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From: nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: RE Feedback on Computer Crime
Message-ID: <4c556b86.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 21 Aug 90 15:18:00 GMT
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 josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) posts...

              
>This, of course, is why the anarchocapitalist scheme is so appealing.
>There *are* no tax dollars, and *all* the costs of doing business are
>brought out in the price of the good.  If the software company had to
>pay for its own copy protection both ways, the choice of means would 
>be simply an economic calculation--as it should be.  
 
 Could you detail what this scheme consists of?
                                               

>So I think software is a test case for the future--of everything!

 I seldom find myself in agreement with JoSH, but I have to agree
 this time.  

 One of my themes on Usenet has been that the moral and ethical
 issues we are fond of debating are going to become even more
 dramatic with the technology of the future.

 It is entirely conceivable that in, say, 150 years, we might 
 have machines which are as autonomous and intelligent as humans,
 or more so.   How will our concepts of "work" and "wealth" be 
 defined in an economy where there is no need for every, or even
 most, or even ANY humans to work?   Will we still require people
 to work in order to have "money" to live?   If we have robots or
 computers with creativity and high IQ's, should they have "rights"?
 How will we make the transition to such a society without a great
 deal of pain and conflict?   

 It is entirely conceivable that we will understand enough about 
 genetics and cell-differentiation to program the growth of organs
 or whole humans from some DNA.   We could grow people in a "test tube",
 defining their genetic characteristics arbitrarily.  We could create
 human bodies, with respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and other
 functions, but with only a minimal brain (say without a neocortex).
 We could design them so they don't experiance pain or fear (without
 a neocortex they won't experience much of anything, anyway).  We
 could use them for experiments.   Would these beings be "human"?
 Would they have "rights"?    Consider also that retroviruses (such
 as the HTLV-I and HTLV-III, the AIDS virus) actually change the DNA
 of the host cells.   Maybe someday we will be able to create a "tame"
 retrovirus which can make arbitrary genetic changes in existing
 individuals.  "Be all that you can be" will take on a new meaning.
 Maybe you could literally become anything.  White, black, male, 
 female, etc.   How will we derive a concept of "identity"?   (Incidentally,
 using a different technique, researchers have already successfully inserted 
 "marker" genes in human subjects.

 I could go on, but my point is that these debates on the ethics and
 law of copying software and DAT's are nothing compared to what's
 coming next.   It's like those little UFO's near the beginning of
 "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".   Just wait 'til you see
 the mother ship!
 
                                                      ---Peter