The likely evolutionary path of the human race:
David M. Petersen
In this high-tech day and age, there is a disturbing trend emerging concerning people's private information becoming more and more detailed and accessible to anyone. This problem is a direct result of our civilization becoming increasingly dependent on computers for processing all types of information. These days, everything is computerized, from medical records and employment records to people's personal correspondence (email) and contents of their shopping cart (grocery store card club accounts). Also, there are many nameless and faceless organizations that process or have access to your personal data that you most likely aren't aware of. For example, many people do not realize that there is an organization called the Medical Information Bureau that provides information to about 600 insurance companies (Donovan 2). In essence, if you apply to one insurance company, they all have access to your information! This existence of this organization illustrates not only the pervasiveness and accessibility of your medical records, but is indicative of all personal data in general. More and more people and organizations all the time are handling people's personal information. One scary aspect of this information being stored in computers is the fact that the data is easily sorted and indexed, but is often completely wrong! This aspect of computer technology raises a serious moral issue, because there are many ways that this easy access to not always correct information can adversely affect the financial as well as emotional well being of people. For example, Bronti Kelly of Temecula, California, found himself repeatedly turned down for jobs in retail. Finally, he learned that the Stores Protection Association, a private firm that carries out background checks on job applicants, was telling each employer that he had been arrested for shoplifting. It turns out that months earlier someone had taken Kelly's wallet. Caught swiping goods from a store, the thief gave Kelly's ID to credulous and careless police officials, thus initiating his nightmare. (Brin 60).
They've all got it wrong concerning how consciousness works; read this...
Because of the computerized access of this man's false arrest record, his well-being was seriously threatened. The man's reputation was very seriously maligned, not to mention the loss of income that he sustained. Access to your information by the wrong people can be harmful as well. Individuals bent on no good can find out just a little bit of information about you and then use it to get more information about you on the Internet. They can then use all of this information to steal bank accounts, open charge accounts, rent apartments, and even take out mortgages in your name! (Brin 60). While there are lesser examples of privacy violations such as junk mail and telephone soliciting, these two examples, easy access and pervasiveness of incorrect information and access of people's information in order to hurt them together make up the lion's share of the issue of the eroding privacy of information. This is a moral issue that truly potentially affects the well being of all groups of people Worldwide. It is a problem that knows no racial or national lines, and will only potentially get worse as more and more of the daily business of the World becomes computerized. However, before the reader gets the idea that this will be a paper about the evils of technology that should be stopped, I wish to make the point that this issue is an inevitable one in a necessarily evolving World that is becoming increasingly conscious, and I will explain what I mean by the word "conscious" shortly. Therefore, dealing with this problem is an essential part of the evolutionary process of the human race becoming more conscious, and it is already beginning to be addressed.
Many people neglect the fact that we live in a necessarily evolving World. It is an inescapable conclusion when we take into account that the World is part of the Universe, and it is and accepted fact that the Universe has been continuously evolving since its birth 12 to 15 billion years ago in a big bang. It is not at all a logical stretch to conclude then, that the Universe, and therefore the World, must evolve to exist at all. Mankind, as well as his technology, are indisputably an integral part of this evolving system, and are both evolving within it. Viewed from this perspective of being completely integral within the Universe, mankind's technology is not good or bad, it just is, and therefore computer technology (and all of its ramifications) is not good or bad either, it just exists. Additionally, many people incorrectly think of technology as a thing that can be stopped. The problem with this idea is that the minute somebody, somewhere, invents a technology that gives anybody, anywhere, some kind of advantage, we are stuck with that technology. Attempts to squash the technology by government will only drive it underground, and then the government doing the squashing will only have to revive it in order to compete. For example, The United States during World War II had no choice but to develop the Atomic Bomb, because Germany could have achieved this capability first and destroyed us. Technology is an unstoppable aspect of our evolution, and it is our job to try and control any negative aspects of it that arise. Computer technology is therefore an essential and unstoppable part of our evolving World, and one we have no choice but to deal with.
One obvious ramification of this evolution of the World is the fact that we as the human race are becoming increasingly more conscious. By more conscious, I mean that conscious individuals worldwide are both more informed, and more connected to and aware of each other than at any point in our history as the human race. This results in more total consciousness. The global synchronization of time is one of the first big examples of this, allowing people to interact more completely and precisely with each other across the globe, and thus raising people's awareness of other people across the globe. In his essay, "The Monastery and the Clock", Lewis Mumford outlines the beginnings of the transformation of the human race brought about by the synchronization of time. "One has only to imagine [the clock's] absence today to foresee the speedy disruption and eventual collapse of our entire society", he writes (Mumford 9). The Internet is the next most obvious characteristic of this global "rising of consciousness". The Internet represents the conscious exchange of information globally at an unprecedented rate. It is also allowing communication between groups and individuals that was difficult or not even possible before. For example, Esther Dyson writes in her essay "The Sound of the Virtual Voice" about how communicating over the Internet has helped level the playing field for women in business. "My online voice does not have a high pitch of the kind that many men find hard, for whatever reason, to hear", she writes (Dyson 130). This is a good example of how individuals across the globe are becoming more aware of each other by being more able to communicate together. The growth of the Internet is quite obviously a process that, while not quite symmetrical as far as its growth on the planet, (China censoring the Internet, for example) will only continue to grow. It is clear that Human Beings are becoming increasingly more conscious, or better informed and more aware of and able to communicate with each other, as we move into the future.
Additionally, all information is necessarily more accessible as a direct result of this process of the human race becoming more conscious, and this has mostly positive ramifications. The previously discussed "rising of consciousness" phenomenon corresponds to a sort of "opening up" of the World. In David Brin's book The Transparent Society, Brin argues that the World must open up in terms of the free access of information and ideas in order to successfully move into the future. He points to a commentary in Wired magazine to help illustrate this point:
In [a] Wired magazine commentary, Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden ...contrast what the World may look like if it takes either the "closed route or an "open' one. In the former case, nations turn inward, fragmenting into blocs. This strengthens rigidity of thought, stagnates the economy, increases poverty, mutual fear, and intolerance, leading to the vicious cycle of an even more closed and fragmented World. If on the other hand, society adopts the open model, then a virtuous circle turns cultures outward, making them receptive to innovation and new ideas. Rising affluence and trust lead to growing tolerance and trade, smaller economic units, amore open society, and a more integrated World (Brin 328).
This quote illustrates very well the relationship between the rising of consciousness and the opening up of accessibility of information. Being "receptive to innovation and new ideas" and "rising affluence and trust lead[ing] to growing tolerance and trade" all point to a more conscious World. There are many examples in our past that illustrate the "closed World" model, the cold war between the United States and Russia being a good example. Obviously "rigidity of thought" and "mutual fear and intolerance" are things we want to avoid in the future. It is clear that open access to information globally is ultimately a positive thing for the Human Race overall.
However, it is essential that we deal with the moral issue of the eroding privacy of information caused by this open information paradigm because people are getting hurt, either by the free availability of incorrect information or the free availability of personal information that can be used against a person. An incident involving the aforementioned Medical Information Bureau found in the article "What your insurer knows about you" by Frances Donovan is a good example of how information can be used against a person. She writes that, "In one famous case, an Iowa woman sought treatment in an emergency room after an incident of domestic violence. Later, she was turned down for life insurance because of it"(Donovan 4). Obviously we cannot allow this kind of thing to happen. Identity theft is also a big problem. Jim McDermott, a congressman from Seattle, was actually impersonated for a long time, with large amounts of money being rung up in his name. (Brin 60). These are examples of how any one of us can have our financial and emotional well being threatened at any time. It is clear that we must, on moral grounds, labor to fix these problems related to freer access to information.
In fact, we are laboring steadily in this regard. One of the most effective measures towards this goal is simply making individuals more aware of the ways to protect themselves against identity theft. In Adriane G. Berg's article "How to Stop Identity Theft," Adriane outlines several strategies for protecting oneself. It turns out that most thieves get there initial information directly from the people they are stealing from offline, and then use this information to go online to get more information. Mainly her advice is to be very careful about releasing any information to anyone, especially your mother's maiden name, as this is very important to credit card companies. Being very careful with your information online, using encryption and not trusting every website is also important. (Berg 1). As far as the big picture, according to Anne Wells Branscomb, a communications and computer lawyer, privacy laws in the United States and Europe are currently a patchwork of incomplete and ineffective laws. But this is changing because of the repeated outcry of people being wronged by disclosures of information. She writes,
We are in the process of designing a new paradigm for our information society, one that offers room for great economic, intellectual, social, and political growth. It must be based upon the recognition that information is a valuable asset whether the claimant is an individual, a corporation, a national entity, or humanity at large (Branscomb 180). This process of design is happening one battle at a time; take the Bork nomination hearings, for example. A reporter had uncovered a list of the videotapes the judge had rented, and public outcry was fierce. Congress responded rapidly to this (Branscomb 180). No one denies that these and other battles about the ways to deal with all of the new information relationships, from intellectual property laws and government information laws to privacy of information laws, are tough problems that will not be easily solved. However, progress on the issue of people being morally wronged by easy access to information is definitely being made.
And so it is clear that while there are many examples of negative ramifications of the freer access to information in a computerized society, and that this is a moral issue that must be addressed, the issue is an inevitable one in a necessarily evolving World that is becoming increasingly conscious. Dealing with this problem is merely part of our job as the human race, because the process of our becoming more conscious and globally open with our information is clearly essential to our continued success as a species. In other words, solving this problem is an essential part of our evolutionary process. The problem is, as shown, already beginning to be addressed, both by people's growing awareness of how to protect themselves as well as impending global measures to combat the problem.
Work Cited
Berg, Adriane G. "How To Stop Identity Theft" 04/09/01. http://underwire.msn.com/Underwire/reallife
/Savey/68savvy.asp
Branscome, Anne Wells. Who Owns Information?- From Privacy to Public Access. NewYork: BasicBooks, 1994.
Brin, David. The Transparent Society – Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? Massachusetts: Addison-Westley, 1998.
Donovan, Frances. "What Your Insurer Knows About You" 04/09/01.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/insure
/basics/5161.asp?package=moneymonday
Philosophy 110 – Science, Technology & Human Values. Dr. S.D.N. Cook, ed. Dyson, Esther. "The Sound of the Virtual Voice." Mumford, Lewis. "The Monastery and the Clock". Spring 2001.
Other Works by David M. Petersen