Pedestrians Bill Of Rights
The Graceful Technologist's Hippocratic Oath and Pedestrian's Bill of Rights:
- I will not threaten people's livelihoods.
- I will not make people learn a new set of job skills.
- I will not create new minor annoyances that drain the life force from people, even if it seems like a good way to solve larger problems.
- I will not increase the amount of uncertainty and fear in people's lives.
- I will not decrease the amount of control that people have over their own destinies.
- Any help I have to give will be freely offered and may be freely refused.
- If people have to accept my idea of "progress" in order to keep their jobs, it's not a free choice.
- If someone explicitly disagrees with either my long-term goals or my short-term methods, I will not attempt to publicly claim that I am working on their behalf or "doing it for their own good", though I may privately choose to go on taking their welfare into account.
- I respect the right of others not to adopt certain technologies, not to live around people who have adopted those technologies, and not to hear about people who have adopted those technologies.
I don't understand why someone on SL4 would advocate this. Is anyone advocating it?
(1) says "I won't invent or promote new technologies that compete with existing technologies that people earn a living from."
(2) says "I will not invent new technologies that might displace existing technologies." Didn't Henry Ford's development of mass-market automobiles make ferriers and buggy-whip makers' skills obsolete?
(4) allows other people's fears to be a complete barrier to any progress you might make in any direction.
(5) seems a plausible goal. But it only seems like something you could strive for. If you are making changes in the world, it doesn't seem like something you could expect agreement that you had achieved.
(6), (7), and (8) seem like empty platitudes. What benefit do they provide to others or ourselves?
(9) seems to go way to far in empowering luddites. I won't deny their right to form enclaves if they wish, but they should have to expend effort and get agreement from those around them before they have any "right" to exclude change or progress. Someone living next to me, or working in the same office building can't forbid me to use (non-destructive) technologies, or to talk about my work in the elevator.
What have I missed? Why is this list here?
I think what the list is missing is a mention of the reasoning behind them. From the standpoint of `progress morality', certainly they sound ridiculous, but from `volitional morality', they make quite a bit of sense. It's immoral to make someone get a new job or change their life if they don't want to.
Also, I disagree with your assessment of (9). Why should Luddites have to extend effort to protect themselves from technology? They don't even want this technology to exist and certainly don't have the means to protect themselves from it (remember the old adage that defense is always catching up with the offense). At the same time, Luddites can't make you not use technology. You have the same choice as they do when it comes to technology, but it should be that your choices do not interfere with each other. You are both expecteced to respect each others' volitions, but barring that you can always close yourself off (since you have to technology to do it) so that you no longer conflict.
An important point: Some of these cause negative externalities for others, infringing on *their* rights. Specifically that last one. Suppose a group, acting under that prinicple, decided to not use the technology of vaccinations. Or chose to deliberately shun the use of modern medicine, letting members die of various highly infectious diseases. Those actions could very well lead to those diseases spreading to others who made no such choice. Imagine the consequences of a small sub-group refusing to allow smallpox to be eradicated in its ranks, making possible a resurgence of that most deadly disease to everybody else who disagreed strongly and had no choice in that matter.
--Maru
Semi-related tangent: In a system under scarce resources(1), the very existence of a resource-consuming entity, ceteris paribus, produces immediate or eventual negative externalities for every other resource-consuming entity. Moral: Be extremely careful when making arguments that incorporate negative externalities into their premises.
(1) Read: all finite systems, and some infinite systems in which scarcity is imposed by constraints on the ability of resource-needers to acquire access to 'local' resources in time to perpetuate survival, regardless of the posited spatiotemporally endless supply of resources globally
-- Jeff Medina
I agree that there should be a pedestrian's bill of rights, but these seem way too restrictive. I have a hard time imagining any development which wouldn't violate at least one of these - for example, 9's stipulation that pedestrians need not hear of the new technologies or of the people who adopted it. How are they supposed to choose a lifestyle (technologically forward or technologically backward) if they have no idea of what the technology is or does, and how is anyone supposed to get the technology to those who actually want it without informing some people who would want to avoid it? Also, if a technology is useful at all, it's very likely that it violates (1) or (2). And I don't even know what (3) means; pretty much any tech will have 'minor annoyances' attached. Also, (4) is unachievable as well - SOMEONE is going to be afraid of it, no matter what it is. Are we really going to risk delays in getting potentially lifesaving or at least life-improving technology to those who want it out of a fear that along the way we're going to frighten someone? At least one person in the third world is scared of modern medicine, but it's still moral to cure preventable illness. So unless we secretly relocate all transhumanists to Europa and develop AI there, and never inform anyone else of the progress, most of these are totally impossible to comply with.
I suspect that these rights were conceived using Pareto Efficiency as a moral basis - but frankly, Pareto Efficiency is really a lot to ask for and as a result this bill of rights is unnecessarily restrictive per the amount of protection it affords.
- Some Other Anonymous Guy
