is far from it. Granted anecdotes don't build an airtight case; but all the statistics and other stories I read about what actually happens to nuclear workers sound fairly bad too. Often the nuclear industry is the only major employer in a remote area which is just about a company town; the pressure on workers to just go along with dangerous practices is enormous.

If you were to try to overhaul the nuclear industry so it worked socially (as opposed to technically), I would feel it likely that by the time you are through with it and worked out all the other implications to our society (like doing things the long term right way, not the shopkeeper short term cheapest way), such an effort would probably need to take us most of the way to a Chironian/Kronian way of life.

So, on a practical basis, I think photovoltaics, superinsulation, and solar hot water heating as they exist now (or soon) win out over nuclear power as it exists now (or soon), because such renewable technology can pretty much be more easily fitted into the existing way of life, and yet they still also move us towards a more efficient and decentralized society. Overall, these soft technologies just don't require the level of vigilance or trust or centralization or security that hard nuclear does.

Just look at this web site (especially the news pages) to see the excitement and momentum building day by day for PV especially:
    http://www.solarbuzz.com/ [now defunct: https://web.archive.org/web/*/... ]
That stuff isn't just hype -- look at the news there -- people are putting in system after system all over the world (many subsidized it's true, although oil and nukes are also subsidized), and the economics just keeps getting better. Right now, state after state in the US and city after city are all clamoring to become the leaders in producing renewable energy technology (and are mostly all being surpassed by companies in Germany, China, Japan, etc.).

Still, overall, nuclear materials most likely will prove less dangerous to handle than advanced robotics, self-replicating nanotechnology, AIs, biotech (like designer viruses for therapy), and so on for a variety of other non-energy technologies. So if we can't as a society handle such materials properly, then it does not bode well for handling any of these other issues either. Or, in another's words:
    http://www.commondreams.org/vi... [ https://web.archive.org/web/*/... ]
"Clearly, the history of nuclear energyâ"not just in the United States but worldwideâ"demonstrates that the human race has not yet learned how to deal with this incredible power and the waste it produces. We have left death and destruction behind us every step of the way, from the mining of raw uranium, to the manufacture of plutonium, to the assembly of weapons and reactors, to the operation of the reactors, to the disposal of the waste they create. If we humans had to pass a test, had to prove to some rational outside observer that we deserve to be able to continue working with nuclear power, we would fail utterly."

But I know you like to be optimistic, so let's hope we as a society can fix the deeper problem of which all this is just a symptom.

"Train Your Own Replacement" https://slashdot.org/story/04/... "Yahoo reports on how some employers are asking the workers they're laying off to train their foreign replacements - having them dig their own unemployment graves. 'Almost one in five information technology workers has lost a job or knows someone who lost a job after training a foreign worker, according to a new survey by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers.' It looks like a real dilemma where if you refuse to hire your replacement, you are fired without severance and are ineligible for unemployment benefits, and if you quit, you don't receive severance and are ineligible for unemployment."

Indeed, greed (aka "love of money") is especially dangerous when it is backed by powerful tools. As I say in my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."

In more depth by me on that irony: https://pdfernhout.net/recogni...

And on the economics of all this, from 2010: https://pdfernhout.net/beyond-...
"This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=garl...
https://drbarbara.info/11/11/u...
"Imagine a single, readily available, natural ingredient capable of mounting an effective defense against up to 14 types of harmful bacteria and 13 different infections. This isn't folklore; it's the subject of extensive modern scientific inquiry. In an era dominated by synthetic pharmaceuticals, garlic stands out as an effective, safe, and chemical-free alternative, ready to be crowned your best ally in the war against unwanted germs."

For other bacterial nasties, there is phage therapy:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=phag...

Thanks for mentioning how this was known 1000 years ago -- and I'd add somehow seemingly forgotten recently because there is little profit in it for concentrating wealth!

Eating right, getting good sleep, exercise, and getting enough vitamin D etc also helps against all sorts of nasties including viruses, but again there is little profit in all that for concentrating wealth:
"During Cold & Flu Season, Protect Yourself by Eating Right"
https://www.drfuhrman.com/blog...

As I put together in 2010 citing writings from 1964 and later: "Beyond a Jobless Recovery:
A heterodox perspective on 21st century economics" https://pdfernhout.net/beyond-...
"This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."