I'm in favor of a license hack for humanity.

The International Science Council [1] has a Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science that "promotes freedom for scientists to pursue knowledge and to freely exchange ideas, at the same time as advocating the responsibility of scientists to maintain scientifically defensible conclusions, and of scientific institutions to apply high standards." [2] They have published a list of Freedoms and Responsibilities of Scientists[3], the main principle of which is "the free and responsible practice of science is fundamental to scientific advancement and human and environmental well-being."

Reading the list in full, it seems evident that there is intellectual dissonance between the aims of scientific freedom and the aims of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[4] (which it references). It opposes blocking access to science based on discrimination, which is laudable. However, it also doesn't explicitly oppose science done that supports discrimination, or science done by organizations that support discrimination.

This makes sense when you consider that advances in science like GPS can be used to help you drive to a birthday party, or to guide a missile towards one. Clearly you can't condemn scientific research by itself, as it has too many potential applications for both good and harm, often unknown at the time the research is done.

Similarly, discriminating against research on the basis of "ethnic origin, religion, citizenship, language, political or other opinion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or age" also prevents the free and responsible practice of science, so the list of Freedoms and Responsibilities of course opposes this discrimination. But what if the end result of that science research is used to discriminate against those same people for the same reasons? What does a responsible, ethical scientist do then?

What we can do is oppose the use of science by people with those discriminatory goals, or goals that violate universal human rights. If you know someone is researching genetics in order to popularize Eugenics, there should be no responsibility to continue supporting that research. Similarly, if you believe that not supporting scientific research may help put pressure on a nation that is waging an unjust and unprovoked war which is killing thousands of innocent civilians [in violation of universal human rights], you should have no responsibility to continue supporting said nation's scientific research. In other words, it should be okay to discriminate if you are discriminating against violations of universal human rights.

Considering this, I would propose that one major tenant of any new Open Source license is to discriminate against organizations or nations that want to research, use, or produce science or technology, if that organization or nation is widely considered to be violating universal human rights. This goal has the effect of communicating an ethical red line you must not cross if you want to participate in a global human community, and will be a discouraging factor when nations again consider the potential ramifications of their actions.

Basically, we should use access to collaboration in science and technology as a lever to improve human rights.

edit Ethical minds think alike! Somebody already created a version of the MIT license with this exact restriction! The Hippocratic License[5]: "an Ethical Source license that specifically prohibits the use of software to violate universal standards of human rights, and embodying the Ethical Source Principles." It appears there are many[6] other such licenses.

[1] https://council.science [2] https://council.science/about-us/governance/committees/commi... [3] https://council.science/what-we-do/freedoms-and-responsibili... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... [5] https://firstdonoharm.dev/ [6] https://ethicalsource.dev/licenses/