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Dangerous Futures >
Molecular Manufacturing and 21st Century Policing
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0657.html
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Molecular Manufacturing and 21st Century Policing
Will nanofactories foster global anarchy? Will nations devolve into a technologically-driven arms race, the winner dominating or destroying the planet with powerful molecular-manufacturing-enabled weapons? Or will the world's Big Brothers grow larger and more tyrannical, using advanced nanotechnology to "protect" their law abiding masses through increasing surveillance, control and internal subjugation? A law-enforcement executive asks the tough questions.
Originally published in Nanotechnology
Perceptions: A Review of Ultraprecision Engineering and Nanotechnology,
Volume 2, No. 1, March 27, 2006. Reprinted with permission on KurzweilAI.net
March 29, 2006.
One of the fundamental questions driving any attempt at forecasting
the future is: what kind of society do we want to live in? Or, for
the farther future: what kind of society do we want our children
to live in? How would widely available nanofactories change our
lives and our world? Will multi-national corporations gain exclusive
control of molecular manufacturing (MM), using it to dominate social
institutions and dictate public policy from a purely capitalist
and/or monopolist perspective? Will personal nanofactories foster
global anarchy and create a form of modern tribalism based upon
religion, ideology, or culture, and pit independent city-states
or autonomous regions against one another? Will the world's nations
devolve further into a technologically-driven arms race with the
winner dominating or destroying the planet with powerful MM-enabled
weapons? Will the world's Big Brothers grow larger and more tyrannical,
using advanced nanotechnology to "protect" their law abiding
masses through increasing surveillance, control and internal subjugation?
Or, will personal freedom grow and evolve along with our technology,
giving people and communities the ability to maintain their rights
as individuals and protect the social welfare of their communities
and nations while fostering global peace, security, and prosperity?
These questions and a host of others have no easy answers. One
significant factor on the path to our future is our world as it
exists today, a world largely dominated by governments and the forces
they employ to maintain civil order and internal security. In today's
stable societies of the developed nations, government police and
para-military forces provide the preponderance of domestic order
maintenance services, enforcing criminal laws and ordinances, arbitrating
physical disputes, investigating crimes, and responding to disasters—professional
functions usually deemed appropriate in modern democracies to ensure
the continued safety and security of a community or nation. These
activities and the manner in which they are carried out will have
a direct and profound impact on the kind of world we and our children
will live in, particularly in regards to the maintenance of civil
liberties and individual freedom.
It is important therefore to give careful consideration to the
ways in which governments use technology today to provide for public
safety and security, and how that might change as a result of new
technological advances. We need to give close scrutiny to the capabilities
afforded the civil police by modern technology—particularly
the potential power bestowed by molecular nanotechnology and personal
nanofactories—before these capabilities are realized. What
capabilities do we want the police to have and which do we want
to restrict? How much capability do they need in order to provide
for public order and safety in an age of advanced nanotechnology?
Are they capable of wielding the power afforded them through augmented
reality, unmanned aerial vehicles, robots, surveillance, data-mining,
and biometrics, technologies that will be greatly enhanced and widely
distributed by personal nanofactories? Can we afford to place such
power in the hands of government? And if not, what is the alternative
for ensuring peace and social stability for the world's billions?
As we consider the appropriate limits on police surveillance and
enforcement capabilities we also need to consider the ways in which
criminals and terrorists might exploit advanced technologies like
personal nanofactories in carrying out their goals, and the impact
their actions will have on liberty and democracy if they succeed.
While government action can have dramatic and negative impacts on
our ability to be and remain free, so too the actions of a lone
criminal or terrorist group armed with advanced technology can have
severe repercussions on the social psyche, and thereby the economy
and stability of a nation or the world. Successful terrorist attacks
and chronic criminal activities in a globalized world have a fundamentally
destabilizing affect on communities and nations, often fostering
highly reactionary programs and policies aimed at providing short-term
safety for the many at the expense of liberty for a perceived few.
In other words, simply limiting police use of technology is no
guarantee that civil liberties will be maintained. On the contrary,
the public's perception of danger will inevitably drive policing
and security operations within communities and nations whether the
civil police are equipped and empowered to act or not. Recent activities
along the border between the United States and Mexico demonstrate
that in today's world, with the ready availability of advancing
technology, someone will end up conducting police operations when
communities believe they face criminal and terrorist threats that
remain unchallenged by the civil police. Groups such as the Minutemen
and the American Border Patrol are non-government organizations
formed by average citizens, frustrated at the lack of response by
their government regarding illegals crossing the national border.
Armed with widely available technology not currently utilized by
the civil police (unmanned aerial vehicles with video cameras and
wireless links for surveillance), and probably more than a few weapons,
these groups conduct border interdiction operations outside of government
sanction.
In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks,
the US also has experienced a growing involvement in domestic security
by military and private security forces. In the United States after
9/11, the Pentagon formed the US Northern Command, a first-ever
strategic military command whose primary mission is to conduct domestic
military operations—essentially law enforcement and civil security
missions—in response to terrorist events and natural disasters.
Similarly, private security agencies such as DynCorp and SAIC have
taken on a much broader role within communities to combat terrorism
and cyber-crimes such as identity theft and credit card fraud, filling
a law enforcement and civil security niche that state and local
police departments are either ill-equipped or unable to deal with.
Life in the 21st Century is only getting more complex.
Information technologies and mass media confront the populace on
a daily basis with graphic real-time images of death and destruction
along with gripping narrative accounts of all the world's problems,
raising public fear and driving citizen demands for higher and higher
levels of security. The specter of technology out of control is
a frequent topic of popular books, movies and television, causing
many people to question the wisdom of continued technological advancement.
Molecular manufacturing and personal nanofactories will raise even
further the level of public fear and create new conflicts and opportunities
for criminal and terrorist groups to exploit to their advantage.
Advancing technology in general and molecular manufacturing in
particular make predictions about the future difficult at best.
Still, conceptualizing all the potential scenarios and contemplating
new and appropriate strategies, programs and policies necessary
to avoid a dystopian future is important, however imprecise. Regardless
of the particulars, it seems clear that in a world of growing conflict
and fear, policing and law enforcement will play a rather large
role, for good or for ill. When communities and nations are threatened
with or confronted by persistent criminal exploitation and catastrophic
terrorist attacks, the public will demand action to prevent further
personal danger, economic loss or social unrest.
The type of policing we end up with and its effectiveness at preventing
significant harm while lowering public fear will be a factor governing
the nature and extent of our civil liberties as MM and personal
nanofactories become part of our world. What would our civil liberties
look like after a major terrorist attack if the military, utilizing
MM-enabled surveillance devices and weapons, is in the best position
with the best capabilities to conduct domestic policing operations?
What kind of society would ensue if all significant policing in
our communities and nations is conducted by corporations and hired
security guards? Whose civil liberties would be protected when concerned
citizen groups and vigilantes take community security into their
own hands and use personal nanofactories to arm themselves like
the military?
Of all the organizations and entities capable and willing to conduct
domestic policing and security missions, only the civil police are
sworn to uphold the civil liberties of all people. The military
is trained and equipped to defeat opposing armies on foreign battlefields,
to seize objectives and kill anyone who stands in the way. Corporate
security forces and privately paid police forces are focused on
the bottom line and are loyal to those who pay them. Individual
citizens, concerned citizen groups and vigilantes are concerned
only with their own safety and the civil liberties of those within
their own interest group. Nevertheless, each of the above groups
will play a role in policing neighborhoods, enforcing laws, and
providing domestic security. Each will be a necessary component
for effectively securing our communities and nations from criminal
and terrorist predators of the future. The challenge will be to
create a model in which the actions of these groups compliment one
another, enhancing the collective effects of the whole, not working
at cross purposes or creating additional conflicts that add to local,
regional, national and global insecurity.
In a world of advanced technologies, molecular manufacturing capabilities,
and personal nanofactories, an effective law enforcement process
will be essential to peace and social stability. No single group
can provide the right balance of domestic policing capabilities
and each has dangerous tendencies that when employed in isolation
can be detrimental to someone's rights and freedoms. As with most
of what troubles us in the information age, 20th Century
solutions will not solve 21st Century problems. Centralization,
parochialism and hierarchy are being replaced with distributed systems
based upon collaboration across local, wide-area and global networks.
The successful policing model of the future will need to move in
this direction as well. To deal effectively with the challenges
and dangers posed by tomorrow's technologies, we must form a collaborative
policing network, consisting of all citizens, agencies and forces
with useful capabilities and appropriate law enforcement interest.
A collective and collaborative effort will do a better job of upholding
liberty for all people while providing the safety and security necessary
for continued social and technological advancement.
© 2006 Thomas J. Cowper
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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:
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Limiting government before the singularity occurs... / personal resposibility
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What kind of society would ensue if all significant policing in our communities and nations is conducted by corporations and hired security guards? Whose civil liberties would be protected when concerned citizen groups and vigilantes take community security into their own hands and use personal nanofactories to arm themselves like the military?
Hmmm. They'd be able to put even more innocent people in jail for things that weren't even crimes 100 years ago. 1907 introduced the first major drug laws, which were initially supported by a tide of religious conformity, xenophobia and racism. Kind of like MO's ban on transhumanism (vaguely defined, uncritical, and bigoted --allowing for arbitrary enforcement much like in the movie "V for Vendetta").
Decentralization of government power has never killed millions of innocent people in the modern era. Centralization of government power, on the other hand, has killed over 200,000,000 people in the last 200 years.
That number is, according to Eichmann "just a statistic", whereas if he had killed 100 people, everyone would know his name as an infamous serial killer. But since he acted with the blessing of his collectivist government, the 6,000,000 Jews and some portioin of the additional 16,000,000 people murdered by his organized concentration camps are "a statistic". Even worse than Eichmann and the nazis, Stalin's soviet regime killed over 50,000,000 innocent people -for "the public good".
The fact that voters and citizens of giant states are such credulous, willing, complicit dupes makes a post singularity police-state almost inevitable (as well as a bloody conflict against it). Police states of the past have been mass-murderers, and voting nations have voted themselves into dictatorship by abandoning the protection of individual rights (The Weimar Republic voted for, and then supported Nazi Germany). Stalin existed with the blessing of those he supported (via massive theft of every producer's wealth).
When people lack an understanding of US History, limited government, and individual rights, they become voters for a pre-singularity Hitler.
Right now, I can personally assure you that greater than 95% of the general public has ABSOLUTELY NO UNDERSTANDING OF THESE CONCEPTS. Why? --Public schools. The wolf is guarding the sheep, (and the shepherd is asleep).
You see, if you entrust extortionists to teach the ills of extortion, they don't do a very good job of it. How many US citizens know:
1) The English meaning of the second amendment, as well as its historical context?
2) That there was no income tax before 1913, and that is unnecessary to fund any proper function of government (police, courts, military)?
3) The language of the other first 10 amendments to our constitution, that, while they were still enforced gauranteed US citizens a higher standard of living (and quality of life) than anywhere else on the planet?
4) The arguments against a standing military outlined in the federalist and antifederalist papers?
5) Lysander Spooner's logical arguments against slavery and government in general? http://www.lysanderspooner.org
6) Who the presidential candidates for the 35 years of Libertarian Party candidates were, and what they stood for? Or what the Libertarian Party platform says?
7) What the phrase "petition the government for a redress of grievances" means, in the first amendment?
8) What caused the industrial revolution?
9) What caused the great depression, and what extended it?
10) That the government (under fascist FDR) confiscated the citizens' gold in the US on April 3, 1933, in an act of open theft by collective force?
11) That FDR campaigned against an income tax, and reversed himself once he was elected?
12) What the words "fascism", "protectionism", "collectivism", etc mean?
13) What kind of system of government the USA is supposed to operate under? Hint: it's not a Democracy. It's not a representative democracy. And although it functions like a fascist police state in many ways, that's not right either.
I'd rather have the power decentralized in this case, than see the government really be able to wage a "war on drugs", "regulatory war against business", or a "war on terror / war on guns". All of these "wars" are just large-scale victimizations of innocent people by prevailing popular bigotries (much like Southern slavery was).
In virtually every instance, when a rapist tells a woman to put on handcuffs and get into a van, that woman dies. Why is this the case? The rapist then has complete control (and he's already proven himself to be untrustworthy).
Politicians prove themselves to be untrustworthy by never using specific legal language and legal documents to show how they are going to limit their power before an election: they speak only in vague platitudes under general platforms (Libertarian Candidates before major Libertarian Party successes in any given area excepted). The LP, by contrast, offers specific policy directions, (to limit government abuse of power) but most people who are happily complicit in the current system merely want a reassurance that "nothing will change" (among other flawed and irrational memes).
The Libertarian Party is the only political party that wishes to limit government to its proper minimal functions. The nation had its greatest success, the closer along its timeline that it was to a "night watchman", laissez-faire style of government. --There has never been a utopia, but there have been very good times, and that measure of goodness is typically due to the principled protection of individual rights.
There are other extra-electoral strategies that can be used to protect individual rights (among them the poorly-coded right to privacy). One of them is simple gun ownership -it makes you more safe from government abuse, ...if it is a popular, publicly-accepted right. Another is encryption.
But these technologies fail when the government reaches a position absolute power.
We are well on our way to that situation right now.
Do we want to get there when the government can ban any food item, with 100% success? People will die then, (like they do right now for the same reason). ...But by this, I mean millions of innocent people, instead of thousands.
Think I'm exxagerating? Well, I've done my homework. Why don't you personally investigate how many people the FDA has killed by banning life-saving drugs in the last 50 years? When you have a reliable answer, you'll know that I'm right, and you'll also have ot face the fact that you helped them do it.
This is why people prefer to remain ignorant, and continue to vote for a slow but steady increase in government power. Direct evidence to the contrary, they will continue to support any system "in its current form" without feeling the need to qualify the logic of their actions -because nobody does, and they don't have to personally bear the onus of their decisions. But the system's current form isn't changing -mainstream politicians don't want limited government -there's nothing in limited governemtn for them, and if they're working happily inside of a corrupt system, they're not likely to change it. Especially if they've never even proposed changing it (IN CLEAR TERMS).
Libertarians are now faced with either allowing freedom to disappear or pandering as well as the D and R power parties (it's really just one party).
But how could we trust libertarians to secretly stay true to their ideals once they were elected? Good question. (Keep in mind that most people never even come close to getting to this question, which is a battle in itself -they don't even want freedom, much less ask how to get it...)
Well, most libertarians have been fighting for freedom for a long time. They haven't been corrupted yet, and have only suffered for their public defense of a political system of capitalism and individual freedom. They should be chosen as candidates, where their victory is made possible by early libertarian(generalist campaign) victories.
Not an ideal solution (logical action chosen because of an understanding of the underlying ideas), but better than a fascism where the drug police can monitor every person via computer 24 hours a day, and coffee, tea, cigarettes, AIDS drugs, genetic treatments, alcohol, and fast roller-skating and bike riding are illegal.
Most people would just try to obey the rules and say "that's just the way it has to be".
Dreamers and innovators (and anyone with a spine). Would be living in hell.
Ask anyone how soviet Poland was. A pretty crappy way to live... Unless you were an ambitionless and conformist parasite. Then they let you direct the soldiers, or become one yourself. Is that what we want the future of America to be?
A post-singularity computer simulation of wrote routine?
-Jake |
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Civil Liberties in the US
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It has been my observation that fear is the cause of most changes in civil liberties. Fear of the criminal element as well as fear of government.
There is no reason to suppose that nanotechnology in and of itself will offer law enforcement any imperative to circumvent constitutional boundaries. The current restrictions on search and seizure will still apply, only the tools for legal compliance will have changed. Currently, the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers in the US abide by their oaths and support the Constitution. The social alarmists who preach against "Big Brother" would be surprised (or perhaps disheartened depending on their agenda) to learn just how many cops are extremely passionate about protecting our civil liberties. Most of the ones I know were vehemently opposed to much of the Patriot Act and the slippery slope it presented. I found not one police officer who thought it necessary to allow any additional latitude regarding warrantless searches.
Will there be abuses? Of course, but that has nothing to do with the technology itself. Abuse of power is a human frailty that will surface again and again, and is certainly not restricted to law enforcement officials. It is something that can be predicted and dealt with, but not prevented. If you restrict the ability of law enforcement to access and use new technology just because someone [i]might[/i] abuse the system you are, as they say, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
We should have a healthy fear of the potential of our government to abuse us. We should not allow them to use our fear of criminals (like terrorists) to restrict our liberties. However, neither should we succumb to the preachings of the anarchists. As humans, we need society and the protections it brings for the weak and the meek among us. When you take away true law enforcement you create an environment that fosters the proliferation of strongmen and criminals -- just take a long look at any third world country. People inevitably try to compare the US with Nazi Germany (everyone's favorite cautionary tale), and this is the very fear-mongering of which Joseph Goebbels would have approved. Frightening the public in [u]either[/u] direction is blatant propaganda. The primary objective for the nanotechnology crowd should be the education of the public in an effort to remove the fear and so disarm the fear mongers. I think you'll find that it is the best method to preserve our society. |
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Re: Civil Liberties in the US
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Currently, the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers in the US abide by their oaths and support the Constitution.
I guess you haven't recently taken a look at how many US citizens are
1) rotting away in the US prison system for nonviolent drug offenses, having been deprived of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (In direct violation of virtually the entire Bill of Rights --most specifically the 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th amendments)
2) getting robbed by police on the totalitarian roadways. Also totally Unconstitutional, and without merit or reason. (Any traffic ticket that is issued for speeding --without having created any injured party-- is totally bogus. There's one semi-legitimate thing that a "ticket" --court summons-- can be issued for: reckless driving. --And even that, in order to be constitutional, would need an automatic assumption of a jury trial before the "offender" was deprived of property.)
3) victims of "civil suits" brought about by the state.
Moreover, the FDA and the vast majority of other government organizations are completely Unconstitutional. The FDA has killed over 100,000 innocent US citizens by denying the first amendment rights of food manufacturers and vitamins and supplement distributors, like Ray Kurzweil (and both people with less money and influence, and bigger players, with more market presence, like Lipton Tea and Celestial Seasonings.) What backs up the FDA's authority? Unconstitutional police force. Brutality. A boot on the neck for those who disobey.
Anyone who belives that "most US police" are behaving in a Constitutional manner are DELUSIONAL, stupid, or evil.
I never signed up to be a cop, even when the CPD was hiring, and I needed a job. Why not? --Because I'm both
1) moral
2) educated about the current situation
Anyone who arrests anyone else for a "drug offense" is violating their oath to uphold the Constitution. (Roughly 2/3 of the people in prison are there because of first-time nonviolent drug offenses. Police put them there by directly violating their oaths to uphold the US Constitution. --Good thing words have no meaning to most poeple who are complicit in this idiotic and brutal scam --including you.) Moreover, if most police officers didn't violate thier oaths, they would be the rarest of anomalies within our utterly corrupt system.
To say I'm fearmongering puts you into one of three primary categories:
1) Utterly delusional
2) Utterly uninformed
3) Utterly evil
Then again, I'd expect you've never read the Anti-federalist papers, never been strapped down to a table as a teenager and forced to consume dangerous psychoactive drugs "for your own good" (to cure you of your tendency towards anti-authoritarianism), never had a vitamin shop you own raided by FDA stormtroopers and had books --about a natural sweetener no less-- you were selling ordered destroyed by that same FDA, never had the ATF storm your house and cause your pregnant wife to miscarry, never been burned alive by that same ATF, or had your nursing wife shot in the head by that same ATF, never been raided by the IRS --another unconstitutional police force with broad and unconstitutional powers--, and ... I could go on for days, but what would be the point? And don't try sidestepping the point by saying that "those are mostly federal agencies, not local police". -Because that's crapola, pure and simple. Local police are always along to provide backup firepower for the federal goons, if it's not them providing ALL the firepower.
Moreover, if the just domain of government is the protection of private property and the "just use of force", the local police's failure to stop drug raids is also unconstitutional.
--You're asleep to injustice because "it doesn't concern you". Much like the cattle cars going by the quiet German countryside "didn't concern" the good aryan citizens of 1941 Germany.
I'd sure hate it if you were forced to wake up about where your tax dollars are going (and thus wake up to your own passive and sheepish immorality). "US Constitution" has no meaning when spoken or written by people such as yourself. You can go back to sleep now.
-Jake Witmer
http://jcwitmer.blogspot.com
http://freealaska.blogspot.com
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