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

[Declan McCullagh]

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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