[mgh2]

Technology is just a tool, ethics depends on the user.

Study history: WWII, Cold War, etc. If you play nice with dictators, you will be annihilated. We have been enjoying the benefits of freedom and democracy our ancestors fought for, without considering the costs of their sacrifices.

Extensive data and studies (ex: Zimbardo, Milgram) supports that humans have immense capacity for evil- checks and balances are there to avoid this dark side of human nature.

Missiles are there to deter evil (order), not necessarily to propagate it (chaos). So there you have it.

[nsajko]

Zimbardo (the Stanford Prison Experiment) is a fraud. You can check Wikipedia, and even on HN there were many stories; search for "Zimbardo" or "Stanford Prison Experiment".

[pjmorris]

> Technology was always just a tool

There's a 1918 plaque in Bath, NC that reads "Bath, originally the Indian town of Pampticough, was settled by white men about 1690 and incorporated in 1703. It is the oldest town in North Carolina."

What enabled the replacement of the original inhabitants was technology, in the form of ships, guns, and, arguably, health care. Given that events like this are some of the sources of the 'freedom and democracy our ancestors fought for', are you willing to grant that evil depends on which side you stand on? Are you willing to discuss the idea that maybe technology isn't neutral?

[mgh2]

Please expand your case. Those technologies were developed for other initial purposes, your case just proves an example of ethics depending on users

[pjmorris]

'Technology is neutral' presumes equal access to technology. Technology without uniform access yields a power imbalance.

[mgh2]

Shifting the moral responsibility from the human/user/corporation to the technology itself seems illogical.

Democratization might work, but isn't there a risk for the user to corrupt its intended purpose due to the inherent darkness of human nature?

Ex: Initial intents of democratizing knowledge (Google) or social networks (Facebook) both ultimately ended up corroding society with misinformation, fueled by human greed in the ad industry.

What do you say of missiles, and as extension, nuclear weapons? Do you want dictatorships to have them as well? They will ultimately, but we cannot control their use for deterrence or destruction (MAD policy).

[pjmorris]

> Shifting the moral responsibility from the human/user/corporation to the technology itself seems illogical.

Sure, it is people who make decisions, and so they have moral responsibility (at least in my model of the world and in yours.) Consider our examples; whether it's ships and guns leading to the colonization of the US, nuclear weapons leading to the threat of nuclear destruction, or TCPIP, HTTP, HTML, etc leading to the societal effects of Google and Facebook, there are unintended consequences that wouldn't be present if the technology were absent.

> Democratization might work, but isn't there a risk for the user to corrupt its intended purpose due to the inherent darkness of human nature?

> What do you say of missiles, and as extension, nuclear weapons? Do you want dictatorships to have them as well?

So, again from our examples, in your view, 'we' (the ones with the technology) are the 'good guys', and 'they' (the ones without the technology) are the 'bad guys.' Is there something besides the technology that actually makes us morally superior, or are all humans created equal? I don't see how you can have it both ways. To me, it looks like technology is the difference, making its case for neutrality suspect IMO.

[bumby]

>To me, it looks like technology is the difference, making its case for neutrality suspect IMO.

I'm not convinced this follows. It's seems like what the OP is saying is that technology has the ability to amplify the morals of those wielding it. That technology is the difference is exactly the point. It's amoral and when owned by the "good guys" (whatever your definition), it amplifies those morals and ethics and vice versa for the "bad guys".

In other words, it's not the technology but the morals of those who own it that is the root of good/evil. Unless your point is that a neutrality requirement is that technology must be incapable of being used for either good or ill, the neutrality claim is valid. (Personally, I prefer the term 'amoral' to neutral but I suspect the OP meant the same thing).

[geofft]

The Cold War is an interesting example. We fought the Korean War relatively successfully, and we were left with the country split into a prosperous modern economy on one side and a paranoid (arguably justifiably so), insular dictatorship on the other. We lost the Vietnam War and the country is doing quite well. The Soviet Union itself fell without a direct war - ramping up spending to be able to fight a hot war was a major cause, yes, but so was the inevitable increasing spread of information.

And China now is far too powerful for us to even think about fighting a hot war against, yet if you shared the facts about it with anyone from half a century ago, they wouldn't have to think for more than a second before recognizing it as a dictatorship, a nationalist, supposedly-socialist single-party country with a cult of personality, suppression of rights in neighboring territories, and ongoing genocide. We're playing nice with them, because if we don't, we'll be annihilated.

If humans have immense capacity for evil, one of the best things we can do is limit how much damage their dark side can do. Lots of technology is great - communications technology so you can learn about the rest of the world, the ability to increase food production and provide clean water, healthcare, protection from the elements, transportation, and so forth. It's not clear to me that missiles are really the right tool.