Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Guns Might Be the Least of Our Worries

Whatever side of the gun debate you sit, it's important to remember why this is such a potent issue.

It's not so much that guns kill, it's that they empower. Weapons have always elevated humans above other species and their peers, but none quite so much as the gun. And the ability to instantly kill without fail has been a game changer in our social order.

This empowerment goes a long way in shaping our entire civilisation. In some countries, it is used to completely control the population in fear, in others, the same idea but a more subtle effect, we are forced to pay taxes and obey the law for threat of arrest at gunpoint.

Guns tip the balance of power because of the ability they afford us. That it's the ability to kill is in no way insignificant, but the ability could be anything.

They are an enabling technology.

Enabling technology elevates individuals and shifts society's order. In the past, this has been fairly limited to weapons; guns, nuclear missiles, military hardware. But access to life sustaining knowledge and technology such as drugs and agriculture have also driven global politics and had significant impact on the lives of many.

Now, as we hit the knee of technology's exponential curve, we are likely to encounter an increasing number of new enabling technologies. What will this mean for society?

Given their empowering nature, we would do well to be vigilant about who has access to certain technologies. Elites will likely work to prevent or restrict general population access (after dropping the ball with the internet) as much as possible. They will also attempt to commandeer certain technologies for their own purposes, surveillance, resource acquisition, health (immortality?) benefits or other, not-thought-of powers. This already happens, but its effects will become much more significant.

Imagine soldiers upgraded to be bullet proof, or have the ability to heal themselves. Arial drones are already causing havoc for the United States. It won't be long before we have robots everywhere, monitoring us, or even preventing us from performing certain actions - which might be unjustly deemed crimes. What if a bird was not a bird but a bomb? What if a tiny fly flew into your ear and injected you with an RFID chip? These technologies are extremely close - and most are already here.

There is of course the threat of these technologies falling into the hands of terrorists, murderers and psychopaths. We can go a certain way to preventing this with controls (like gun control), but what's stopping a criminal getting hold of a black market 3D printed gun? When the empowering nature of the technology can itself enable the undermining of such controls - what good are they?

Albert Einstein said: It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

As the creation of enabling technology escalates, it seems our humanity is simultaneously declining.

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