Scientific Progress

Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net
Wed Oct 26 18:12:13 PDT 2016


On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 12:43:09PM -0400, Kevin Gallagher wrote:
> Additionally, science is not without limits. We, as scientists, cannot
> perform experiments that harm people. We also cannot perform experiments
> without consent.

Moral actors can impose such limits on themselves.

Science, unfortunately, has no such inherent limits.
To deny this, and the abuses we see in the world, is to deny reality.


> I would also suggest that our ethics should include
> avoiding projects that harm the people, such as creating mass surveillence
> systems and facilitating the violation of basic human rights. If we perform
> such research, we should also include counter-measures to preserve the
> balance of power. Scientific research influences all of society, and should
> therefore consider ethics before publication.

Although most humans probably consider themselves moral actors, the sad
fact is mostly humans leave the moral decision making up to their
employers and or investors and or the government, and take what they can
making endless excuses such as:
 - someone else can fix it
 - I've got too much on my plate to focus on moral issues right now
 - "one day" I'll write a better system and give it to "the community"
 - it's not really that bad
 - someone else would do it (and get paid to do it) anyway
 - it's too upsetting to think about
 - stop bothering me!


> In short, science and the scientific process is not truly the enemy.

Humans failing to exercise moral / conscionable action is the problem.


> Currently, however, the system has been corrupted by wealthy players who
> abuse it for personal gain.

In a way.

Fundamentally, the majority of humans abdicate their moral activity,
abdicate their conscience, abdicate any self responsibility for their
part in the game. This is rather universal in the West today.


> If you have not read the paper I mentioned in my previous email, I really
> do suggest giving it a read. Rogaway argues many different points in the
> paper, many of which I haven't covered in my emails.

And almost all of which are almost completely irrelevant to improving
this world.

The "Western world" desperately needs moral actors, rather than any more
"science" to be profitted by the oligarchs.


> On Oct 25, 2016 12:59 AM, "Tom" <tom at vondein.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 05:36:30PM -0400, Kevin Gallagher wrote:
> > > They are blind enough to believe that their "advances" help society,
> > > despite them actually shifting the balance of power away from the people.
> >
> > The point of science is to find answers to open questions and by doing
> > so gain knowledge. Seriously, science is not the enemy. It were not the
> > enemy in 1641 and it isn't today.



More information about the cypherpunks mailing list