From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Apr 09 2003 - 00:23:50 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> Sheldon Pacotti has written an interesting article for Salon
> on a whole slew of topics, self-replicating nanotech,
> bioterrorism, transparent societies, government control, etc.
>
> "Are we doomed yet?"
> http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/31/knowledge/print.html
>
> Its a bit long but contains many valid points. I think he gets
> most of it right.
>
There are some very important things I believe he gets wrong
although mostly I think he is right also. I think that we are
largely conditioned to get many of these things wrong. Here are
a few of my thoughts on what we get wrong and what I think might
be more "right" at the moment.
The revolution of knowledge, of computation being the only real
power and being that which brings or can bring all else into
being, directly questions old values and assumptions based upon
material things in limited quantities and labor being the source
of economic power and other real world power and well-being.
The old way of thinking gave us capitalism, with some caveats at
least, as the best workable solution for satisfying the needs
and desires of human beings from a finite supply. But now,
within the limits of matter and energy itself, that supply is
effectively infinite.
The knowledge, once produced, of how to produce what we need and
desire from raw matter and energy, also cannot be depleted by
being used. As a matter of fact knowledge grows in scope and
refinement the more it is shared and combined with other
knowledge.
A great change becomes possible in our economic institutions.
The limit of our ability to create and enjoy whatever we wish is
not the limit of our salary. Salary becomes superfluous because
there is no need to put fences up in such an open and boundless
commons. There is no need to say that you can only produce X if
you pay me because I originally figured out the pattern for the
nanobots to make an X. So what? What need have I for salary or
for charging you and thus requiring you to have a salary when we
both can produce whatever we want using the technology once it
exist upon the common knowledge base of humankind? Why on earth
(or off it) would we play silly joy/salary games in such a
world? It seems to me we can think up a lot more interesting
and fun games to play. Having thought of those better games, is
there any need for policing me to insure I don't use what you
figured out without paying you?
Individuals all over the planet can have the capacity to
practice boundless creativity. They can have everything
practically that they wish for. In such a world where is the
allure of "mischief" and of the hatreds of today? Where is
there a sense of being threatened or especially of being
unfairly deprived? Where is there a sense of desperation? What
would be left as motive for wrecking paradise?
I don't believe our greatest danger is each other. I think our
greatest danger is not having sufficient imagination and ability
to embrace the new to profit from rather than to abuse our
scientific/technological advances.
Complete surveillance only works in societies that also have a
very liberal (in the initial sense) understand of the rights and
liberty of sentients. In a society that has any ability or
tendency for the majority to force its opinions on the minority,
full surveillance is a horror far worse than any form of terrorism.
Why on earth would we believe that "we as a society" possess the
wisdom to control and police the development of all technology?
Doesn't this leave the door open for the majority to forbid
stem-cell research today or all strong AI tomorrow and most
nanotech the day after that? The majority of human beings are
incapable of remotely understanding the technology and keeping
up with its development much less regulating it wisely. Even
the most elite minority cannot fully produce wise regulations or
keep up. As we ramp up toward Singularity this becomes ever
more true. So full surveillance backing quite limited human
abilities to monitor and regulate is very likely to strangle our
future and our possibilities wholesale.
That speech becomes functional does not mean that speech must be
regulated. It means that speakers must be held to account for
consequences and only that. It is perfectly obvious that a
tightly regulated society becomes stagnate to the limits of the
competency and capacity of its decision making mechanism. If
that mechanism is political/bureaucratic it is very limited
indeed and leads to great stagnation and oppression. To use
full technological power to enforce utterly inadequate decision
making is the height of absurdity.
The greatest unexamined assumption in this piece is the "need
for government" per se. Actually the greater unexamined
assumption is that we will be much as we are now but only with
better toys and larger threats. I feel no "sense of doom and
need for autocratic rule" from the ever growing technological
capabilities. I feel great unbounded hope, and limitless
possibility. Why are so many people today concentrated on the
negative? That is admittedly a mystery to me.
Another archaic aspect of the article is the producer-consumer
distinction. As information increasingly becomes king and tools
to work with that information become available to all (which
after all is assume to power the threat scenarios), all persons
who wish become producers as well as consumers. Both terms
increasingly disappear and society is a society of peers. The
possibilities inherent in technology are already too strangled
by attempting to shore up notions that the few produce and reap
most of the profit and that the many are their consumers only.
The producers jealous guard the tools to allow the consumers to
create their own solutions and share them. It is another kind
of needless fencing on the unbounded commons.
- samantha
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