[extropy-chat] The Proactionary Principle: comments encouraged on almost-final version

[Max More]

As many of you know, I've been working on the Proactionary Principle 
(ProP for short) as a replacement for the widely-used precautionary 
principle. The ProP is now the center of the book I'm halfway through 
writing. I would very much appreciate your feedback on the current 
version, so that I can make any final tweaks before committing it to 
publication more widely.

The previous version (with seven sub-principles) is here:
http://www.extropy.org/proactionaryprinciple.htm

The current version is as follows:

THE PROACTIONARY PRINCIPLE

Freedom to innovate technologically is highly valuable, even 
critical, to humanity. This implies a range of responsibilities for 
those considering whether and how to develop, deploy, or restrict new 
technologies. Assess risks and opportunities using an objective, 
open, and comprehensive, yet simple decision process based on science 
rather than collective emotional reactions. Account for the costs of 
restrictions and lost opportunities as fully as direct effects. Favor 
measures that are proportionate to the probability and magnitude of 
impacts, and that have the highest payoff relative to their costs. 
Give a high priority to people's freedom to learn, innovate, and advance.

We can call this "the" Proactionary Principle so long as we realize 
that the underlying Principle is less like a sound bite than a set of 
nested Chinese boxes or Russian matroshka (babushka) dolls. If we pry 
open the lid of this introductory-level version of the Principle, we 
will discover ten component principles lying within:

1.      Guard the Freedom to Innovate: Our freedom to innovate 
technologically is valuable to humanity. The burden of proof 
therefore belongs to those who propose restrictive measures. All 
proposed measures should be closely scrutinized.

2.      Use Objective Methods: Use a decision process that is 
objective, structured, and explicit. Evaluate risks and generate 
forecasts according to available science, not emotionally shaped 
perceptions; use explicit forecasting processes; fully disclose the 
forecasting procedure; ensure that the information and decision 
procedures are objective; rigorously structure the inputs to the 
forecasting procedure; reduce biases by selecting disinterested 
experts, by using the devil's advocate procedure with judgmental 
methods, and by using auditing procedures such as review panels.

3.      Be Comprehensive: Consider all reasonable alternative 
actions, including no action. Estimate the opportunities lost by 
abandoning a technology, and take into account the costs and risks of 
substituting other credible options. When making these estimates, use 
systems thinking to carefully consider not only concentrated and 
immediate effects, but also widely distributed and follow-on effects, 
as well as the interaction of the factor under consideration with 
other factors.

4.      Be Open: Take into account the interests of all potentially 
affected parties, and keep the process open to input from those parties.

5.      Simplify: Use methods that are no more complex than necessary

6.      Prioritize and Triage: When choosing among measures to 
ameliorate unwanted side effects, prioritize decision criteria as 
follows: (a) Give priority to risks to human and other intelligent 
life over risks to other species; (b) give non-lethal threats to 
human health priority over threats limited to the environment (within 
reasonable limits); (c) give priority to immediate threats over 
distant threats; (d) give priority to ameliorating known and proven 
threats to human health and environmental quality over hypothetical 
risks; (e) prefer the measure with the highest expectation value by 
giving priority to more certain over less certain threats, and to 
irreversible or persistent impacts over transient impacts.

7.      Apply Measures Proportionally: Consider restrictive measures 
only if the potential impact of an activity has both significant 
probability and severity. In such cases, if the activity also 
generates benefits, discount the impacts according to the feasibility 
of adapting to the adverse effects. If measures to limit 
technological advance do appear justified, ensure that the extent of 
those measures is proportionate to the extent of the probable effects.

8.      Respect Tradeoffs: Recognize and respect the diversity of 
values among people, as well as the different weights they place on 
shared values. Whenever feasible, enable people to make tradeoffs.

9.      Treat Symmetrically: Treat technological risks on the same 
basis as natural risks; avoid underweighting natural risks and 
overweighting human-technological risks. Fully account for the 
benefits of technological advances.

10.     Renew (Revisit) and Refresh: Create a trigger to prompt 
decision makers to revisit the decision, far enough in the future 
that conditions may have changed significantly.

---------------------------------

Thank you,

Max


_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max at maxmore.com or max at extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org
_______________________________________________________