(no subject)

Last night, another Immodest Proposals event. The topic was the ethics of pursuing what freeradical42 termed 'dual-use technologies' when their pursuit offered clear and present risks to humanity. We narrowed down dual-use technologies to any technology or scientific idea that offered both benefits to humanity and the risk of malicious abuse. We weren't as interested, specifically, in technologies that might lead to accidental injury. What we were interested in was technologies like nuclear fission, useful both as a clean and abundant energy source and as the mechanism of the atom bomb. Or GPS, endless source of good directions and a powerful tool for government surveillance and tracking.

And like research that's hit the news recently about the Avian Flu and apparently successful efforts to make it more easy transmissible to humans. Controversy has erupted over attempts to keep this research from being published because of its dual-use status, and it served as the impetus and focal point of the discussion. The panel consisted of two virologists with experience with influenza and a science writer with a lot of experience with public communication about science and the major journals.

The flu stuff was fascinating and occasionally terrifying, but I was obviously most in my element when we discussed the ethics of the Manhattan Project. I made a point of shaping that narrative and offering some correctives to the conventional narrative. Scientists working for private institutions artificially split the atom for the first time, then immediately started writing to the government seeking guidance and decision-making. That was not a case of the government taking over research over the objections of researchers. It was, by and large, a case of scientists turning over research to government because they didn't trust themselves with the ethical decisions at play. They felt it required a national debate and national leadership.

We discussed parallel discovery and serendipitous rediscovery and all the ways nature has of making it hard for Pandora to be put back in her box- if there ever is a Pandora's Box moment at all. It's not clear to me that you can pinpoint a certain point in the evolution of atomic energy and say "If we'd stopped with that discovery, there would have been no way for people to independently move forward and create the atom bomb." Science doesn't work that way. (Though someone raised the P=NP problem, a major potential scientific discovery that doesn't require any expensive equipment and might be discovered and then hidden by its discoverer for exploitation. The difficulty of the problem means it might sit discovered but unknown for decades or more if some lone genius solves it. This is implausible, I think, but possible.)

So we discussed mechanisms of classifying or otherwise suppressing information and the tradeoffs involved in classifying information and we were just heading toward the interesting topic of how to find a middle ground between complete classification and open public knowledge when we ran out of time. I think that middle ground is vitally important because public knowledge isn't just part of the problem, it's also part of the solution. A populace that doesn't know about H5N1 doesn't know how to respond to it, potentially exacerbating a dangerous situation. Figuring out how to balance those competing needs will be an important challenge going forward- after all, as the Greeks teach us, Pandora's Box can be closed, but it can never be refilled.


The social aspect of the event itself was great. So many unexpected appearances from old friends!!! Just lots and lots of good hugs and good conversations. New friends, too. Somehow ImP has become larger than we all expected it to become, and people who were attracted by I have no idea what have become friendly faces over the past months. It's always a good time.

(no subject)

Also, I finished Tom McCarthy's Remainder yesterday and... I'm frustrated with myself for not expecting the book to go where it did, and frustrated with myself for being somewhat disappointed with where it did go. It is a magnificent, beautiful monument of a novel and the ending is spectacular, but it was not a Jewish ending. (It was not an un-Biblical ending. It was not a Christian ending. I don't want you to misconstrue "not a Jewish ending" as "failing to incorporate Jewish perspectives" as I often use that phrase with great rage. I did not rage after finishing the book)

Instead, what we had was a novel about the act of Creation that concludes with a moment of ecstatic worship to the concept of entropy. It's a profoundly Modern moment, but not exactly a wrongheaded or flawed one. In many ways it's the obvious direction for the novel to go, not quite religious but certainly an interesting approximation of it. That's why I'm frustrated with myself for not expecting it. I did sense it coming. As the Creation narrative built, I could sense but not exactly put my finger on the places where it wasn't going according to plan. I knew he wasn't just parroting Genesis but altering its structure in deep ways. But it still took me by surprise, even though I should have known better.

I think I usually place my Jewish faith as a layer on top of my understanding of entropic development, so that I am not confronted directly with the idea of Entropic Heat Death. I speak frequently in religious contexts of the idea that Creation created a little bubble of space where entropy is being resisted. (It seems connected to tzimtzum for me, though I do not profess to be a Kabbalist). Finding faith immediately in entropic decay is a bridge too far for me. It made me very, very uncomfortable.