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Deus Ex Writer Discusses 'Dangerous Technology'
Dan Weaver writes "One of the writers for the exceptionally good action RPG Deus Ex has authored a rather thought-provoking Salon article on the Bill-Joy theme of dangers posed by emergent technologies and the difficulties that police states (both pleasant and not-so-pleasant) encounter in dealing with them. In the light of revelations about China's tardiness and confusion in addressing the SARS epidemic, this article is particularly timely."
What's a pleasant police state?
Here's a question that I'm mulling over as a result of reading the synopsis of this article. With all the literary and cinematic works that have been made which deal with a Big Brother-like state [for lack of a shorter term], why is it that the governments of the world are still able to move in the directions outlined in those works? It seems like no matter how embedded in our culture the idea that certain traits of governments are bad and that we must rally against them, these traits continue to crop up. Consider this, has the U.S. become more or less like the vision of 1984 since publication?
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Take this article with a grain of salt.
We are talking about a good science fictional game writer (that helped write a game about conspiracy theories, and a terrible future), writing about conspiracy theories and a terrible future.
I'm sure he has insight, but he also has an active imagination (not necessarily a bad thing, but, like I said, take it with a grain of salt).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
and I find it pretty pleasant.
at least we're not getting shelled, anyway.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
There is not any such thing as technology that is inherently Dangerous.
Guns --designed to "kill"... When used correctly allow an 80 year old woman to be safe in her home(if used properly; which for an 80 year old woman means shooting first fast and accurately)
Cloning-- can be abused to build "organ farms" and can also allow(someday) those who cannot have children "normally" and have the legitimate "selfish" desire to have a child of their own genetic makeup to do just that.
Surveilance Technology-- goes hand in hand with communication technology... allowing those being watched to organize to fight the abuses of that same tech.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Mankind has been producing dangerous technology since we first learned to bang sticks and stones together. Responsible usage and control have worked for us so far.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
SARS is the Chernobyl of the Chinese government. Chernobyl taught the Russian people, and the world, the unprecedented dangers of a closed society in a highly technological era. Another aspect of the modern era is globalization and international mobility. Again, we see that a closed society is no longer tenable. SARS' underreporting and denials by the Chinese authorities, like Chernobyl, will bring severe, lasting political consequences for the regime, and may be an impetus that finally takes toward replacing the totalitarian political system.
the term for "1984" style books is Negative Utopia. And besides, i think 1984 wasn't really all that good of a negative utopia...it focused more on brutal police states that were becoming big at the time, but have little relevence to non-3rd world countries this day in age. Brave New World, OTOH, might be a better indication of were we are heading.
click me
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
THey reduce rights a bit at a time, in a kneejerk response to something, and you never get them back, because anyone who tries to roll it back gets accused of being immoral, or encouraging crime.
The stupidity comes in because even when you point it out, people say that it dosent affect me, or have been brainwashed enough so that they prefer the new way, same as how people follow religion, even though you can point out where its wrong..
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
As usual, there is a group calling the US a police state. First of all, we do not put soldiers in our civilian population, we put them other people's civilian population. Perhaps if other countries would simply rise up and kill their own butcherous leaders, we wouldnt have to. We already did ours, in 1776, and now they are our friends.
But on the issue of police states, to compare to France or Germany, which are quite liberal and free states:
In America, you can still be a Nazi. its tolorated here in the name of free speech. Not so in France and Germany. Cant sell Nazi stuff either. America, we tolorate the worse scum in the name of free speech. We would rather KNOW who they are anyway.
In America, there must 'probable cause' not just 'reasonable suspician' like most of Europe, before a search warrant can be execused. I know this will cause arguements from the uninformed. dont bother replying, just set me as foe.
In the US, it is ILLEGAL to put the military on the boarders, or to act as police except in emergencies (airports after 9-11 for instance). Not so in most other places.
So like the US or not, to call it a police state is as stupid as the Information Minister in Baghdad swearing that there are no troops downtown. Its what you WANT to be true, but its FUD.
Ok, im done, i just get tired of self loathing Americans and other jealous types. Personally, Im pretty damn proud to be an American.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
The Machine gun is a great example.
Many people may not be aware, but the Machine Gun has Saved more soldiers lives than it has taken. In fact many people believe that the Machine Gun has saved more soldier lives than penicillian.
Before the Machine Gun, 10 men could guard no more than 20 or so unarmed prisoners. Otherwise they rush you, take your weapon etc.
Yes, it allowed prisons and concentration camps to grow, but before it, GENERALS COULD NOT ACCEPT THE SURRENDER OF THE ENEMEY EXCEPT AT THE END OF THE WAR
You could not accept the surrender of one battalion, because you could not spare the men to guard them while your other forces went off to fight the next set of soldiers.
So if people surrendered and it was not the last enemey combatants, you killed them. So no one surrended.
The inventor of the Machine Gun did NOT realize he was allowing people to surrender, he thought he creating a horrendous killing machine.
similarly, the new technolgies we are creating WILL surprise us, and will create NEW social structures that we did not have before.
Society will evolve in a strange new manner, not the simple ideas propagated by these Science Fiction Authors mentioned by the writer.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
If we're going to have any hope of surviving a future in which many citizens have the power to create dangerous virii or in any way cause widespread death and devastation, then we're going to have to do a helluva a lot better job than we are now of creating responsible citizens.
Rather than adopt the authoritarian solution of removing all power from as many people as possible and investing as much power as possible with a single "trusted" individual in the hopes of reducing the risks associated with an empowered citizenry, I'd much rather we at least implement better measures to given and take power from individuals based on their demonstrated level of responsibility. Not all or nothing, but a graded continuum. Some of that exists now: felons aren't supposed to get access to firearms in the U.S., for example.
However, there are far too many exceptions to an ideal:
- responsible people without power,
- irresponsible people with power.
Got a ways to go."Provided by the management for your protection."
As far as I can imagine, the same rationale applies to other areas of science. It's not the lone terrorist that should worry us, it's big organizations (like goverments) that have the means and the people to be at the cutting edge. I mean, really, when you compare in history the damage made by terrorism or small organizations with the damage made by goverments, you can easily detect a pattern.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
epidemics affect defined populations or geographical areas, pandemics affect large areas. This is becoming more of a global issue, so I think pandemic is a more fitting term, though I don't know if it has reached that magnitude. yet.
OK, so let's say you have a computer program and associated hardware that let you drag and drop little blocks to make the most lethal virus you can think of. Viruses that target humans have been evolving for as long as humans have, which is several million years. If it were possible to make a virus that would cause extremely massive casualties, don't you think it would have evolved already?
It is not possible for a virus to kill more than a certain percentage of a population because at some point the population gets so sparse that the virus can no longer spread. When we consider modern methods of quarantine, disinfection, and treatment, I find the possibility of a highly lethal virus even less believable.
The reason why biological weapons are scary is because they can spread a virus much more efficiently than it can spread itself. But making biological weapons requires big machines which, as the author says, are "easily visible by satellite." So I don't think he has much of an arugment.
I live in Toronto which represents the biggest SARS outbreak in the west. Our news talks about practically nothing else (I have no idea if this is the same in other cities), but one thing they're fairly sure of is that it is NOT air borne.
There was an interview on the radio with Patient 3 on Friday. Her mother and father were the people who brought SARS to Toronto from Hong Kong. He parents flew back on the plane infected with SARS. All of the people on the flight have been now been cleared. There is SOME evidence that it can be transmitted aerially through droplets but it does not appear to be air borne.
Additionally, of the 80 or so likely cases and 100 more possible cases only 10 people have died and in 8 cases they were elderly and most of those cases there were other contributing factors. More people in Canada have died in the same period from complications from regular pnuemonia. Not to say that there is nothing to worry about, but the biggest danger of SARS is that it is infecting health care workers which is crippling the health care system. If SARS was a tenth as bad as the media is making it out to be, there would be thousands of cases, not less than 200.
Mind you, I was in China Town this weekend and when someone sneezed on the street people acted like a bomb went off.
Not knowing much latin myself, can someone fill me in as to what 'Deus Ex' means?
The answer, as always, is quickly derived from a google search:
In some ancient Greek drama, an apparently insoluble crisis was solved by the intervention of a god, often brought on stage by an elaborate piece of equipment. This "god from the machine" was literally a deus ex machina.
Few modern works feature deities suspended by wires from the ceiling, but the term deus ex machina is still used for cases where an author uses some improbable (and often clumsy) plot device to work his or her way out of a difficult situation. When the cavalry comes charging over the hill or when the impoverished hero is relieved by an unexpected inheritance, it's often called a deus ex machina.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
its unbelievable to me that people would be so quick to give up what has made this country great. What the heroes of WW1 and WW2 fought so bravely for...freedom. Land of the free, home of the brave my butt...this country is full of sniveling cowards who, at the first sign of danger, turn over what thousands have lain down their lives for. If the government ever outlaws knowledge, then i my friends will remain an outlaw, a new type of outlaw... THE GEEK OUTLAW!!! *smiles* I will never relinquish my basic freedoms, not even when looking down the wrong end of a gun. INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!!!!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is MY galaxy...go find your OWN!
Stopping the access to the technology would require such things as destroying the internet and other worldwide mass-communications. Essentially, the technology won't go away. Police states are never 100% effective, which means that as soon as a technology like, say, bioweapons or antimatter ends up in the hands of average people, if someone has a motivation to use it, they will.
The only way to stop this threat is to stop the motivation. Secure people generally do not commit crimes. If you have nothing to fear (poverty, hate crimes, etc) then you will be less likely to do these things. As the ability of individuals to secure weapons of mass destruction increases, we have to start thinking about making our society more content.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
I think one of the big holes in this article is the idea that information == knowledge. That anyone can comprehend (and diagnose and modify extensively) any and all information.
/. folks here, but people in general)? What about Windows? Hell, how many of us use Aspirin or airplanes and have little more than the basic understanding of how they work?
Of course this is not the case. How many people use Linux and know each and every last piece of code (and I'm not talking about
The problem is this: the more advanced a society becomes, the more specialized its population becomes. That means the slight fraction one has knowledge of shrinks as time progresses even though they might know more than people a hundred years ago.
So what has society done? Attempted to make any and all technology novice-usable. So I don't have to know how an ATM or automobile or cd players works to use it.
So let's take the author's example of the Ebola-AIDS virus. Assuming that the above traits hold (that we become more specialized while technology grows more advanced yet usable) then anybody might be able to unleash Ebola-AIDS while only a handful of people would have the slightest idea how to stop it.
Basically it's the Script-Kiddie Syndrome to the Nth degree. All I need is a Genome Rootkit and I can cause havoc. And who cares if I can't hack any and all persons? What if I just need to hit a 3rd world country that hasn't gotten the latest service pack? I could wipe out Zambia or Cambodia. We see this time and time again: the problem and the cure exist side by side. Yet for some reason the former gets out more than the latter. How often are sites hacked on year old exploits?
Of course this is all hypotheticals. But it seems that the failing is something intrinsically human, not political or technological. So neither a police state or open utopia would solve any of this. Besides, the author's example is a wacky level of technology. Who knows. We might all be Wesley Crushers by then.
What is music when you despise all sound?
The trench warfare of WWI came about in large part because of the tremendous defensive power of the machinegun. Maneuver warfare, which might have shortened the war considerably, was impossible because no matter how much you "softened up" the enemy with artillery, machineguns would still be there to mow you down. The conditions in the trenches contributed to the death of at least twice as many soldiers as did enemy bullets.
If you don't consider the Gatling Gun to be a "true machinegun", then the surrender of 12,000 Union troops at Harper's Ferry during the American Civil War seems to invalidate the claim that generals couldn't accept surrender.
If you do consider the Gatling Gun to be a machinegun, then you could just go back a bit further, to 1805, when Napoleon's Grande Armee captured 30,000 Prussian and Russian soldiers at Austerlitz. No machine guns, Gatling Guns, or anything even close at the scene of that surrender, yet somehow it happened.
I could go on and on with examples, but the point is that soldiers did surrender before the advent of the machine gun. The machine gun IS a killing device. It kills more efficiently than any other form of bullet-launcher.
I don't consider machine guns to be evil, because I was often damned happy to have two M60s at my disposal as a platoon leader. But let's not pretend that machineguns have saved more lives than "penicillian".
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Laws enacted, and in the process of being enacted since 9-11, have and are turning America toward police-statehood.
Detention without trial; without access to lawyers. Mass surveillance measures being created. The "Material Witness" laws being subverted...
And America is not alone, The UK is also undergoing it's own particular form of Big Brother transformation.
Just don't kid yourself it's not happening.
Little by little, it is.
One of the defining characteristics of a police state (though I'm no expert on the subject, by any means) to my mind, is the mass surveillance, monitoring, cataloging and tracking of the citizenry, for no real good reason.
The Stazi used this means extensively, and the emergence of it in the US, UK, and elsewhere, seems to indicate (to me at least) that the people in charge, are moist in their underwear at the thought of being able to know who you are, where you are, where you've been, where you're going, who you know, who you've associated with, who you've talked to, what you've read/listened to/viewed, who your relatives are, who you care about, what you care about, etc. (the etc. might be a little redundant at this point.)
I don't care what they need it for, whether to stop terrorists/crime/benefit fraud or whtever, on a personal level, that makes anyone who opposes me in any way, in any kind of dispute, whether because I'm fighting the building of houses on allotments, or the re-development of public land, or some bogus council activity, right up to fighting the government in court, a much greater threat than they have any right to be in a society that is not a police state.
That gives them the power to lean on me in ways that they could not, if they minded their own business, and got on with what they are supposed to be doing: representing my own and other common people's interests.
It gives them immense power over the populace that they are supposed to serve.
It isn't fully formed yet, but the Big brother Beast is growing in the womb; limbs and features, already visible.
Police State?
Maybe not today, but someday, soon, and perhaps for the rest of your life.
On a side note, two things: The US has banned the burning of crosses [in public at least] as constituting racial harassment (the term used was somewhat different, but I forget, just having heard it on the radio.) maybe the Nazi/Jew thing will be dealt with in the same manner, in the future.
And, Pharmboy, you said, "Perhaps if other countries would simply rise up and kill their own butcherous leaders, we wouldnt have to."
I know it's like shooting fish in a barrel, and a pretty easy riposte, but...
...maybe they wouldn't have to rise up, if the US (and other developed, Northern Bloc countries) didn't enable, arm and support their butcherous leaders in the bloody first place!
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
For all the paranoia about stuff like SARS, I don't think Antarctic researchers or some guy who lives in a shack in Montana is going to catch it.
Flesh eating nanobots? You darn well know there's going to be plenty of pockets of people who will microwave to death, any nanobots that get within 50 meters of them. Maybe they're nuts for not trusting the tech, just as they still don't want flouridation in their water. But long after the nanobot plague has ravaged the rest of humanity, they will still be around and they'll grin toothlessly at the thought that some guy said they were doomed. Their precious bodily fluids will remain pure.
And it's not just a luddite thing. Even if the nanobots eat Joe Schmoe's flesh, they won't get Jane Schmoe, because her transhumanist polymer flesh isn't even compatable with the nanobots. Her defense isn't so much out of deliberate design, but just due to having different weaknesses.
A lot of people didn't catch ILOVEYOU because they weren't dumb enough to run a program that treats data as code. But a lot of people didn't catch Code Red, not because their web server was somehow immune to buffer overflows, but because their web server was just different.
Ebola schmebola. How are people going to catch Ebola from their cow-orkers if they never even meet except over a video-phone? How is my phone going to catch your phone virus if it exploits a mere implementation detail? You think we'll all have the same stuff or be in the same places or do the same things? "One world, one web, one program?" That'll be the day! We don't all want the same things! You might get a lot of us but you'll never get us all.
Diversify, spread out, and compartmentalize. Take that to the extreme, and you can even survive Death Stars.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What is interesting about this is not whether our societies are getting more or less totalitarian. Tyrants have been around for a long time (at least 10000 years).
What is more interesting is the growing perception that the society is becoming more totalitarian. This is part of a global paradigm shift of unprecidented proportions and speed.
To give an example which has been much discussed, the war in Vietnam was going on for years before there was significant protest. With this war, protest started before it even began.
I am not interested in arguing about whether the protest is right. What is interesting about it is its magnitude and scale, which is historically unprecidented. Whether or not the political situation is actually getting worse, the fact is that people have an expectation that it get better. They expect our society to conform more to ideals of peace and freedom. When it does not, they react with outrage. Witness all the ranting about 1984 on slashdot, for example.
What this means is that the expectation of peace and freedom is increasing very rapidly. This is part of a much deeper paradigm shift, which is questioning deep, underlying values of our culture which haven't been seriously questioned since the time of Jesus. The idea that it is right for Man to conquor and rule the world by force is being questioned, by many people.
In my view, this paradigm shift is the only hope for our species. As the article points out, distructive tech is advancing rapidly, and poses new and even greater dangers of extinction of the species (which has already been a serious threat for some time). If we continue with our old paradigm, if we continue unchecked expansion and destruction, we probably won't last long.
But the tide is turning. A new paradigm is emerging. You can mock it if you like (and many of the die-hards of the old paradigm do), but it is spreading like wildfire, and there is a chance, just a slim chance, that we might be able to pull back from the precipice before it is too late.
All distinctions are arbitrary.
Try the environmental threats that six billion people pose to our long-term welfare. From ozone depletion, freshwater pollution, global warming, species depletion, unchecked development, these are far more tangible than out-of-control grey goo.
Bill Joy gets to look smart and visionary talking about science fiction fantasies that we read and play, but the real dangers to humanity are the good ol ones that people have been harping about for years.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
I have been thinking about that quite a bit, lately, in part because I am reading Social Justice in Islam by Qutb (see this Salon article for why).
It seems to me the answer -- and a very overlooked and under-appreciated answer it is -- is that totalitarianism is massively seductive, even to the average man on the street.
Those of us who self-conceive as outsiders -- whether because of ethnicity, religion, sexuality, eccentricity, etc. -- we look to conformism as an obvious threat. But to people who self-conceive as "normal", who take identity and comfort from their "averageness", who enjoy majority privilege and a sense of entitlement, conformity looks comforting and comfortable.
Totalitarianism is, really, the ultimate dream of conformity -- state imposed, pushishable-by-death conformity. That idea has considerable appeal to people who consider themselves safely within the mainstream. Not only is it not any skin off their nose if a few statistical outliers get trampled, they see it as a relief -- whether emotional or finanacial.
Totalitarianism is inevitably sold as a panacea. Totalitarian movements sell themselves by presenting a vision of how, if everyone just co-operated, transcended their differences, were willing to submit themselves to a little bit of hardship and sacrifice, they could improve the Commonweath -- to build heaven on earth. If we all just pulled together, we could feed all the hungry, eliminate crime, cure disease, and be ensured a pleasant afterlife appropriate deity.
That's a seductive vision. It's even more seductive to people who have an unconsidered conviction that they, being good, loyal citizens doing their part for the the common good, would not be the people who would have to make significant sacrifices. Indeed someone who thinks they are an "average guy" looks at those people who object to going along with the totalitarian regime and resents bitterly that he is going to be deprived of the good life by some weirdo going on about a right to privacy.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Actually, I think Sloppy's probably right.
1) Taking Sloppy's scenario literally, the destruction of an entire planet in the Star Wars universe is a terrible thing, but nowhere close to the extinction of all life. By the time the technology for a Death Star (or equivalent WMD) arises, we will most likely have spread beyond a single planet.
Addressing your interpretation of point one the point remains roughly the same. Planetary ecosystems are durable, flexible things. Sudden changes may throw them off kilter temporarily (with a not insignificant level of suckage, but ANY survival is meaningful, as it means a chance for an improved future), but soon enough a new equilibrium point is reached. The end result may not closely resemble the original, but it is still (generally) a viable ecosystem, and as time passes and the indiginous organisms continue to adapt to the new conditions it may very well flourish beyond it's pre-cataclysm state. It would take an awful lot to totally kill an entire planetary ecosystem. No single cause short of a massive asteroid impact or (possibly) an all-out thermonuclear war would stand a significant chance of wiping out even the entire human race, let alone all life.
2) As I indicated above, wiping out a significant percentage of the human race would suck beyond the telling of it, but in the grand scheme of things even such a disaster would be overcome in time. The difference between wiping out 98% of the human race and wiping out 100% of it isn't 2%, it's infinite! (Particularly for the 2%!) A miniscule survival rate means that there ARE survivors, and humans have a knack for adapting to adversity and replenishing their numbers.
To that end, if Mother Nature *IS* going to wipe us all out she'd better hurry. If you look back at human history, it is the story of nature having an ever-decreasing control over the lives and deaths of mankind. Back when our entire species lived in sub-Saharan Africa a single plague, contaminated food supply, or major climate change could've easily wiped us all out. No longer.
ET's aside, Nature's (if I may anthropomorphize) last opportunity to exterminate our species via a stronger competitor died out with the Neanderthals. Her last real opportunity to wipe us all out via a single disease ended with the Black Plague. Nature blew both opportunities, and our species grew smarter, more diverse, and more numerous to the point where neither scenario presents a realistic threat of total extinction anymore. Our annihilation is slipping out of "her" grasp. At this point, for Nature to do us all in would require that she escalate to a major meteor strike or worse, and it's only a matter of time before we spread to other planets, allowing us to dodge even that bullet.
The war for survival isn't over yet, and may very well never be, but we're doing a damn fine job so far.
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!