Anders Sandberg wrote:
Yes, and it is not just an issue of naming. But the tools useful to
track down one group are useful to track down the other. So when
applauding a technology good for catching the terrorists we should
remember that it can (and likely will) be used by repressive regimes to
catch dissidents too.
#### I would argue that technologies improving human ability to gain
information should be, on average, more extropic than entropic, compared to
methods of obfuscation and concealment.
It's true that such truth-revealing technologies can give more power to the
evil ones but they are even more important for individuals and groups who
abide by moral rules. The key to being a successfull criminal is the
concealment of your true nature. The key to being a successfull tyrant is
depriving your subjects of access to information.
The technology giving a tyrant full access to everyone's thoughts might make
that tyrant less vulnerable to internal threats. He could use his forces
efficiently to target his most powerful opponents. Yet, being a tyrant, and
therefore by definition acting against the wishes of his subjects, he would
be building an internallly weak society, based on intimidation and
deception.
A society which respects life, truth, and freedom should be inherently more
efficient than a tyranny (at least as long as the members of that society
are interested in their own survival) and full knowledge would boost the
efficiency (in science, business, weapons production). This society should
be able to win any confrontation with a tyranny. The end result might
hopefully be the elimination of morally imperfect societies.
Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD
smigrodzkir@msx.upmc.edu
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