Knowledge - The New Frontier ( for exploitation ! )
Dear f-w friends I had two thoughts over the weekend. One concerns the Privatisation of Knowledge Agenda (the other I'm puzzled to recall - so here's the first ! ) The question as to who has any right to (financially) profit from a piece of knowledge prompts two thoughts: Firstly, all knowledge pre-exists our discovery of it, and, so, any individual or group claim upon it, is theft from the commonweal. (Issac Newton, for example, didn't invent gravity nor the various descriptions of it - they were all there to be found.) Secondly comes the question, 'How do you divide out the benefits of a piece of discovered knowledge? (Newton, again, pointed out (I paraphrase) that: "We can only see futher than our parents because we are priviledged to be able to stand on their shoulders." The empahasis seems reasonably placed upon the words 'priviledged' and 'able'. ) I've experience of doing academic research, where experience shows that, the dark motors of selfishness (the searches for fame and/or-ish fortune) quite clearly corrode our existence (and - ! - both serve to slow our discovery of 'truth' ! ) O, yes ! And that second, related, thought. At a meeting on Saturday, the matters of power relationships arose. Yesterday, walking out of Ely Cathedral - what a place ! - Ken Galbraith's book 'The Anatomy of Power' popped into my thoughts. That great (great, despite his, nor any? others of the US great minds having the balls to challenge usury) man, there gives a definition of power (again my paraphrases) as: "The ability to get another to do what (the more powerful) wants done." His taxonomy (?) of power is: Condign power - "Do it or I'll hurt you." Compensatory power - "Do it and I'll give you X, Y or Z." (I actually see this as the same as the first, since access to resources is the route away from the pains and fears of hunger, homelessness, loneliness and boredom. However . . . ) And: Conditioned power - where the power-less acts in the interest of the power-full, without giving the power-reinforcing action the slightest thought. In this taxonomy, the first relates to the power relatioships of feudalism, the second, those of capitalism, and the third, the power relationship of Toffler ( and etc)'s 'Third Age.' Since the first phases drew their possibility for action from theft from the common weal of tangible resources (land etc.), the theft of knowledge from the intellectual commonweal is equally that - theft. (And its use for private gain, the use of stolen goods ! ) HTH Hugs to all j *
FW Techno-Eugenics Email List newsletter #3 (fwd)
Of possible interest to FWers To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: (Fwd) Techno-Eugenics Email List newsletter #3 Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 07:39:05 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Loop: 70438 Hi - thought this might be of interest to you. to subscribe send a message to marcy (bottom of newsletter). mike Welcome to the Techno-Eugenics Email List Newsletter Number 3 November 21, 1999 Supporting genetic science in the public interest Opposing the new techno-eugenics This is Issue Number 3 of the Techno-Eugenics Email List newsletter, as far as we know the only on-line newsletter focused on the politics of the new human genetic and reproductive technologies. If you're receiving this news- letter for the first time, please see the instructions for subscribing and submitting items at the end of this message. --- --- "We cannot find our humanity in our genes. But because of the increasing progress in genetic diagnostics and manipulation, we will increasingly confront genetic questions and problems that *challenge* our humanity." --Craig Holdrege, Genetics and the Manipulations of Life: The Forgotten Factor of Context (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1996, page 151) --- --- CONTENTS I.WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT: "The Ethics and Politics of Human Germline Engineering" (UC Berkeley, Sunday, December 5) II. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND STATEMENTS OPPOSING TECHNO-EUGENICS 1. Anti-eugenics protest in London at Galton Society 2. John Horgan calls techno-eugenic predictions "irresponsible" 3. Jedediah Purdy on human genetic engineering 4. New article on human genetic engineering by Leon Kass III. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND STATEMENTS PROMOTING TECHNO-EUGENICS 1. Time magazine provides forum for designer baby advocates 2. Developments in research on artificial chromosomes 3. Francis Fukuyama: The end of (human) history, reconsidered 4. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan predicts designer babies 5. Lester Thurow advocates genetic enhancement IV. OTHER POINTERS AND NEWS 1. German philosophers debate eugenic engineering 2. New web site on early American eugenics movement 3. Japanese cloning researchers break the rules V.ABOUT THE TECHNO-EUGENICS EMAIL LIST NEWSLETTER I. WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT The Case Against Designer Babies: The Politics and Ethics of Human Germline Manipulation Sunday, December 5, 1:00-5:00 pm, Sociology Department Commons, 402 Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley. The workshop presentation will summarize the formal ethical debate on human cloning and germline engineering, and update participants on the escalating campaign to promote these technologies. The main focus of the presentation and the discussion that follows will be on articulating and developing a political framework for opposing human germline manipulations. We will consider where and how to draw the lines that matter, and how to embed opposition to germline engineering in a commitment to equality and democracy. Registrants will receive a detailed agenda and logistics information. To register, or for other information, contact Marcy Darnovsky at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Briefing materials from the September 10 workshop, on the technologies of human genetic engineering, are available from Rich Hayes at [EMAIL PROTECTED]. II. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND STATEMENTS OPPOSING TECHNO-EUGENICS 1.Anti-eugenics protest in London at Galton Society This report from David King in London: "On September 17, activists from People Against Eugenics disrupted the meeting of the Galton Institute, formerly the Eugenics Society. The action prevented Arthur Jensen from delivering his Galton lecture on race and IQ." [Jensen is the UC professor of educational psychology who claims that the differences between African American and white American IQ scores are genetically caused, and who has urged `genetic foresight.'] "The decision of the venue (The Zoological Society of London) to close down the meeting also prevented Glayde Whitney of the University of Florida from speaking on 'Reproductive technology for a New Eugenics.' "People Against Eugenics is
Paine's AGRARIAN JUSTICE on the Internet
To: William B. Ryan and a few friends on several mail lists Good Day, Bill, You made my day with your 99-11-29 post to list [EMAIL PROTECTED] stating that Thomas Paine's 1797 "Agrarian Justice" was archived at URL http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7018/social-security/paine4.html . The copy I have relied on for many years, in Vol. I of "A Treasury Of American Literature," did not include Paine's "Author's Inscription - French Edition," nor his "Author's English Preface," nor the concluding "MEANS FOR CARRYING THE PROPOSED PLAN INTO EXECUTION, AND TO RENDER IT AT THE SAME TIME CONDUCIVE TO THE PUBLIC INTEREST." Two hundred years of hard experience have not added very much to what he said in "Agrarian Justice" and in his 1792 "The Rights Of Man, Part Second." Thanks again, Bill, for bringing this URL to our attention. Kind Regards, Wesburt
Re: Knowledge - The New Frontier ( for exploitation ! )
John, You make a very good case for not paying composers, painters, movie directors and other artists.Which is what has happened in the U.S William Baumol has a paper on the NYU Economics site about the problem of "spillovers" which means that the person who comes up with an idea does not get the full financial benefit of his R D. Of course you make the case that his discovery is meaningless since it was all out there to begin with. Sort of "A cow is of a bovine ilk one end is moo the other milk." And we all have the right to graze to our heart's content. What is that cow on the internet's name? You know the one. She grazes for her ideas and then makes money without compensating the poor fools who wanted recognition so bad they wrote it all down on the net. She is their visable partner or is that parasite? What about "externalities"? Are you suggesting that there is no such thing as private property? Or is only physical property capable of being private or capital?What about money? Is it physical property? Should all "intellectual capital" folks make their living teaching in Universities and compose, philosophize, research etc. for fun? Is this the root of all of that half-hearted, poorly thought out education in the Universities these days?Of course if you have a really hard-nosed composer like a Wagner or a Strauss you might find him selling his soul to the local devil just to be able to compose full time.This happened in 1938 with most of the musicians and university staff of Germany when they elected to follow full employment in their professions into the Nazi party. They were tired of governmental and societal activities that imposed uncompensated costs upon themselves even thought their work was being used and forced them to make a living in other than their expertise. (negative externalities).They were forced to either give up their professions or to create benefits for people who didn't pay for those benefits. (positive externalities) In other words the "free riders" in the society created the climate which produced a monster and murdered the most convenient and affluent group in order to solve a job population problem. The best the local Georgists or others can seem to come up with is scarcity. Make it scarce enough and it will grow in value and make compensation happen. Of course it didn't and doesn't work that way with intellectual capital. Scarcity just means your consumers grow dumb and don't know the difference between having it and not.Same problem with software. So find a way to charge for everything or nothing seems to be the only solution by the intellectually barren. In artistic styles you can usually forecast the end of an era by the complexity and brownian movement required to accomplish formerly simple tasks.I suspect that we are approaching the "North" in our economics and that something new is in the works. Something less linear and more able to integrate the idea of linkage and networking that the Internet is now teaching the formerly linear business world. As has been said often on this list. It may be the very nature of work itself as well as the concept of value. I don't work for money and I know few artists who do. But we all must eat, live and propagate or make war. Artists, as I noted earlier, make the best propagandists, for Tyrants, in the business. So maybe the issue here is a more mature grown-up attitude about work itself. Perhaps people should work to accomplish goals within the work itself rather than for money. It finally just took too much to keep Copernicus afloat. Are we approaching that same situation with the economic theory of markets?They try to claim that they are ultimately simple and yet the language and theories are convoluted and resemble artistic (art for its own sake) formulas more than practical ways of keeping a society afloat. And they lie. Consider the sublime duality that even permeates so liberal an institution as this list itself. On the one hand you have the commons and on the other you have the individualists. Why must we be hung on the cross of these two alternatives? The one thing about a cross is that it isn't one unless you have both sides at once. But a cross is not a circle, except in one dimension, and so only signifies a tremendous lack of imagination in problem solving that infects those who can only see two sides. The individual and the commons are just two pendulum swings on the circle and should be acknowledged as two vital parts but only two. Can we get beyond the Barron's Business Review Series for a discussion on these issues crucial for the Future of Work? Or should we say that there is a bottom line bibliography for serious discussion of any of these problems? Regards Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here is a "reasonable" defense of grazing by the Queen
Re: Knowledge - The New Frontier ( for exploitation ! )
"Ray E. Harrell" wrote: Correction paragraph five should read: They were tired of governmental and societal activities that imposed uncompensated costs upon themselves even though their work was being used and forced them to make a living in other than their expertise. (negative externalities). They were forced to either give up their professions or to create benefits for people who didn't pay for those benefits. (positive externalities) In other words the "free riders" in the society created the climate which produced a monster and murdered the most convenient and affluent group in order to solve a job population problem. Here is a "reasonable" defense of grazing by the Queen herself. I post it since grazing on her seems to be what she wants. http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Esther_Dyson/ip_on_the_net.article
Re: FW Techno-Eugenics Email List newsletter #3 (fwd)
"S. Lerner" wrote: Of possible interest to FWers To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: (Fwd) Techno-Eugenics Email List newsletter #3 Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 07:39:05 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Loop: 70438 Hi - thought this might be of interest to you. to subscribe send a message to marcy (bottom of newsletter). mike [snip] "We cannot find our humanity in our genes. But because of the increasing progress in genetic diagnostics and manipulation, we will increasingly confront genetic questions and problems that *challenge* our humanity." [snip] No doubt it is true that genetic engineering -- especially under conditions of late-capitalism, will create many not just problems, but straightforward injury and harm. But I fail to see where the pre- diagnosed/manipulated genes that cause hemophilia, various cancers, cystic fibrosis [what's the point: there are so *many* of them!!!] *enhance* anybody's humanity, except on the "conservative" only-torture-builds- strong-characters-12-ways-and/or-enables-you-to- go-to-heaven-or-at-least-be-certified-by-your- society-of-origin-as-a-hero ideology. I think we need to keep always in mind that, as Stephen Jay Gould said: Nature is in love with the *idea* of the individual, *not* with particular individuals. *You* are the indifference -- except insofar as you pass your genes on to the next round of indifferences (and Nature doesn't even care about that, really, since it is not intentional being and so doesn't care, *period*). Only persons (and perhaps higher animals, ETs, etc.) can *care* about anything, although, of course, much human activity it hurtful to people (the kind of care a stalker has for his victim, e.g., is still *care* of *a* sort...). Perhaps one day we will be able to find humanity in our genes: when children are born who will discover that all the impediments to their possibility for fullest elaboration of their potential have been engineered out of their genome by not just affectively, but also *effectively* loving parents. We cannot find humanity in our genes because we did not create them Etc. \brad mccormick -- Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: FW Techno-Eugenics Email List newsletter #3 (fwd)
Brad - Some food for thought: We're already seeing Western parents weeding out foetuses by gender. People with disabilities have a strong case, which disability activists do present, that genetic selection against any disability will affect the way we treat all disabilities or perhaps even negatively-viewed differences. Who has the ethical right to chose that a child or children e.g. with a less-than-average or average intelligence, not be born? The government? Your insurance company? Your employer? Some particularly heartless people give the argument that children with disabilities are a financial burden on all of society. The slippery slope includes societal pressures which could become ever more stringent. This is not an impossibility. We are aware that in certain Asian countries, infant girls were victims even of infanticide - and this not only with social approbation, but encouragement. P.S. I'm not convinced that this is an appropriate subject for the Futurework listserve. Susan (Toronto) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: "S. Lerner" wrote: Of possible interest to FWers To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: (Fwd) Techno-Eugenics Email List newsletter #3 Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 07:39:05 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Loop: 70438 Hi - thought this might be of interest to you. to subscribe send a message to marcy (bottom of newsletter). mike [snip] "We cannot find our humanity in our genes. But because of the increasing progress in genetic diagnostics and manipulation, we will increasingly confront genetic questions and problems that *challenge* our humanity." [snip] No doubt it is true that genetic engineering -- especially under conditions of late-capitalism, will create many not just problems, but straightforward injury and harm. But I fail to see where the pre- diagnosed/manipulated genes that cause hemophilia, various cancers, cystic fibrosis [what's the point: there are so *many* of them!!!] *enhance* anybody's humanity, except on the "conservative" only-torture-builds- strong-characters-12-ways-and/or-enables-you-to- go-to-heaven-or-at-least-be-certified-by-your- society-of-origin-as-a-hero ideology. I think we need to keep always in mind that, as Stephen Jay Gould said: Nature is in love with the *idea* of the individual, *not* with particular individuals. *You* are the indifference -- except insofar as you pass your genes on to the next round of indifferences (and Nature doesn't even care about that, really, since it is not intentional being and so doesn't care, *period*). Only persons (and perhaps higher animals, ETs, etc.) can *care* about anything, although, of course, much human activity it hurtful to people (the kind of care a stalker has for his victim, e.g., is still *care* of *a* sort...). Perhaps one day we will be able to find humanity in our genes: when children are born who will discover that all the impediments to their possibility for fullest elaboration of their potential have been engineered out of their genome by not just affectively, but also *effectively* loving parents. We cannot find humanity in our genes because we did not create them Etc. \brad mccormick -- Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
