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