From Continuum 4

Charles Stross, Russell Blackford, and Margo Lanagan, Melbourne, July 2006.

Continuum 4 was a fairly quiet science fiction convention for me, though I was on a few panels - one on Greg Egan, one on making money from writing, and one or two others. As always at these things, the masquerade was a highlight. There's not a lot more to report, but I did enjoy catching up with lots of friends and meeting some new people, such as Charles S. and Margo L. Both of those folks were very much on my radar, and they turned out to be nice people.

Science fiction in Australia - another good deed done

I've just put what I hope are the final finishing touches to my contribution to the forthcoming Companion to Twentieth Century Australian Literature, 1901-2005 (to be published soon by an American academic press). In my case, I'd been commissioned to write a 5000-word chapter entitled "Science fiction".

My next project is another longish piece about science fiction, but this one will have very different content as it's an article on the overall genre - not just its history in one country - for an on-line literary encyclopedia.

Towards a better debate on emerging technologies

What I find so annoying, or amusing, depending on my mood, about the bioconservative opposition to emerging technologies, such as genetic enhancement, is the moralistic, self-righteous tone. Much of the opposition to emerging technologies depends on an intellectually unacceptable valorisation of the natural, as if smallpox, starvation, and violent death from the fangs and claws of large predators are good things because they are our aspects of our natural condition. We are repeatedly told that there is some mysterious moral worth attaching to the human genome in its currently-evolved state, or to the biological processes of reproduction as we have known them. The prose that emerges from Leon Kass reads as if it should be intoned through the nose (to borrow a phrase from Ezra Pound that was less apt in its original context). To date, any attempt at sensible debate has been almost useless because it just leads to more expressions of smug self-righteousness.

That doesn't mean that my transhumanist friends should have things all their own way. I agree with them that the best outcome with human enhancement technologies would be universal access. That, however, may not be possible in the short term. It depends on just what technologies emerge, in what timeframes, against what social and economic backdrops. As I can see little practical prospect of producing massively greater social and global equality in the next few decades, desirable as this would be, the reality is that enhancement technologies are likely to become available in an unequal world. That sets off my alarm bells, because it will create a serious risk that we will see new castes of people emerge, with some being subordinated to the interests of others.

There's a dilemma here - we could accept at least some restrictions on the development and marketing of these technologies, which is distasteful for many reasons, or we could run the risk of reverting to hierarchical societies, which is a completely unnacceptable price, at least within my philosophical framework. In the long term, restricting what are, on their face, beneficial technologies may not even possible.

One way of putting all this is to warn that we have only a limited time, maybe a few decades, to clean up our act and create a much more economically equal world ...

Actually, that would be too alarmist, since the technologies that would be most risky - those that would introduce dramatic and inheritable enhancement of human abilities - would also be the among the most difficult to develop, thanks to the multifactorial character of most phenotypical traits in humans. In practice, the urgency may not be as great as I've been suggesting so far. Still, the prospect of human enhancement gives us a powerful new reason to reduce economic inequalities within and between societies, and that is obviously (at least to me) better than restricting scientific inquiry or people's liberties.

It would be nice if opponents of new technologies acknowledged that this dilemma is the real cause for concern. If they did so, we could all have a much better debate. The need for some restrictions on the development of some technologies could be part of the discussion, on the basis that any such restrictions would be regrettable band-aid measures while the real issues of economic inequality were addressed. The issues would then be: What social and economic reforms are needed if we are to minimise the risk that human enhancement technologies will lead us back to hierarchical societies? What can we do now to achieve at least some of the necessary reforms? If those reforms will take time, and meanwhile we need to retard some technologies, what are the narrowest possible restrictions on people's liberty that we can tailor? Is there a way we can ensure that any restrictions are temporary and don't demonise emerging technologies? What are the crucial short-term benefits of emerging technologies that we must try to make sure we don't lose? What are the important benefits that we need to keep as possibilities in the longer term? How can we balance these benefits and problems?

I'd welcome a sensible public debate along the above lines. Meanwhile, the current situation in Australia is simply draconian: we have federal laws imposing long prison sentences for a whole range of activities that may be relatively harmless and have nothing to do with the real problem. The kinds of police-state measures offered by Maxwell Mehlman in Wondergenes can't possibly be the answer, either (I gather that Wondergenes may no longer reflect Mehlman's position, to his credit, but that is a different issue).

A very good start would be recognition by bioconservatives that many of the technologies which have been demonised to date (germline therapy, stem-cell research, therapeutic cloning, reproductive cloning, embryonic sex selection) are not actually all that problematic. If we are going to restrict anything by law, even temporarily, I'd like to find a clear tactical way to signal that this is based solely on concerns about the interaction of enhancement with existing economic inequalities (and of course ordinary ethical concerns that we could agree on).

Here's a modest proposal.

The clearest signal would be if the bioconservatives dropped (or reversed) their efforts to prohibit therapeutic and reproductive cloning as long as the necessary research is carried out within ordinary ethical guidelines (e.g. safety, informed consent, the welfare of children). Any moral objections to cloning, outside those guidelines, are simply not the state's business. If at least some of the well-known bioconservatives took this step, it would create the climate for a genuine debate about what needs to be done.

These are serious issues. Let's finally have a proper, rigorous debate.

The expansion of human horizons - nice Benford quote

Gregory Benford has a nice quote over on the Benford & Rose site. "Indeed, the greatest agenda of this century will be the expansion of human horizons by uplifting the bulk of humanity to a standard of living enjoyed by the advanced nations. That would complete the promise begun 500 years ago by the first European expansion, following on Lief Erikson without knowing his role in their own history."

That's a good quote coming from Greg, who sometimes seems like a die-hard libertarian - no one is ever going to accuse him of being some kind of closet socialist. The second sentence would probably raise a few eyebrows among my other friends, but then again anything will raise eyebrows among at least some of my friends. Science fiction writers and philosophers come well equipped with mobile eyebrows. I really like the first sentence. Now, wouldn't it be nice if we could free up a few billion dollars for an agenda like that, given that we don't fight wars any more? Hang on ...

Continuum 4

I'll be spending this coming weekend at a small sf convention in Melbourne, Continuum 4, which looks to be fairly low key compared to Conjure and Conflux - but I'm looking forward to meeting Charles Stross. I'm on a batch of panels including this one: "Writing and the Art of Money: Follow your creative instincts or follow the dollars? Is is possible to do both? Writers discuss."

Hmmm, I think there was only about one year in my life when I made anything approaching a living just from writing - fortunately, I've always had other income sources. Not many people can survive as writers without keeping their day jobs or having some cash stashed away or a supportive life partner or something; it's even harder if, like me, you are picky about what sorts of things you actually want to write. But some of the other people on the panel have made more out of writing than I ever will, so it'll be interesting.

Imagining the future

I came in quite late to this discussion on the Benford & Rose site, maintained by Gregory Benford with evolutionary biologist Michael Rose.

I'm not sure if all my maunderings made good sense. The issues raised in Greg's original contribution go very wide indeed. He starts off worrying about the greater commercial success of fantasy (compared with science fiction), but segues into issues about the future of Western civilisation itself. A lot there to respond to.

More generally, it's a fascinating site. I see that somewhere on the site someone has reviewed a friendly debate between me and Greg from a few years ago. I'm not even sure I'd still subscribe to the views I expressed then (I suspect that Greg's views may have changed a bit for different reasons; he seems more pessimistic these days). Interesting to revisit it, though.

Many-tentacled monster

Anyone else ever have days when they feel they are in a wrestling match with something like this?

I have to admit that it sometimes feels that way to me when I struggle with big projects, like my current one. You can solve one problem but there always seems to be another one to take its place. Right now, I'm trying to sort out in my mind whether a whole lot of work I've been doing in the past couple of years is strictly necessary for the thesis. Maybe it'll turn out that I could get the same results by sticking with a more off-the-shelf basic theory, rather than doing all the fundamental work in normative theory that's been occupying so much of my time. I'm starting to suspect that I could get many of the same conclusions as I'm reaching just by beginning with rule-utilitarianism. That, of course, does not mean that rule-utilitarianism is correct. It might be a very good practical approximation, though. I need to think about this.

"School Reunion" (no, not me)

I'm a huge fan of the British science fiction series Doctor Who, and I've been happily watching the reruns that began in 2003, and then, since last year, the new series from the BBC.

The most recent episode to be shown in Australia (where we're three or four months behind the UK, but I believe ahead of the US) was the "School Reunion" one, which brings back Elisabeth Sladen's character, Sarah Jane Smith for some better closure between her and the Doctor than we got back in the day. This was pure nostalgia for me - here's another bit of popular culture that I grew up on and have always loved both as a kid and adult.

To the credit of all involved, the characterisation of now-middle-aged Sarah and the relationships between her and the Doctor, and between her and current companion Rose Tyler, are handled with remarkable sensitivity. The whole thing left me feeling a bit teary on Saturday night, though it didn't stop me fronting up afterwards to drink a few pints of Guinness with a bunch of Monash colleagues.

Supping with Leviathan - emerging biotechnologies and the state

The state has a role in regulating the new biotechnologies, but what should that role be?

Thoughts of a good Millian
I'm a good enough Millian to be suspicious of attempts by the state (or by the pressure of public opinion, if it comes to that) to interfere in the ways that competent adults choose to live their own lives. Mill's "harm principle" may not be justified all the way down into some kind of philosophical bedrock, but it does seem to be a reasonable one for modern democratic societies to respect in a wide range of cases where the state might otherwise be tempted to overreach. Some such principle is needed to protect us from Leviathan's attempts to control our lives, or else its powers become something to contemplate with fear as much as gratitude.

First, the state has a role in regulating "how we get there from here" - the manner in which emerging biotechnologies can be researched and invented. I hope that no one wants to see research programs that are cruel, exploitative of vulnerable people, or likely to produce shocking outcomes such as the birth of congenitally deformed children. There is a role here for regulators in ensuring that any research is conducted in ways that meet normal ethical requirements.

I think we should accept that this will sometimes create an impasse, whether temporary or permanent. For example, we don't have a safe technology for human reproductive cloning, and for the moment at least there's no obvious prospect of developing it without conducting unethical experiments. That does not entail that human cloning would be an intrinsically wrong act, or that it should be stigmatised as seriously reprehensible or anti-social by the enactment of draconian laws (such as those applying in Australia). The problem is just that there is no obvious ethical way of getting to safe human reproductive cloning from where we now are. If someone ever finds that way, then I suggest that their actions should not fall afoul of the law.

Second, the state has a role in developing standards to protect consumers from products or procedures that are not safe for their purpose. In areas such as this, where a high degree of expertise is required to make judgments, some degree of state paternalism is surely allowable before we begin to feel that it is offensive to us as competent adults. Though there comes a point with paternalistic legislation where it is, indeed, offensive, the state should be given some margin of appreciation to work within. More generally, the state has a role in regulating the safety and efficiency of industries within its jurisdiction, including the biotech industry. This might, for example, include establishing licensing schemes to ensure the competence and ethical responsiveness of practitioners and corporations.

What about the children?
So far, so good.

But does the state have a legitimate role that goes beyond these - possibly into the area of making moral judgments about what technologies people should use in the process of shaping their own lives and those of their children?

Where children are involved, there is often a double standard: attempts by parents to shape the development of children's capacities and personalities through "natural" means, such as exposing them at an early age to dubious moral or religious beliefs, are seldom criticised (except by the bold and forthright Richard Dawkins), but postulated attempts to use "unnatural" means are routinely castigated, even if they involve measures that might actually increase the ability of children to think rationally and autonomously as they grow older. Something odd is going on here - perhaps the good old "yuck factor" at work.

That is not to say that we adults should be able to do anything at all to shape children's personalities and capacities. Perhaps, indeed, we should be critical of parents in a wider range of situations than has historically been the case. Whether or not that is so, the same moral standard should apply to all attempts by parents to shape and socialise their children. That does not necessarily mean that the same legal standards should apply, since there may be factors to do with which laws are enforceable or which kinds of behaviours are so deeply rooted in human nature that attempts to prohibit them would simply be cruel, etc. However, it is significant that no special moral issue arises.

At first blush, the following suggestion looks plausible: before we prohibit a parental practice on the ground that we must protect children's interests, it should be a necessary condition, even if not a sufficient one, that the practice really is likely to be harmful to children. Sounds reasonable, yes? At least, we should be able to defend a claim that the practice presents a risk to children's flourishing in some publicly explicable sense. Many such claims are quite implausible when gazed at with a cold eye.

Supping with the sea monster
But should some technologies be suppressed even if they could be developed ethically, used safely, and applied to purposes that do no obvious harm to others (including to the flourishing of growing children)? This is where any role for the state becomes highly controversial. The first thing that should be said is that we need to very wary of legitimising Leviathan's actions in making judgments about whether we are acting in a manner that deviates from the most valuable forms of life, or that shows a lack of moral virtue, or expresses undesirable attitudes. These are just the sorts of judgments that would, quite rightly, horrify a liberal like Mill. If we're supping with the sea monster, here is where we need a very long spoon.

However, I do think that Leviathan has a legitimate stake if there is some prospect that fundamental elements of the social order found in modern liberal-democratic societies could be threatened by emerging technologies. This might mean, for example, that we don't want the state to permit the creation of beings who might be unusually dangerous to the rest of us, even if the harm to us is merely potential and the beings concerned will arguably flourish in their fashion (consider a happy, superhumanly powerful psychopath ). Again, we don't want the recreation of a pre-democratic, hierarchical kind of society in which some people flourish only at the expense of others who are subordinated. The state has an interest in trying to prevent this, even if it is likely to come about only gradually, with no direct harms inflicted during the process.

Well, what should Leviathan do?
It's one thing to say that Leviathan has a legitimate interest, but how should it actually act? Surely that depends on many things, including the magnitude of the risk identified, the probability of its occurrence, the difficulties that might be experienced in taking various actions, the utility of not taking action and letting events run their course, the most advantageous action that would have a good prospect of avoiding the risk, and so on. In other words, I suggest that the state should respond to these sorts of (sometimes quite intangible) risks in a manner not unlike the common law "calculus of negligence" that applies to civil claims for damages arising from breach of a duty of care. The analogy can perhaps be pressed further: for example, the state should not take action based on conjecture about some far-fetched or unforeseeable outcome. We know that any action, or any failure to act, may have far-reaching implications that no one could reasonably be expected to foresee. That is not a good reason for paralysis.

If, as I believe, emerging biotechnologies have an obvious prospect of bringing great benefits, the state should not suppress them on the basis of mere speculation about the social harms that they might also bring. An attempt should be made to assess what the realistic risks are, and to see what can be done to reduce those risks while minimising the loss of likely benefits. As I've written elsewhere, it would be deeply regrettable if some beneficial technologies had to be suppressed or severely regulated. If this happens, it should lead us to expressions of regret and a sense of humility, rather than to moralistic posturing.

Still, I can imagine scenarios that might prompt us to take some public action to affect not only the order in which certain technologies are developed but also the order in which a whole range of problems - scientific, technological, and social - are tackled. For example, there could be scenarios in which we must tackle poverty and inequality before we dare permit the sudden availability of a particular technology.

That is not actually my preferred policy option with any technology. The main one to which such thinking might apply is germ-line genetic enhancement, if this became unexpectedly flexible and powerful. Even here, however, I suspect that the practical reality will be that whatever is developed in the foreseeable future will not require suppression in order to avoid the recreation of hierarchical societies.

Nonetheless, it is legitimate for the state to assert a degree of control, partly because the viability of the social order is at least conjecturally at stake, and the more so because there are so many other aspects of technological development and distribution that clearly fall within Leviathan's proper purview - e.g. the above-mentioned matters of research ethics, consumer safety, etc. If obtaining control involves a rational program of differential problem solving, I can live with it, perhaps, though I'd want my say about what problems should be tackled immediately. (Hint: we can't go putting off everything else until we solve all the intractable problems of social and global justice; some far-reaching biotechnological research will have to be pursued at the same time.)

Drawing out Leviathan with a hook while keeping the candle burning
There has to be a limit somewhere as to what we embrace as legitimate action by the state.

Less legitimate action is exemplified by such knee-jerk (over-) reactions as the enactment of sweeping and harsh criminal prohibitions of human cloning, genetic manipulation of human embryos, and so on. Given that draconian overreactions have been so common in many jurisdictions, with no end in sight, perhaps the best thing that philosophically-minded people like me can do is simply try to keep alight the candle of reason, dissenting from the approaches that have been so dominant to date. Some of us need to maintain a reminder that all these complex matters to do with emerging technologies need to be considered coolly, without pre-emption by the yuck factor, or Kassian repugnance, or by even the instinctive impulse that we all sometimes feel to attempt to use the law to impose our personal views of what is virtuous, or what is a valuable way of life.

That's a pretty tough job. Of course, someone's got to do it.

Egoboo

I'm realistic enough to be aware that my various careers to date have been relatively mediocre. I have an entry in Wikipedia based on the fact that I have some books with proper-sized commercial print-runs, which is one of the standard criteria they use over there. I also have an entry in Who's Who in Australia based on totally different criteria relating to my work in labour relations. It's not as if I've been world-beating in either field, though I did do some good work as a fiction writer and also as an industrial advocate. Ironically, what I think may be my best and most important work - the large body of substantial articles on public policy issues published over the past decade or so, mostly in Quadrant but also in Meanjin and more recently in refereed journals - would not be enough to cut it in either of these places.

What provokes these reflections is that I received an invitation overnight from the international Who's Who to provide my details. I'm not sure how that came about - e.g. did someone who knows me submit my name, or do they scour publications like Who's Who in Australia, or what? I spent most of the morning filling in the on-line form, which made a helluva lot of demands on my memory. This doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be appearing there, but, oh well, we'll see what comes of it.