File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2000/anarchy-list.0011, message 80


From: "David James" <shddemon-AT-concentric.net>
Subject: Fw: [PoliTech] Why Bill Joy is elitist, myopic, and wrong
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 09:43:17 -0800


Here's another point of view on the whole nanotech debacle..


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry Klaes" <lklaes-AT-bbn.com>
To: <bioastro-AT-setileague.org>
Cc: "H. Alan Montgomery" <fhd-AT-tca.net>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 5:02 AM
Subject: SETI bioastro: Why Bill Joy is elitist, myopic, and wrong


> To: politech-AT-politechbot.com
> From: <eugene.leitl-AT-lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
> Mailing-List: list transhumantech-AT-egroups.com; contact
> transhumantech-owner-AT-egroups.com
> Delivered-To: mailing list transhumantech-AT-egroups.com
> Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 17:44:47 -0500
> Reply-To: transhumantech-AT-egroups.com
> Subject: [>Htech] FC: Why Bill Joy is elitist, myopic, and wrong
> 
> 
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan-AT-well.com>
> 
> http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/30/2058257&mode=nested
> 
>     Why Bill Joy is Elitist, Myopic, and Wrong
> 
>     By Lizard
>     October 30, 2000
> 
>     The smallpox vaccine will cause people to turn into cows. Trains
>     cannot be permitted to travel more than 20 miles per hour, or else
>     the passengers will asphyxiate. The atomic bomb will detonate the
>     entire atmosphere of Earth. The history of science is filled with
>     dire predictions of the consequences of technology, few of which
>     ever come true. (Granted, many of the more lofty hopes for
>     technology likewise fail to appear. Where's my personal helicopter
>     and laser gun, dammit?) But fear sells papers, which explains why
>     Bill Joy is given far more column-inches than he deserves. (Joy,
>     the cofounder of Sun Microsystems, spoke at a Camden
>     Technology conference over the weekend.)
> 
>     The most distressing thing about his Luddite stand is the
>     undercurrent of elitism which flows by without criticism. The
>     common man must not be permitted access to the glorious fruits of
>     science, he says, because out there among the teeming masses
>     might be murderers and madmen. Well, we'd probably better make
>     sure they don't get their hands on fire and the wheel, too -- who
>     knows what might happen?
> 
>     Joy is wrong on a wide range of levels, but his most egregious
>     error is that he has precisely the wrong solution to the alleged
>     problem. If he fears the misuse of biotech or nanotech, the last
>     thing that should be done is to turn these technologies into state
>     secrets, because that puts the knowledge right into the hands of
>     those with a history of using it for evil, namely, politicians.
> 
>     If something can be done, it will be done, and all that suppressing
>     information will achieve is ensuring there is not ready access to
>     counter-measures to whatever devious plots Joy's hypothetical
>     supercriminals may devise. "Open sourcing" technology will all but
>     guarantee that for every uber-anthrax, there's an uber-vaccine; for
>     every bit of world-devouring grey-goo, there's something that will
>     eat it even faster. Locking technology away is no solution. If the
>     public knowledge base of the world has reached the point where
>     one scientist can make the next breakthrough, then there are
>     dozens of other scientists who can do likewise.
> 
>     And, of course, who will watch the watchers? We've already seen
>     that secrets aren't: There are more leaks in the U.S. national
>     security apparatus than in a Russian space station. Better to
>     simply open it up and be done with it.
> 
>     There is nothing dehumanizing about the probable merger of flesh
>     and silicon. It simply continues the path man began when the first
>     barely-erect hairy ape realized a fist holding a rock got you more
>     than a fist alone. From that moment on, we became defined by our
>     tools. There is no point and no purpose in trying to stop now.
> 
>     Joy is fond of saying "the future doesn't need us." He is almost
>     completely wrong. The future needs most of us. It's just that the
>     future -- and the present -- doesn't need him.
> 
> To post your response or contact the author, visit:
> 
>    http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/30/2058257&mode=nested
> 
> 
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