[extropy-chat] A Chilling Thought.

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Rik van Riel <riel at surriel.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 14 May 2005, The Avantguardian wrote:
> > What if the rich are just biding their time knowing that the
> technology 
> > is nigh upon us and try to illegalize it SPECIFICALLY so they can
> get 
> > access to it while the proletariat can't? Like Cuban cigars.
> 
> I'd say that is very unlikely.  After all, the rich like
> keeping money (otherwise they wouldn't be rich), so they
> have no interest in these new technologies not becoming
> commodities that are safe and easily available to them.

Unless they want the techs to become *only* available to them.  Which
is a common misunderstanding of technological development possessed
by many elites, who think it is possible to restrict certain techs
only to the rich and powerful forever.  Just look at how well the
security restrictions on nuclear weapons have worked...er, well, maybe
the restrictions on biotech...no, maybe the restrictions on
cryptography?

Still, while there may be some element of this, it's not the main
driving force behind neoluddism.  Many people honestly don't grok the
core concetps of science, and really don't understand* any other way to
greet significant changes than fear and panic.

* I'd say "know", except that they may have heard of such things as
investigation and research to dig up the truth.  But to them, these are
remote abstractions that other people do, not an activity they
themselves should undertake.  (Many even think they *can* not read up
on things, after practicing for so long the mindset of letting their
eyes glaze over and their minds tune out at the slightest hint of
complexity.  Reacting to complexity with mental strategies to break it
down into understandable parts is a learned art - one that some may
have more of a genetic predisposition towards than others, but
ultimately learned nonetheless.)