[ExI] openness again

[Anders Sandberg]

I remember being introduced to the openness debate on the list back in 
the paleolithic. David Brin's "The Transparent Society" was fresh and 
new (and oh so prophetic!), the cypheranarchists were fiercely debating 
with the transparency people, and the nanotech subset was considering 
just how radical radical surveillance could be.

My own view is basically that (1) Brin is right: transparent, 
accountable open societies for the win. But (2) to really work they need 
to be tolerant.

(1) is why the Snowden affair didn't disturb me by revealing massive 
surveillance, but by revealing how entrenched secrecy and lack of 
accountability is in the whole system - I would have no problem with 
NSA/GHCQ/FRA/... monitoring everything if they were themselves 
adequately monitored and kept honest. (2) is something that has crept up 
in priority over the years due to globalization and new social control 
applications (like the Chinese credit rating system punishing people for 
associating with the wrong people, or potential gaydar software). A 
global village of distributed busybodies forcing conformity with the 
lowest common denominator is not good.

Privacy, integrity, security and similar things are to a large exent 
psychological and social states, not states of knowledge or 
technological (in)ability. When we do not listen too closely to a couple 
talking in public, demand control over our different personas, or choose 
to trust someone, we are implementing them socially. The issue isn't 
tech, but that we are lagging behind in workable and agreed on solutions.




-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University