The World Wide Web, a communication’s system connecting all of humanity
with all the information they could ever use!
What could go wrong?
Few consider the fact that we already had a world wide web of
environmental, health, economic, trade and travel connections. And virtually no means of regulating or
responding to the harms that come from each of these irreversible global web of
life connections.
Then about 30 years ago the technology genius Sir Tim Berners-Lee creates the World
Wide Web. He optimistically intended it
to be an open platform
allowing “everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities, and
collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries”. Now, nearly 3 decades later he’s increasingly
concerned about three ‘new’ trends that we need to be address if the web is
ever “to fulfill its true potential as a tool that serves all of humanity.”
His first concern was our loss of
control over our personal data. It turns
out that ‘free content’ isn’t free. Who
could have guessed the cost would be our security? Anyone.
Anyone who understands that EVERY technology comes with the same price. Every technology has multiple uses and
depending on the intent of the user (and sometimes irrelevant to the user’s
intent) every technology can be used for good or evil. Human freedom is a given. We are free to do anything our heart or mind
desires. But reality dictates we are
never free of the consequences of what we do.
If someone wants to abuse it, they will find a way. This is a fundamental universal dilemma with no
exceptions. The grand flaw in human thinking is our minds ability to create
concepts that have no relation to reality.
Such is the concept of ‘independence’.
Then, we have the audacity to create government systems and structures
based on that flawed concept. What could
go wrong? Everything. Literally.
There is not a single nation that is not at multiple risks from climate change,
pandemics, WMD proliferation, international crime cartels, or global economic instability. And, it just so happens, that the WWW has
been exacerbating each of these threats.
Why? Because there are so many
hearts and minds that have been exposed to the down sides of unregulated
globalization.
Our greatest problem now is thinking
we can diminish the painful forces of globalization by building walls, emphasizing
nationalism, and beefing up our militaries.
Instead, we must accept our irreversible global interdependence and
acting accordingly to diminish those forces at their origin. The human systems and structures that we humans
have created that allow the persistence of poverty, preventable infectious diseases,
war, genocide, human trafficking and other obvious injustices. This means finally codifying the fundamental principle
used to create the United States originally.
The undebatable fact ‘all people are created equal and endowed with natural
and God given rights’. The most important
being the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This may come as a shock to many but ‘happiness’
does not translate into comfort. That
was not the definition of the word when it was written 240 years ago. Equating the two today is a recipe for disaster.
People rightfully have different opinions
on the wisdom of Betsy DeVos, our nation’s Secretary of Education. But she recently said something profound; ‘our
nation and technology has provided for us with unprecedented comforts’. “But that’s not what we were made for. We were made for greatness!” I have no idea what she was thinking when she
said it but I know I’ve never known any Olympic champion, Nobel Prize winner, billionaire,
successful singer/actor or parent who achieved success by being
comfortable.
His second concern was that the web
made it too easy for misinformation. When
he was creating the web did he really think the human mind would succumb to logic
and fundamental principles instead of persistently defending old beliefs
regardless of the millions of lives they have destroyed?
The greatest flaw of the human mind
was identified for me by my mentor when in 2005, a year after I went into a prolonged
depression after the result of the 2004 elections. My mind could not grasp how a majority of
American voters had re-elected President Bush after the invasion of Iraq. My mentor, a NASA engineer enlightened me with
the fact that the human mind has the capacity to believe anything! Literally!
ANYTHING! There at least 9 other existential flaws of
the human mind, anyone of which could lead to our extinction but this one…was
the first, and I maintain the worst of a growing list I’ve created files for. If anyone doubts their existence, I can easily
share their web links, thanks to Sir Berners-Lee’s creation. But I assure you, it won’t make a difference. Minds are just too damn resistant to change. Thus, our
species is extremely susceptible to extinction.
Our minds originally evolved to solve important
problems around us. We essentially solved many of the most direct
threats. It’s the systemic threats our
minds struggle to comprehend. So, most minds habitually protect their long-established
beliefs. And the smarter the mind…usually,
the more resistant it is to change. The
spread of misinformation should have been anticipated, but optimism, another
mental flaw, quashed that level of thought.
His third concern was that online political
advertising wasn’t transparent. Unfortunately,
an engineer’s mind doesn’t work like a politician’s. Engineers design things using fundamental principles
inherent in the Laws of nature. Politicians create policy based on alternative
principles they invented out of arrogance after being elected by a majority of
citizens with little understanding why our government’s systems and structures are
fundamentally dysfunctional. Example: Liberals think the problem is with guns and
the Second Amendment. Conservatives
think the problem is with immigration and lack of border protection. George Lakoff labels this ‘direct causation’
thinking instead of the deeper thinking essential to understand the root causes. He labels this deeper thinking as ‘systemic
causation’. There is something profoundly
wrong with our culture and our foreign policy that drives these (and other) lethal
and often destabilizing elements. Targeting
these specific problems without systemic change is doomed to fail.
Some people and organizations are
trying to create measures to ensure that politicians are truthful in their advertising. Unfortunately, our freedom of speech and deficiency
of citizen understanding of fundamental principles prevents such measures from
being effective. Our mind’s defense of flawed
concepts at any cost, combined with the accelerating volume, variety, and velocity
of misinformation makes their mission impossible. And ‘Deep Fakes’ technology will soon even
make it harder.
These problems are only complex if we
insist on viewing them as being independent from one another and only have
independent government policies to address them. Independent solutions do not exist for real-world
interdependent problems. Solutions
become relatively simple and obvious if we recognize the value of fundamental
principles and the flaws of the human mind in abiding by them. The
solutions won’t always be popular. Some
may even spark violent rebellion by those with simple minds unable to grasp
reality. But failing to accept our
global interdependence is a sure path to human extinction.
Woody Allen once said, “Humanity stands
at a cross roads. One road leads to utter hopelessness and despair. The other…to complete annihilation. I hope we
have the wisdom to choose the right path”.
Fortunately, there is actually a
third road we could take. It’s been offered at multiple times before. Several times by spiritual leaders over the
last 5000 years -- each acknowledging the fundamental principle of the Golden
rule (or justice for all). And twice in
the last century. Both after
catastrophic World Wars. And each time,
human minds resisted the obvious solution. They simply could not abandon the flawed
concepts of ‘independence’, unbridled capitalism, and ‘peace through strength (or
disarmament)’. Abandoning them would mean
putting the protection of human rights and the environment above the rights of
nation states and corporations.
Sir Tim
Berners-Lee has now created The Web
Foundation. It is “at the forefront of
the fight to advance and protect the web for everyone.” He needs to know that
it will only succeed if the bigger fight to protect fundamental human rights and
a sustainable environment proceeds first over the power of national governments
and corporations.
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