1981 congressandlaw.blogspot.com Many writers, including computer scientist Bill Joy, have identified clusters of technologies that they consider critical to humanity’s future. Joy warns that the technology could be used by elites for excellent or evil. They could use it as “excellent shepherds” for the rest of humanity, or choose everyone else is superfluous and push for mass extinction those made unnecessary by technology. Advocates of the benefits of technological change typically see emerging and converging technologies as offering hope for the betterment of the human condition. But, critics of the risks of technological change, and even some advocates such as transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom, warn that some of these technologies could pose dangers, perhaps even contribute to the extinction of humanity itself; ie, some of them could involve existential risks. Much ethical debate centers on issues of distributive justice in allocating access to beneficial forms of technology. Some thinkers, such as environmental ethicist Bill mckibben, oppose the continuing development of advanced technology partly out of dread that its benefits will be distributed unequally in ways that could worsen the plight of the poor. By contrast, inventor Ray Kurzweil is among techno-utopians who believe that emerging and converging technologies could and will eliminate poverty and abolish suffering.