Is A "Transhuman" Future Necessarily A Government-Regulated Future?
by Vince Daliessio
Cory Doctorow from BoingBoing writes about the book "Citizen Cyborg" by James Hughes. He seems to understand the concept that government control of technology (in this instance, genetic engineering and "transhumanism") can have bad or unintended effects, but ultimately returns to the comforting old shoe of government regulation as necessary to democratize these technologies, rather than free markets and free people, which we all here know will work. I wrote to Cory about it;
Hi Cory,
Just a quick note - you seem to be a fan of state intervention in "transhumanism" (which, I believe is a lot of hype wrapped around a little, yet important substance). Yet you criticize the religious "thugs" who oppose abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. Stop to think how government control of research funding enables political control of that research, and how freeing this important work from government shackles will benefit everybody.
Consider that there may be people with genuine principled concern about the dehumanizing aspect of this type of experimentation (embryonic stem-cell research, cloning). Forcing them to fund research or applications they consider immoral is scarcely the best way to build the broad consensus that will be necessary to achieve ultimate success. Reaching out to those people in a way that does not alienate them or make them fearful, it would seem to me, is better than forcing them to fund research methods at gunpoint (which in essence is what government-funded, i.e.; taxpayer-funded research is) that they find immoral or dehumanizing.
My own belief is that, rather than drastically altering one's genome for aesthetic or performance purposes, or cloning a race of Hitlers or Michael Jordans, the ultimate endpoint of genetic engineering technology, and the one with the widest application will be achieved when physicians will be able to give a patient a pill, or some other stimulus to turn on genes in the patient's own cells to, say, regenerate a kidney, or shrink a tumor, then turn the genes off automatically. But hey, that's just my opinion. Maybe we are destined to become a master race that can slam-dunk!
With regard to "cognitive liberty" - do you really think the pharmaceutical industry will allow drug legalization (true "cognitive liberty") in this country? Millions are incarcerated or killed every year, all to give Big Pharm the exclusive right, enforced by the FDA and the DEA, to legally facilitate your "cognitive liberty", at a healthy profit. They will not surrender that right without a fight, let me tell you.
Finally, realize that many of the important freedoms and innovations we take for granted (the commercialization of the internet, and file-sharing, to name two) have reached fruition mostly beyond the greedy, politicized grasp of government, and the moneyed interests that run it for their own gain, rather than yours or mine. Think of government-enforced intellectual property scams, or, more recently, the change in bankruptcy laws designed to effectively reintroduce debtors' prison.
I could rattle off many, many examples of why government is the worst way to achieve any worthwhile goal, many of which have appeared on BoingBoing. The best treatise I know on the subject is Harry Browne's "Why Government Doesn't Work", available for download at harrybrowne.com. Free people and free markets outperform government-enforced monopoly and regulation every time they are tried.
Government intervention isn't the answer to the problem of democratizing technology - it is an obstacle to it. Look what government-enforced monopoly in medicine has done to healthcare availability in this country. Asking government to intervene will guarantee that these technologies remain the privilege of the wealthy and well-connected. I hate to say it, but mark my words - government interference will prevent these technologies from ever benefiting the masses of this world.