FC: Why Bill Joy is elitist, myopic, and wrong

[Declan McCullagh <declan () 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.

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