I want to live in a world of radical transparency and accountability. Those who intend to do harm to others must be held accountable to their actions through reputation and identity systems while being shamed and isolated in practical ways to ensure “playing by the rules” is more beneficial to them than causing harm. I also want those with responsibility to be held accountable for that responsibility. Leadership is really hard and should be properly rewarded, but it also has to be kept from becoming corrupt.
I also want to live in a world of anonymity and privacy where anyone can live freely and autonomously to do as they please (provided they don’t harm others) without being attacked, imprisoned, or killed by oppressive regimes or those who are ideologically unsound, ignorant, or dangerously extreme. A brief look at history shows how destructive “society” can be on “moral” topics that later change completely. Some things that were illegal are now social justice issues. How can someone living in the wrong place at the wrong time (but again, causing no real harm to others) survive without secrecy and privacy for protection?
This duality occupies my thoughts. It requires knowing what “doing harm to others” looks like which should include harming natural resources we all rely on as well as property and essentially anything that is opposite to loving respect and kindness. No easy task.
Can we figure this out? Can we do both?
Do we have a concept of repentance built in for those who have harmed others but have been reformed so they can build a new reputation and the trust it requires? Is there a way for a radically transparent person to “go dark” if the legal jurisdiction they live in becomes corrupt given how permanent everything online is?
I’ve spoken with some really smart people on these topics, and I don’t yet see solutions. Some will argue endlessly to stay away from digital identities, blockchain reputation systems, etc because it’s dangerous (I’ve been told IBM, for example, provided the technology used by the nazis to catalogue Jews in concentration camps). Others lean more towards my perspective that radical transparency is the future, and it will accelerate evolution via more accessible information, assuming we can survive through it. So far, more data seems to mean more dopamine-fueled manipulation and control.
I can’t seem to let this go. It seems like the central issue the world is swirling around right now. Two sides of the same coin.
Totalitarian globalism destroying individuality and personal freedom or a new paradigm of human connectedness, compassion, and empathy where we see our kin as every member of tribe human, working together to preserve this little pale blue dot in space we call home?
It feels to me we are at a crossroads and how we digitize ourselves will determine what happens next. Information grows exponentially and our humanity can’t stop this. We might join it, we might run from it in Luddite enclaves, but it will spread and grow and, I believe, we will adapt to grow with it. We are an adaptive species and technology is part of what made us human as fire predigested our food to give us more calories and more neurons. We can do this, we just have to work together to figure it out.
Key concepts:
- What is “harm”?
- How do we recognize harm and prevent it?
- How are those with responsibility to prevent harm kept from becoming that very harm?
- How can we safely evolve our concepts of harm as our moral understanding becomes more enlightened?
If we had consensus on these things, maybe we could start building tools to reinforce that consensus.