Should technology be disseminated as quickly and extensively as possible?
Censoring the pursuit of knowledge has never really worked. It is very difficult to decide (and agree on) who should be allowed access to the information. Would it be better to accelerate the development of technology and move it to more people and educate them about its use?*
If we try to hold back knowledge and the use of technology, surely the information will flow onto the black market and be used by the very people we don’t want to use it. It would be impossible to hold it back. So wouldn’t it be better to educate people about it as widely as possible in order to make us more capable of putting it to use for the benefit of humanity?
This means we’d all become biogeneticists, making new creatures in our garages. Is there any way to stop it? If not, how do we counter the bad guys?
* Question based on this article: “A Life of Its Own,” Michael Specter, The New Yorker, September 28, 2009.
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link to referenced article
@Harp How did you do that? I thought you had to be a subscriber to see it this week?
When I think of technology, I think of the Tower of Babel.
Eventually it will come tumbling down. Mans arrogance, thinking that being master of the universe is possible. Humanity will scatter, and the process will start all over again.
We can counter the “bad guys” the same way we do with everything else: make laws about it.
I don’t see biotechnology ever becoming cheap or easy enough for the average person to do it for funsies in her back yard. But that makes me think I should read your article to see why anyone would think that’s possible…
@nikipedia Laws don’t work. They just push the research underground. It’s just like the spread of meth lab operations, or the effect of prohibition. Meth labs are spreading and growing more and more sophisticated despite the restrictions on sales of sudafed. Knowledge wants to be free. We can’t stop it by enacting laws. If not in this country, then in another.
* Question based on this article: “A Life of Its Own,” Michael Specter, The New Yorker, September 28, 2009.
The New Yorker, September 28, 2009.
September 28, 2009
28
DALOON IS FROM THE FUTURE!
I think a lot of tech should be shared with the general public. I don’t know if I think we should all be able to create creatures in our garage.
Your question reminded me of the movie Strange Days.
I believe in free and extensive dissemination of knowledge. The “bad guys” are always able to find out what they want to know, anyway. It is far more likely that someone in their home laboratory would be able to find a cure for cancer or the common cold, if they were allowed free access to the resources they need.
@daloon: If laws don’t work, why do we have them? I don’t know enough about the drug war to say whether legalizing meth production would increase or decrease it, but I will say that I think comparing garage meth to garage biotech is apples and oranges. Meth hijacks the part of your brain that says “YES MORE NOW” and doesn’t let go. That and the financial rewards of selling drugs are almost insurmountably strong incentives. I really don’t think garage biotech would have the same issue.
Another important point you’re glossing over is that technology and knowledge are not synonymous. Atomic bombs are technology; nuclear fission is knowledge. Regulating technology is not the same as restricting knowledge.
The only thing I disagree with is “quickly as possible”. I don’t see the need for rush, overall. I’m certainly against the Bush-style “slow as possible” approach, too. That’s even more harmful of course.
Most of it, yes, but there are exceptions. A good example would be technology to develop biological weapons.
“A good example would be technology to develop biological weapons.”
We already have that. It is called McDonalds.
@nikipedia Many laws don’t work. Many are unenforceable. We have them because they were a good idea at the time (forbidding sodomy), or because they give us the capability to do something if we really have to (ticket for lack of seatbelt when stopped for a moving violation), or as a kind of advisory thing (no texting while driving).
Did you read the article that @Harp posted a link to? Garage geneticists may not be that far in our future.
As to your point about technology and knowledge, I do think that is a good distinction. However, making an atomic bomb takes a lot of resources and access to rare materials. Constructing new life forms can already be done with equipment available on eBay. It’s not technology that’s holding back amateur genetic manipulation. It’s knowledge. Once the knowledge becomes available, anyone who wants to will not have a problem finding the resources necessary to do it.
@ChazMaz – Yes, billions and billions served. Millions and millions preserved. Morbidity rate that is. Fast food is probably the most cunning biological weapon, especially when deployed as low-yield target penetrator warheads every day, year after year.
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