From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Fri Sep 10 1999 - 09:34:47 MDT
Enigl@aol.com wrote:
>
> What technologies can be used without hindering nanotech development and
> retaining the level of freedom, privacy, and liberty extropians desire? Do
> we develop James L. Halperin's _Truth Machine_ fool-proof lie detector first
> or concurrently?
I posted about that once. I concluded that truth machines were probably
in the same "threat" category as nanotech; they would increase the
strength of all social authority, both of a government over its
citizens, and, in Western democracy *only*, it would *maybe* allow us to
better control our government *if* we could interrogate politicians.
What's the chance that Congress won't immediately outlaw all
non-governmental use, even voluntary private use, because they know damn
well they'd all be out of a job? Virtually zero. So truth machines
have virtually no positive effects, unless you think you can cause major
social disruption to knock Congress out of office (without truth
machines, or by broadcasting veridicated statements made overseas).
If you could successfully use truth machines as a weapon against
self-serving authority, that would cause *tremendous* social disruption
as 95% of Congresspersons, high-level bureaucrats, and corporate
executives went out the window. I'm inclined to think they would band
together and use the truth machine to enforce a dictatorship.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
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