[ExI] government corruption & Transhumanism

[G P SINGH]

What i strongly believe is that word of corruption is a highly misused  
word in english vocabulary. The negative connotation arising out of  
this word blind the rational cognitive system. What i request members  
to see corruption by going beyond negativism or positivism through  
prism of rational technoloism or values of transhumanist society.  
Suppose if we reach to posthumanity level after 1000 years by assuming  
our life extension through machine preservation or cryonics of our  
body then will there be corruption that day ?

Corruption is basically a problem of valuation and costing. There is a  
difference in pricing so two people get into consensus mode and then  
mutually satisfying relationship begin which happens to be illegal. In  
this context let me take case of president obama what he must be going  
through daily morning in this RECCESSION ? His thoughts while  
brushing... "how to get more money ? , what if public money gets  
abused , what if people starve out of job loss ? What if people get  
into illegal acts ? , and there will be so many what ifs. So what i  
mean to say that he is also aware of negative fall out of his  
administration & corruption but simply he can not do anything to solve  
problem of corruption.

As a technologist and scientist our job is to think out the problem  
and help government to make the citizens quality of life as best  
possible through technological values. MIRCO'S point of using  
recording technology is great but it is intrusive which violate basic  
human right. Will you accept that if you are administrator of Newyork  
City ? So there may be other ways of solving it without creating  
'creative destruction' of existing working system of values.

In such structure of innovation, i was thinking of more efficient  
systems for valuation of asset. Can machines do evaluation ? For  
example suppose there is one person of the age of 29 years has got 12  
infections of cold then can a machine calculate his life insurance  
premium by calculating his expected life ?
So the corruption is basically problem of creating a machine which can  
do cognitive evaluation of value ? Am i right ?

GP


Other personalised constructive comments on MIRCO's answer is between  
the lines as following. I request to provide feedback.

> Message: 17
> Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:13:01 +0100
> From: "painlord2k at libero.it" <painlord2k at libero.it>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] government corruption & Transhumanism
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Message-ID: <49A5EC9D.3000901 at libero.it>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Il 25/02/2009 4.58, G P SINGH ha scritto:
>
>> I want to assert it in light of transhumanism. The measurement of
>> corruption is theoretically not possible by statistics because it is a
>> crime. And crime is by definition secret.
>
> Not exactly. Only a perfect crime is secret and there is no secret crime.

agreed.

>
>> So corruption is not measurable.
>
> Not directly. Not easily.

agreed.

>
>  > In this context role of transhumanist philosophy would be
>> twofold (you can suggest three or four or ....)
>> 1. How can we measure corruption by means of science and technology ?
>> 2. How can we reduce so called corruption by means of S&T?
>
> This is a very complex question.
> For one, we need to understand that corruption (when a private offer a
> benefit to obtain something he has no right to have or the public
> official offer to do something it is against his duty) are difficult to
> monitor because people try to hide them and the victims are not the
> corrupter or the corrupter but a third party.
>

Is it not repeating the crime is secret question ? What about the idea  
of corrutpion as valuation problem as above ?


>> Answering to second question brings me to rafal, can there be a genetic
>> cause of corruption ? If yes then genetic therapy can solve this
>> problem. Or can we find innovative use of punishment for example
>> assigning a social anti-corruption rank to each node in social network.
>> And then reward the least corrupt node. Here i am using the existing
>> hierarchy conscious approach of cultures to reduce corruption.
>
> Corruption can be defined as obtaining a benefit from a public official
> that is against his/her duty in exchange of some utilities.
> Utilities is not only money, but also help in some other matters.

Corruption is a global unifier. Every person, public, private or  
virtual suffers from it so calling corruption as only through  
government is insult of grand word like corruption.

>
> What could help to reduce / prevent corruption?
> Surely a way to reduce corruption is to reduce the power the public
> officials have. If they have no power or not enough power it will reduce
> the instances where other people will try to corrupt them or they will
> try to sell themselves. From another point of view, with less power, the
> public officials will not have the power to get away with their crime
> when discovered with ease.
>
> When power reduction is not wanted or possible, true transparency is
> needed. For example, public officials could be required to wear tamper
> proof recorders of what they say, hear and see, all the time, and the
> records would be publicly available for all to see. And when I say all
> the time, I intend 24h/7d, not a second lost, no privacy, no intimacy.
>
> Another way to reduce corruption is to let recording equipment become so
> small and unobtrusive that people can wear it all the time and record
> continually. It would make dangerous to propose a bribe, or accept one,
> if whatever you say or do can be recorded against your will.
>
> Another way to reduce corruption is to select people so the most
> corruptible are selected against.
> This is how, in many cases, not all, work the Catholics Church.
> Priests must accept early votes of celibacy (no spouse, no sons or
> daughters) so they have no reasons to accumulate wealth for their
> offspring nor they can leave wealth to illicit offsprings. The prospect
> to become rich and powerful are very, very small. So, many people are
> deterred to become priests or monks. Then from these it is possible to
> start a selection and give them more power.
> Eunuchs in China and in other places (India, Turkey) were used in the
> same way. Without children and the ability to reproduce, they were less
> prone to betray their duties).
>
> The problem in genetically selecting people that is incorruptible is
> that they need a very strong determination to respect rules they could
> think are wrong or stupid and to be impervious to personal gains (even
> indirect ones) or the damage they could do following them. What happen
> when incorruptible people are leaded by someone with an agenda, like
> Hitler or Mother Theresa?
>
> You would need people with a lower degree of empathy, lower degree of
> selfishness, higher motivation to follow rules imposed from an higher
> authority even if the motives or consequences of the rules are unknown
> or disliked. I would say that they would be perfect SS soldiers so it
> would be very dangerous to select for these traits only without
> understanding how they will behave in real life and hand them real power.
>
> Mirco
>


You have given three solutions

1. Reduce discretionary authority
2. Use recording technology
3. Select genetically incorruptibles

Agreed to all three. First one is obvious operational solution. Second  
is good one but issue of intrusion into privacy counts substantially.  
Third one require identification of gene of corruption. And it also  
divides people into two categories . Corruptibles and Incorruptibles  
... What about different degrees of corruption ?

GP