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Editorial - Science & Technology 
The Art of Using Science and Technology for Evil
By John Martellaro - OSXFAQ Senior Editor - Science & Technology
November 11, 2002
"Power corrupts. Absolute power ... is kinda neat."
- Anon
I am writing this on Veterans Day. The subject of courage and
honor come to mind, especially with respect to the use or misuse of
technology*. It's a subject critical to Apple enthusiasts.
In the history of American culture, in reality and in our literature,
there is a rich history of the misuse of technology for personal gain.
Several notable examples come to mind. The father of American rocketry,
Robert H. Goddard, in the early part of the 20th century started his
experiments with rockets. For decades afterwards, science fiction writers
like John W. Campbell (who was the father of Astounding Science
Fiction, which later became Analog), Robert Heinlein, and others
dreamed of using rockets to travel to the moon. Eventually, around 1950,
Heinlein was a technical advisor on a major movie called Destination
Moon. Despite (or maybe because of ) mankind's dreams of space
travel, the Germans put this technology to work during World War II and
built the best rockets of the day, the V-2, and began launching them
with high explosive warheads into downtown London. This example hardly
touches the surface of this kind of activity, but it's one of my
favorites because it shows how the most profound dream of mankind,
eventual travel to the stars, can be perverted for the sake of
world domination.
In the James Bond movie, Moonraker, 1979, (arguably, the
worst James Bond movie of all the 20 made to date), Hugo Drax has
built a space station and collected there what he thinks are a
few of the best, brightest, and healthiest humans. After he's
deployed poison gas, from orbit, on every person on the planet,
Drax intends to re-seed the Earth with his own vision of a super
race. Bond, of course, has to stop Drax from murdering something
like 5+ billion people. Impeccable logic. Absolutely evil.
I like these examples because they are a great starting point for
what I want to discuss here. But first, I need to set the stage.
Core Foundations
One of the things I have learned is that one has to
appeal to a more fundamental rule in ethics in order to evaluate
less fundamental values. For example, when discussing gun
control, the arguments cannot simply be "I like guns" or "Guns
are dangerous." Something more fundamental has to be the guiding
philosophy. Even arguments that go back to the 2nd Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution are insufficient without a more fundamental
ethic. In this case, I argue that the fundamental value is that
of Adult Responsibility. The Adult Responsibility
principle says that educated, self-reliant, and responsible
adults should have the right to defend themselves and their
families, with force if warranted. Without this principle, which
many believe is the real thinking of the authors of the 2nd
Amendment, citizens become mere pawns, hiding under their beds,
waiting for a police state to take charge of their lives.
Having a core principle like this allows one to weigh the
opinions of some and judgments of others. It allows one to
take the measure of arguments like: "No one needs a gun.
That's what the police are for." Or, alternatively, "
I have a right to own an AK-47."
The Adult Responsibility principle has a collorary. It says
that when people abuse their responsibilities, the Government
will take that right away from everyone, not just the offenders.
What's worse, as the government systematically relieves the
citizens of their rights, due to the abuses of some,
their regard for the citizens drops to the point
where the government no longer really believes that its
citizens are qualified to govern themselves. The combination
of an arrogant government and undisciplined citizens is
a disaster that countless eloquent writers have warned of countless
times.
Stealing Music
Now, I'm ready to talk about MP3s. Over the last two years,
I have seen every argument that exists justifying
the wide spread sharing of music without compensating the
authorized owners. The one that most people find the
most comfortable is that the recording industry executives
are crooks and are not honorably compensating the musicians.
What started all this, of course, is the
commentary by Courtney Love at Salon in 2000 which exposed how
little money musicians actually make and how much the studios
make. Based on this compelling expose by Ms. Love, the prevailing
feeling by users has been that it's justified to punish those
executives by stealing the music that they sell.
This is an argument that any Al Qaeda member would love. Analogously, their
arguments have been something like, "Americans are rich and unholy.
We are poor and holy. American executives steal money from
the stockholders and destroy the life savings of their employees'
401(k). The American government oppresses us. So, we are justified
in punishing them by crashing aircraft into the monuments of their
wealth."
The problem with this kind of reasoning is that it is completely
logical, justifies any violent action, but exists at a level that is far
too superficial. It is the kind of reasoning that starts wars. The core
principle that is ignored is that of respect for human life taught in
the Koran and the Bible. Most Judeo-Christians and Muslims understand
this principle. Innocent men, women, and children were plainly murdered
in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 9/11/01. Americans also know that
when they are attacked, whether it was 12/7/41 or 9/11/01, they are
at war and will fight back. These are the principles that civilized
society has developed over the last hundred years.
In a similar fashion, let's look at the logic of stealing MP3s.
Do we really believe that stealing music and sharing it with the
rest of the planet on P2P servers will really punish recording studio
executives? Can we expect them to react by saying: "Gee, our
revenues and profits are way down. Perhaps we should now pay our
musicians more."
Not likely.
There certainly exists a core principle of respecting the property of
others and compensating for their artistic creation. (Even if the
middleman is suspect and the details of copyright law change from time
to time.) This principle is time honored and exists in the framework of
civilized society. If the rules need changing, this is done by working
to change the rules by politics, activism, persuasion, and lobbying.
However, the youngest members of our society, enabled by GHz speeds and
broadband connections, don't have much clout. So the most expedient course
is to use technology for evil, to attempt to destroy the wealthy by
force for personal gain. This is not honorable.
Playing by the Rules
The recording studios are playing by the rules, for the most part.
I recall a recent proposal that had vigilante overtones that would
allow record studios to attack P2P servers. But other than that
insanely stupid proposal, which I believe has been dismissed by
cooler heads, the record studios have sought realistic and legal
methods to protect their property. (It's not illegal to copy protect
a CD. It's merely unethical to pass it off as a Red Book compliant
disc or disguise that it is, in fact, protected. It might
damage the customer's computer.)
What has been the result? Legislation is being considered that
would offset the theft of music. Advanced technology, in the hands of
users, is being used to lift copyrighted music from CDs and
share it without compensating the artist. (How much the artists are
compensated is up to them, their agents, and their attorneys.)
The abuse of technology is justified for personal gain. The
government is likely to take away the rights, if there ever
were any implied rights, of the users to conduct that theft.
The parallel between this phenomenon and the abuses I described earlier
are all too clear. In the Bond movies, agent 007 fights to defeat evil
mad men with self-serving visions propelled by the abuse of technology.
In reality, when computer users "want what they want and they want it now," any
justification for personal gain, utilizing technology, appears to be
similarly justifiable.
I'll have to hand it to Microsoft. They see the handwriting on the
wall. Microsoft knows that there is money to be made by partnering
with the copyright holders. They are busily about the business of
planning software (and hardware) that will protect copyright holders:
the Digital Rights Management (DRM) issue. At some point in the future,
if things continue as they are going now, you will have about as much
control over your Mac as you do over your stereo receiver. Software will
still be downloaded and installed, but the hardware will keep you from
re-distributing it, and it will be erased each time you are done with
it. Music and movies will be digitally watermarked and tied to a user
license that you'll pay dearly for.
Why will this happen? Computer users have violated a corresponding
principle of Computer User Responsibility. When a
sense of technical responsibility doesn't exist, it doesn't require a
genius to predict that rights will be abrogated and
the regard that the recording studios will have towards
all computer users will reach new lows. We shouldn't be surprised.
Exit Strategy
In his Foundation series, Isaac Asimov's character Hari Seldon
invents psychohistory, a method of predicting the future using
the statistics of human behavior. This is pretty close to the current
technique of predicting the stock market utilizing chaos theory. I'm
willing to bet my PowerBook that human behavior regarding MP3s is not
going to change over night. The statistics of human behavior makes it
impossible for all the people to feel the same way all the time. I'll
safely predict, even without using psychohistory, that the recording
studios will continue to protect their property and users who value
music more than their honor will continue to steal music. Neither side
can win.
Changes might come from either a new technology that breaks
the status-quo and simultaneously affords the luxury of being
more honest or, possibly, a global change in the way musicians sell
their music.
For example, some artists are giving away their music so that fans
will become familiar with them, become enthusiastic, and attend their
live concerts. In the meantime, look for the RIAA to make an example
of someone in the courts, invoke copy protection, and encourage
Microsoft and the government to assist them in the legal protection
of their intellectual property.
As for Apple enthusiasts, we have a choice and not much time left to
make it. Despite the fact that statistics are against us, I'll remain
optimistic and suggest that we must honor and promote the admonition of
the Apple mothership. "Don't steal music." We must completely abandon
the sharing of music we didn't pay for, adhere to and promote the
principle of Fair Use, and establish Macintosh users as a breed apart.
Otherwise, we can certainly look forward to draconian hardware measures,
enforced by law, that will lock up our Mac, just like the future
DRM-enabled PCs.
Oh, and by the way, we can kiss our iPods goodbye.
* For those gentle readers who are new to
my writings, I'll mention that I have served as a Captain in the United
States Air Force.
E-mail comments to John Martellaro
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