For technoprogressives it can be excruciating to witness the persistence with which spurious objections to promising technologies wield massive influence over public policy, law and attitudes. This article explores what is arguably the main underlying reason for this—namely fear—and what are the options for addressing this underlying fear.
Where does fear come from?
There are basically five reasons why people get scared.
The first, and most fundamental, is that it’s in our nature. Fear is a psychological process that first evolved in reptiles to allow them to react to threats in a much more flexible way. Whenever we are scared, it is this innate threat perception mechanism that is at work.
The problem is that what helped our stone age ancestors to pass on their genes to the next generation isn’t necessarily what helps people in the modern world to fulfill their dreams (assuming they’ve got round to defining what they are), so it’s important to also look at what triggers this mechanism.
The first and most direct trigger for fear, and therefore the second reason we get scared, is signals coming from our bodies. Any kind of physical discomfort is likely to provoke a fear response. Furthermore, since fear itself causes physiological changes that often cause discomfort (knot in the stomach, tightening of the throat etc), a positive feedback loop can easily be established. This is basically why people get panic attacks.
The third reason we get scared is external stimuli. Drilling next door, a family member or colleague who is upset or angry, even a busy street can, depending on how sensitive you are at the time, trigger the fear response.
A fourth reason we get scared is what Russ Harris in The Happiness Trap refers to as “control strategies”. These are things we do habitually to make ourselves feel better, without necessarily being aware that that’s what we are doing, such as arguing about religion on IEET comment threads. For example, one of the things I often do when I’m feeling anxious is to pace up and down thinking. This often calms me down at first, but by keeping my mind stimulated and active it can also be exhausting leading to further anxiety later.
Only at the bottom of this list, in my view, comes actual perception of real risk. Everybody with the slightest self-awareness knows that many of the things they worry about aren’t really that important. We get things out of proportion, we worry about the wrong things at the wrong time, we worry about things we can’t really do much about anyway, or we complain and then reject any suggestion for actually doing something about it that anyone is unwise enough to throw at us. Once again, what might actually constitute a real threat to the realization of our goals is not, in general, what our stone age brains are given to worrying about.
None of this would matter quite so much if we were better at recognizing fear for what it is, rather than always trying to justify our fear by insisting that there really is a risk, while simultaneously denying that we are actually scared (because we are scared of losing social status). But unfortunately the latter is what we tend to do, and among all of our control strategies one is probably more dominant than anything else: reliance on tried and tested routines.
What this means for technology
If there is one obstacle in the way of those wanting to promote the proactive use of technology to create a better world it is, very simply, that people are scared of technology, especially new technology. Technology disrupts the tried and tested routines that give our leaves meaning and make us feel comfortable. And instead of “feeling the fear and doing it anyway”, we simultaneously deny that we are remotely scared of technology, and invent all sorts of scare stories to justify the fears that we claim we don’t have. Often, although by no means always, these scare stories take the form of religious taboos, which in turn form part of whole structures of thought whose main purpose is to justify the associated religious rituals and behaviour patterns (read: tried and tested routines). And because of the powerful psychological factors at play, using reason to break down these thought-structures is like using a feather to move a concrete block.
Instead we need to circumvent them. Once people are no longer scared—or, more realistically, have found something better to be scared about, such as a genuine threat to their life goals, which they have actually got round to defining—surprising things can happen. Arguments they have been using for years to justify their opposition will suddenly melt away, and be replaced by lame excuses for having changed their minds. If their objections are religion-based, then you will suddenly find that their religion has “evolved” so that it no longer constitutes an obstacle to adoption of the technology.
Interestingly, one consequence of this is that, if we want societies to embrace technology more pro-actively, we might do well to focus more on the risks associated with it. People want to be scared—that’s just the way we are—and if you can get them to focus on the real issues that they need to be scared about, in relation to emerging technology, then they will be less likely to invent or buy into fake ones. And in the mean time, we are gradually familiarizing them with the possibilities that these technologies offer. Nobody wants religion when there is something more exciting on offer.
Preventing technological dystopia
And the best way to focus on genuine risks is to develop strategies to mitigate them. In this context, five options spring to mind:
1. Carry on and hope for the best.
2. Try to slow technological development as far as possible.
3. Clearly distinguish between “good” technologies and “bad” technologies and prioritise the former.
4. Prioritise and promote exploration of the ethical implications of emerging technology.
5. Try to think of something else.
The first of these options is less stupid than it might sound. In medicine it is called “watchful waiting”. It recognizes that this is a real issue, without jumping to conclusions about what should be done about it. It recognizes that often the efforts we make to deal with a risk can be counter-productive. There is a lot to be said for watchful waiting.
But this would be a boring article if I just said, “Yeah, this is a problem but I don’t really know what to do about it”, and in practice various people are actively engaged in the other four options I’ve mentioned. So let’s look at them.
Trying to slow technological development can easily be dismissed as futile, and is generally anathema in technoprogressive circles. There are opportunity costs as well: while we are busy foaming at the mouths and doing our darnedest to prevent these crazy scientists coming up with latest frankenfood, people are suffering and dying premature deaths as a result of “natural” causes, for which read retarded technological progress. But there are advantages as well. Even if we can’t halt technological progress altogether, and despite the very real opportunity costs, slowing technological progress arguably gives us more time to activate the other options for preventing technological dystopia (including “watchful waiting”. This is an especially important consideration for those of us who tend to see obstacles to uptake of technology as a “problem to be solved”, or worse.
The third option seems at first sight to be the most sensible. It is a commonplace that technology is neutral (it’s not how big it is, it’s what you do with it…), but it’s also pretty obvious that if you channel your technological development towards obviously beneficial ends it’s likely to lead to better results than if you channel it towards obviously harmful or risky ends. This can be overdone, however. Firstly, we really don’t know how technology will be used. Apparently peaceful technologies can be used for ill, and wartime technologies have often subsequently been adopted for peaceful ends. War can be a wonderful (well no, dreadful actually…but rich nonetheless) source of technological innovation. Too much picking and choosing on ethical grounds could be counter-productive.
The fourth option obviously supports the third, but is also independent of it. It’s what we do on this site (inter alia), of course, and in my view it’s a low- or no-cost activity that is unquestionably helpful. It can be frustrating and confusing, and sometimes it feels like a pointless waste of time, but ultimately I have a firm belief that this is the surest way to ensure the best outcomes. One of the main reasons we create dystopias is that we don’t manage to agree on what we want, and exploration ethical issues is, ultimately, the way a society determines what it wants. We don’t always call it that (we often call it “political debate”): we are trying to figure out what is the right thing to do, which ultimately is synonymous with deciding what we want (and what is most likely to make it happen).
Finally, whatever strategies we adopt for preventing technological dystopia, there will always be shinier and better ones that we haven’t thought of. So in addition to pursuing them, and watchfully waiting to see what happens, we should also be actively trying to think of new ones. An important point here is that the analytical mindset that we employ in order to assess risks and get at the truth is of limited help. We need to be creative, and this means getting carried away by our enthusiasm and over-excited. This kind of idea-generating discourse is something I would like to see more of on this site, not least in the comment threads.
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Shouldn’t we focus less on risks and more on opportunities?