Re: Are we doomed yet?

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Apr 09 2003 - 00:23:50 MDT

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    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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