Sunday, May 12, 2013
Probably The Most Significant Technological Breakthrough Of Our Time
I'm no gun nut, but I also have an increasing fear of tyrannical government based on the clear militarization of the police, as well as the curtailing of civil liberties. I never advocate violence as an adherent of the non-aggression principle. However, I also believe in maintaining the existing rights enshrined in the constitution and hopefully using those rights as a foundation on which to build even greater rights and increase individual liberties. Freedom is not a zero-sum equation as many argue. Yes, one does not, and should not, have the freedom to infringe on another's freedom but this does not automatically imply that we cannot increase our freedom collectively through cooperation and understanding. Those who advocate for control of this technology do so at the risk of undoing hundreds of years of struggle and sacrifice that were necessary to establish and safeguard the freedoms we enjoy today. The fears associated with this technology are very real but to put a stop to it would mean catastrophe for democracy.
3D-printed weaponry is here to stay whether we like it or not. Its arrival signals a major shift away from centralized control predicated on coercion and force and toward decentralized, unregulated self-governance. It is clear we have outgrown the habit of ceding personal responsibility to an external protectorate. Does this make the world less safe? Only as long as there is reason to use deadly force against one another. Will criminals and terrorists capitalize on this development, almost certainly. But just because anyone can suddenly print a gun doesn't mean that they will, and it doesn't mean that peaceful people will seize the opportunity to become violent extremists. If you want to mitigate the threat posed by 3D-printed weaponry, disincentivize using violence to achieve your goals. The larger implications of 3D-printing more generally solidify this point: this technology could push a trend of despecialization as more and more people are once again able to fabricate all of their own tools and products.
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5 comments:
the Idea that freedom is a zero-sum game only comes with the failure to recognize the difference between freedom and power. these measures we talk about, expand freedom, and re-alocate power. It is power that is the zero-sum game that euphemistically is refereed to as 'freedom' by those who hold hold it and enact policy. But as far as the 3D guns go, it's as unstoppable as filesharing.
This is about technology outpacing the capacity of humans to use it responsibly. Some would say the birth of the atomic age was the tipping point. While dangerous, crossing this threshold is a rite of passage for humanity. It demands that we reach a level of maturity sufficient to prevent the misuse of our increasing power. It is the test of a civilization to possess the power to wipe itself out without actually doing it.
"With great power comes great responsibility." -Voltaire or Peter Parker's Uncle
"We have guided missiles but misguided men." - MLK
Using threats to illicit desired behavior (the way government operates) is quickly becoming obsolete. The oversized hammer of the state has been proven ineffective at stopping committed individuals from carrying out acts of violence. Asserting authority over a population is not a sustainable approach to human development. "Keeping dangerous technologies from falling into the wrong hands" is based on an assumption that there are wrong hands. We must get beyond the divisions that would see us destroy each other and come to the inevitable understanding that we are all one species on one planet. If we cannot reach that lofty goal then perhaps we deserve to reap what we sow.
I find it somewhat ridiculous that people take such a hard line on preventing citizens from accessing small arms but remain silent on the issue of nuclear weapons as well as the build-up of military arms, things that we and they have to pay for. Gun violence is a symptom of a larger problem. The paradigm of resource scarcity that drives the capitalist system and a lack of cohesive meaning or purpose are the things that drive violence in society. Arguing for restricting access to weapons is based on an ideology that cedes personal responsibility to the state, thereby ensuring a power imbalance that can only perpetuate violence as those victimized by a system that offers no recourse grow increasingly desperate. The truly progressive approach would see us removing incentives to use violence, though poverty reduction, education, and government accountability that would strip the peace prizes from the necks of war criminals and give them to prisoners of conscience. The heroes of mass culture too often represent the worst of humanity, glorifying violence and power. Where are those who glorify humility and compassion? Even the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. has been obscured and truncated. Jesus' teachings have been cherry-picked and marginalized. These great beings of principle do not have an analog in today's society and so the subversion of ideals goes unabated.
"War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength." - Big Brother
So upset, because I had written a much longer response, but ran out of power and lost it all.
i have been thinking about this issue a lot recently, this Idea that we have no leaders and no movement, that people are not engaged. And although as a generalization that might hold, I do not believe that it is true. Perception is so important in this struggle, because perceiving there to be no movement or leaders is a self reinforcing idea. The media, and here I include the alternative media also, has done a stellar job of convincing us hat there is no credible movement confronting injustice. Idignados, Occupy, M15, Horizontalist, Idle no More, One Billion Rising, Zapatistas, and those are just to name a few. We are so self defeating sometimes, we have a hard time reveling in any victory because the problem we face is so titanic. But if we cannot recognize victory and growth, then we get left atomized in a state of anomie. This is my issue with Alt media as a generalization, it does not cheerlead well, it is so cynical that it leads to disengagement, and perhaps intentionally in some cases. I have not ruled out the possibility that some of these narratives are progressed solely for this purpose. Also what originally got me writing on this post was seeing the entire Bill Maher this clip is from. I suggest if you have not seen it, to find their discussion of the middle east where glenn does a great job highlighting our hypocrisy when thinking about islam.
here's a link for the section about Benghazi and muslim rage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB-itn_LJuM
True, most news is bad news, not just in the alternative media. I would argue the mainstream media hosts the stories engineered to engender hopelessness. I would also argue, based on my own experience that though the picture is always increasingly bleak. One can only be crushed by it for so long before transforming all of that negativity into a moral imperative. Take fast food as an example; one can only read so many stories detailing the horrors of our industrial agricultural system before the knowledge weighs too heavily to continue to rationalize eating such products.
On the subject of leaders; I have been thinking for a while now about creating iconic representations of those figures at the forefront of the meta-movement. We have too many leaders to name. But the whole idea of wanting someone to step up and shout out what we all want to hear died with the election of Obama. We don't need figures to rally around, its like a page in the new Adbusters: "You know what to do." And we have for quite a while now. Even beyond the counterculture. The masses are not so ignorant of decency and justice, or to the goings on around them as to have lost all humanity. This, I think is at the core of every failed movement thus far. We pour our hopes and dreams into the deification of some corrupt or corruptible human being like the rest of us and then wash our hands of responsibility. We thereafter become increasingly dogmatic and ideologically zealous in an attempt to maintain our laughable farce.
On the Maher clip: externalities are great aren't they. In an occupied country with no prospects, crippled infrastructure, and shattered families, education becomes inaccessible and is replaced with fundamentalist religion. The level of fear and uncertainty is extreme and people gravitate toward proclamations of absolute truth. Maher's statement about the riots surrounding blasphemy sounds reasonable, but the idea that our culture overcame that obstacle in a vacuum is nonsense. Once again we see the linkages between secularism/ 'globalized' culture and military invasion and destruction of a way of life being ignored in this analysis. Blasphemy is only a concern of the threatened. And finally, to group all muslims into this category is entirely unfair.
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