From: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: AIDS in Africa (was: environment and animals)
Reply-To: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Organization: Minimal.
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 01:17:01 GMT

I'm sure the question of whether or not technology is somehow inherently
"evil" has been argued many times on this forum before, and what I have
to say about it has probably been said before.

Nevertheless, What I'm about to say I haven't seen said recently, so here
goes.

In article <40911767@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:
[...]
>Ozone depletion, global warming, and the extinction crisis are all
>products of technological and population expansion, and they certainly
>prove that technological growth doesn't *increase* our long-range
>chance of survival: it has up till now been *decreasing* it. It's useless
>to say that it's supidity, not technology, that is responsible: technology
>is not separate from the fools or the wise who produce it and use it. 
>It was very stupid to have invented the automobile, for example, but as
>a piece of technology it has been a great "success". 

You seem to be ignoring a very important principle of engineering: that
each tool has certain strengths and certain weaknesses, and that you end
up having to trade off various capabilities and weaknesses in order to
come up with a reasonable solution to the problem at hand.

There are two problems with the use of technology, both of which are
problems that *humans*, not the technology they use, have.  The first
is that some humans care little about their fellow humans, their
environment, etc.  To such people, environmental concerns do not even
enter the picture when they decide what tool or set of tools to use
in solving a problem.  The second is that *no* human is omniscient.
It is often the case that a tool is invented and used without the
knowledge and ability to adequately evaluate the consequences of its
use.  And note, too, that "adequately" here isn't particularly well-
defined.  As our ability to model the universe around us increases,
we get more and more accurate at evaluating the effects of technology.
But it is impossible for us to know to infinite precision and accuracy
what these effects will be.

So how good is "good enough"?  The answer to that will depend on what
you're shooting for.  Some environmentalists have as their goal the
eradication of the effects of man on the planet and the universe.
They seem to view the earth as a separate entity suffering at the hands
of evil humans, and seem to view humans as alien impostors in the world,
without considering the fact that the earth *is* our natural habitat.
It's where we evolved, and we're uniquely suited to it (at least, more
suited to it than other naturally occuring environments).  These people
would put the welfare of the planet above the welfare of the human
species, if need be.  What they fail to realize is that it is *impossible*
to eradicate all traces of human activity without eradicating man in the
process.  There are not many people who have such transparency as a goal,
fortunately (and I must consider the possibility that this is merely
a strawman on my part.  It is, nevertheless, the impression I get from
some of the people on this newsgroup).

A more common goal is a balance between the effects of man on the
environment and a pristine environment.  These people recognize that
the relationship between humans and the environment is a symbiotic
one.  Here, technologies are evaluated for not only their effectiveness
as a solution to the various problems of human society, but also their
effects on the environment.  But as with all other such evaluations,
it is eventually a judgement call.  How much of the environment's
pristineness or "well-being" (for lack of a better term) should we
sacrifice in order to meet our own needs?  This, I think, is the
$1,000,000,000 question, and THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE ANSWER TO IT.
At best, all you can do is weigh the consequences and benefits TO
HUMANS, because at least there you're talking about the same kind
of scale.

So we are left with the question of tradeoffs.  A tool is just that:
a tradeoff between various parameters that form it.  The more
specialized the tool, the fewer parameters there are to consider
and thus the fewer tradeoffs that need to be made.

But the point is that technology is a *tool*.  We use it to accomplish
our own purposes, good bad or indifferent.

My favorite argument in favor of that is this: while we, through our
technology, may be causing problems for the environment, exactly what
do you think enables us to DETECT these problems to begin with?  How,
exactly, were we supposed to be able to map the ozone hole over
Antarctica to begin with?  And would you not agree that the mapping
of the ozone hole is a *good* use of technology?  Even if that SAME
technology is causing some of the damage (we routinely use aircraft
for this kind of project)?

It is all a tradeoff.  Jet powered aircraft do more damage to the
environment than solar-powered propeller driven aircraft do, but
jet powered aircraft carry much heavier loads at much higher speeds.
For some purposes (e.g., transport of injured people over long
distances, hauling cargo, etc.), there simply is no good substitute.
Then you end up trading off, in some cases, the lives of those in
immediate danger for damage to then environment (which may or may not
endanger the lives of future generations).

>If Moscny's fantasies
>about metal Supermen should come to pass, perhaps it will have been
>equally stupid for us to have invented computers. 

Then again, maybe it won't be.  That's the problem.  We can't predict
the future with any certainty.  We're not omniscient, and wishing us
to be so won't help.

The automobile was invented during a time when we knew very little about
the impact of human activities on the environment.  It was an excellent
solution to the problem of personal transportation, however (which is
why it is so prominent in today's society).  Lacking the ability to
evaluate a technology's future potential impacts, the best you can
do is evaluate it with respect to the problem you're trying to solve.
And even then, it's a relative comparison.  You compare what you've
got with what you're considering and see which tends to work best.  If
you deem the solution you've come up with as too costly (in whatever
terms) given the benefits, then you table it.  If not, then you consider
it against other solutions that have already made it past that point.
When the automobile was invented, nobody knew that it was going to become
so prominent.  A few people guessed that it might, but that was the
best they could do.  If people *knew*, then anyone who had half a brain
would have invested in the automobile industry.  That didn't happen until
the automobile had already become an everyday item.  Furthermore, the
*existence* of the automobile isn't what damages the environment so
much.  It's the use of the automobile in such large numbers.  Existence
of a technology is not sufficient cause for environmental damage.

And this is where my primary beef with you lies.  You seem to be wanting
us to evaluate the long-term consequences of our technology when we have
no such capability.  There are *far* too many variables, many of which
we cannot evaluate for their present-day values, much less future values.
Would you have us err on the side of "caution"?  Should we stop the
development of technology simply because we don't know what the future
consequences of that technology are?  I think not.  Such a request would
be equivalent to asking someone to stop learning, improving, etc.

Do you think your children should stop learning about the world around
them?  The information may be damaging in the future, you know.  Better
to be safe, right?  Wrong.

That we may be ignorant about something doesn't mean that we should
*remain* ignorant about it.  Yet it seems to me that this is what you
are saying we should do.  Stop developing certain technologies because
we don't know how much of an impact they will have on us or our
environment.

>But here at least we
>still have choices ahead of us: we can refuse to allow the technology
>to be used in such a way. 

How do you do this without sacrificing the benefits that such a use of
the technology would provide?

>It is only the moral bankruptcy of our civilization
>that speaks in Mocsny's assumption that if the technology *can* evolve
>in that direction, it *must*. If we can be wise, then computer technology
>will be a benefit to the biosphere and to our species. 

And this is exactly my point.  It is not the *existence* of any given
technology that is the problem.  It is HOW WE USE IT.  It is *only*
how we use it that is to be blamed for the ills that befall us and
our environment.  And it is us, and *only* us, who are responsible for
how we use our technology.

Blaming the technology, even in part, for the ills that befall us is
equivalent to me blaming, in part, my socket wrench for stripping
the threads on the bolt of my engine.  It is *ridiculous* to blame
the tool for the results we get (admittedly, the tool itself will
constrain the results, but those constraints were already decided
upon, even if unknowingly, when we decided to use the tool).  We
have only ourselves to blame for the results we get in the application
of a tool.  Bad results come about as a result of ignorance of the
tool's applicability and/or effects, or they come about as a result
of the deliberate misapplication of the tool.  In either case, it is
the tooluser who is to blame, not the tool, if anyone is to be blamed
at all.

And because we are *not* omniscient, we cannot always know the
consequences of using a given tool.  That's the kind of ignorance
that we can fault *nobody* for, even if it sometimes has severe
negative repercussions.

>However, since AI -- even biologically based -- is a long ways off, we
>have more pressing problems to solve -- such as how to make a technological
>civilization survive the next century. Mocsny's continued appeal to 
>"Information Power" to make the problem vanish is almost as silly as the
>beanstalks and moving a billion people a year to orbit within 100 years.
>It's not clear at this point that people living in 2100 will have as much 
>technology as we do, and ensuring that they will requires us to make some
>choices in the next few decades that aren't going to be helped by genies
>out of technological bottles: choices like seriously curbing our population
>growth, seriously redressing major imbalences between developed and 
>developing countries, and so on. Much moral stamina will be needed to make
>these choices, and we do nothing to improve it by constant appeals to
>science fiction to save us.

And yet, this is not an argument for *stopping* or curbing the development
of technology.  Rather, all you are saying here is that we may not have
the ideal tools in our toolbox to use in solving the problems that we
will face.  We'll have to select the best tools that are available at
the time we go to solve the problem, and use new tools as they become
available.

The argument for *continued* development of technology is strong, however.
A more advanced technology ultimately means a better selection of tools. 
The more advanced your technology, the more likely it is that you'll find
a better tool for the solution of your problem than you'd find in the
toolbox of a less advanced technology.  That there exist costs in the
development of a more advanced technological base is an irrelevent, if
true, issue, as those costs cannot be calculated in advance (at best,
they can be approximated, but the accuracy of the approximation falls
rapidly with the range of the approximation).  Experience shows that we
are better off overall *with* technological advance than without.  There
are few of us, I think, that would argue that we are *currently* worse
off overall than were the people of, say, the 12th century.  In all the
ways that we tend to measure benefit, we are better off now than our 12th
century cousins.  We are better fed, clothed, and sheltered.  We live
longer and with fewer health problems.  We are better educated.  We know
more about the world around us.  And we are capable of feats unimagined
in the 12th century.

This has come at a cost, of course.  Our air is not as clean, our water
not as fit to swim in, etc.  Most of the cost has been incurred by
lifeforms which do not benefit from our technology.  But we did not
develop our technology for others, we developed it for ourselves.  You
may wish to argue that we *should* develop our technology for others,
but that is ultimately a question of ethics, and has no definite answer.
In any case, being a member of the human race yourself, you will probably
agree with me that even if we develop technology for the benefit of
other species, we develop it *primarily* for ourselves, and that it
is entirely proper for us to do so.

But the benefits, at least to us, have thus far outweighed the costs.
It may not always be this way, but it is impossible to predict this
with any reasonable certainty.

For this reason, I see no need to impede technological progress.  Use
what we develop wisely, yes.  Make better use of the tools we have now
and will have in the future.  But don't stop building better tools.

>Alan McGowen


		Kevin Brown (kevin@taronga.taronga.com)

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