COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00007 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	The survival of freedom
C00007 00003	notes
C00011 00004	OUTLINE
C00012 00005	.require "memo.pub[let,jmc]" source
C00017 00006
C00026 00007	.cb The Right to Innovate
C00028 ENDMK
C⊗;
The survival of freedom
3000 words (250 lines) for Jerry Pournelle collection
5000 words (417 lines)

possibilities

COMPUTERS AND THE ADVANCEMENT OF FREEDOM

Computer Technology and Freedom

	Along with other authors in this collection, I believe that
American freedoms are in some danger - much of it from those who call them
"mere procedural freedoms" and propose to replace them by what they call
"substantive freedoms".  Curiously enough, I want to suggest some
"substantive freedoms" in the form of new technology that will help us
preserve our procedural freedoms of speech, of movement, and of
enterprise.  Also I see promise for freedom in some technologies in which
many politically liberal computer scientists see only threats.

	In general new technology advances human freedom, both
legal and practical - practical first.  It advances practical
freedom, because it gives people more options in addition to
the ones that already exist.  Legal freedom is advanced, because
less coercion is required for survival and prosperity.  Of course,
someone can ask, "What if X, Y or Z is invented and used in the
following way by an oppressive government?".  People can and have
been drawn into infinite gloomy scenarios from such %2what ifs%1.
Some effort in answering specific worries is justified, but the main
answer is twofold. (1) Look at history. (2) What if U, V and W
happen that advance freedom.

(they will misuse it)

library of Congress
freedom of publication
BEGIN DIGRESSION
	the problem of copyright
	the motive to gyp the author should be less if the amount he
charges has a lesser ratio to his and the reader's income
	what about programs that use data bases, e.g. my reading
selector that scans NYT book reviews among other documents.  How
does a program automatically judge how trivially it uses as database?
END OF DIGRESSION
freedom of manufacture
freedom of emigration - the key substantive freedom
small viable technology, microtechnology
(most likely unspoiled nature will not be an issue in space, because
bare nature will be an extreme desert from any human point of view,
so there will be no objection to changing it)

Can we achieve freedom from crime?
league of civilized nations

Perhaps we should measure human welfare in terms of the opportunities
to pursue happiness rather than in terms of food, etc.  The idea is
that people don't maximize a welfare function, they form short and
long term goals and try to achieve them.  A person's need to eat is
measured by his ability to eat when and what he wants to and not just
by the nutritional adequacy of what goes into his stomach.

see reply[f77,jmc]
notes

computers and the advancement of freedom

intro
	We start from the proposition that each man is the best judge
of his own welfare, and therefore giving people opportunities is
better than giving them what we think they need.
The relation of freedom to opportunity.

	advancement not just preservation

0. First, do no harm.

1. the publication system

2. computerized democracy becomes a possibility - maybe a good one,
but maybe juries would be better.  More likely, the problem is the
classical one that politics doesn't attract the best people.  A
"congressman's" salary should depend only logarithmically on the
number of his voters.

3. New rights including the right of reply

4. Making "freedom of information" effective.

5. The right to special consideration if needed.  The "It couldn't have done
any harm" defense.  Its connection with AI.

6. Freedom from crime.  Getting rid of money, registering property.
Compromise between the NRA and the liberals.

7. The right to know the rationale of the rules.  The right to get
hypothetical legal questions answered.

8. Freedom to keep any files one wants.
regret for bill of rights

8.5 The right to make one's free decisions on any criteria one wants.
Can this right be freely extended to businesses and other organizations?

9. The use of remote and hypothetical threats to freedom as an
excuse to limit freedom.  Deviations from strict constitutional
interpretations have proved to be bad.

10. Phonies like the "Bank secrecy act".

11. Can we re-establish the Constitution?  Move slowly.

12. Freedom to innovate

13. The attack on computers.

conclusion

	It won't make everybody happy for ever and ever, but it will
help many people achieve their personal goals.  That is better than
imposing one's social welfare function on society.

What about reprint rights?  Ask Jerry what is reasonable to ask for.
OUTLINE

General remarks about technology and freedom

	opportunities
	each is the best judge of his own welfare
	try it and see
	the desert is littered with the bones of unsuccessful technologies
.require "memo.pub[let,jmc]" source;
.cb COMPUTERS AND FREEDOM

.CB John McCarthy, Stanford University


	Every new technology gives new opportunities to individuals
and institutions.  This article concerns how computer technology
can be used to preserve and enhance individual freedom.

	In general new technology advances human freedom, both
legal and practical - practical first.  It advances practical
freedom, because it gives people more options in addition to
the ones that already exist.  Legal freedom is advanced, because
less coercion is required for survival and prosperity.  Of course,
someone can ask, "What if X, Y or Z is invented and used in the
following way by an oppressive government?".  People can and have
been drawn into infinite gloomy scenarios from such %2what ifs%1.
Some effort in answering specific worries is justified, but there are
two general answers. (1) Look at history. (2) What if U, V and W
happen that advance freedom?

We must be careful that we don't destroy one freedom in
attempting to protect or extend another.
	Unfortunately, the development of computer
technology has been used as an reason to suppress some freedoms
in the guise of protecting others.  Let me
recount a matter in which I think I deserve some of the blame
for what has happened.

	By the early 1960s it was already understood that
large databases were possible and worriers over technology
were already saying that they would permit corporations or
the government to repress people.  I was asked to write the
introduction to the September 1966 issue of %2Scientific American%1
which consisted of articles on various aspects of information.
In an effort to allay some of the worries about databases, I
proposed in may article what I called a "bill of rights" which
included the right to know what was in the database about you
and a legally enforcable right to have information changed.
Judging from future use of the term "bill of rights" in this
connection, the article was indirectly influential in getting
legislation passed.

	I now think that I was wrong and my proposal had undesirable
side-effects.  Namely, all sorts of busybodies got into the
act of delaying other people's data bases while they looked
on the basis of often far-fetched scenarios about how the
information might be used to someone's detriment.  As an extreme
example, it may harm a group to have it known that
more than an average number of its members are convicted of crimes.

	Let there be a compromise.  Any person or organization should be
able to keep any database they please and show it to anyone they
please on any terms they please.  The only way they can get into
trouble is to fail to serve the public without discrimination
or if they libel or slander someone.  The contents of the database
should be private except when there is a court order.

	Whether a person expects a new technology to increase freedom or
lessen it seems to depend more on his attitude toward other people than on
anything about the specific technology.  Some people's imagination runs to
inventing ways people can use it to make their lives more interesting or
more comfortable, and other people seem to prefer scenarios showing it
being used to dominate other people and to take unfair advantage of them.

	It isn't likely to be easy to reach agreement on the probable
effects of new technology considering that we can't even agree about
whether past technology has turned out good or bad.  The gloomy regard the
automobile as a disaster, while others note that it has given us the
freedom to choose our residence independently of our work, to run errands
on the way to and from work and to go when we please, stop when we please
and continue when we please.  I think this has been more important
than its effect in producing traffic jams and smog, and this is shown
by the fact that people move to places with traffic jams and
smog when these places have other advantages.  To some of the gloomy,
citing people's choices has no force as an argument, because they think
people choose badly under the control of advertisements and false values.
People of this mind often attempt to get the government to make "better"
choices and "educate" people to accept them - especially when they are
in the government or feel they have influence in the government.


.bb Making Freedom of Speech More effective

	It is already as cheap to keep a book on a computer disk file
as to keep it on a library shelf.  This means that a new system of
publication is possible in which a book or newspaper or magazine
or essay is published simply by writing it in a computer and transferring
the file to a public computer system.  There could be a national
library with everything published with local computers for frequently
used material to save transmission costs or there could be many
library computers and a catalog system so people could easily find
where something is stored.  Publishing something would amount to
declaring a file public and a charge for reading it which would
be automatically debited from a reader's library account.

	To publish today requires connections with a magazine,
newspaper or book publisher.  The production of these things in
thousands of copies is expensive and distributing them so that
they are available in bookstores and newstands and libraries is
even more expensive.  Almost all of these expenses can be eliminated
once people can publish through nationally accessible computer
systems.  It works like this.

	Readers have computer terminals at home, and anyone who
works at a desk has a terminal on the desk.  Through the telephone
system the terminal can be connected with any public computer system.
Publishing something consists of declaring public a document that
has been entered in such a system.  When I finish writing this
article, I can publish it by executing the PUBLISH command on my
computer terminal.  It gets entered by title and author in a super
catalog in some computer system.

	With the economic barriers removed, perhaps 10 to 100 times as
much writing will be published as is published now.  Moreover, while
most published writing today is accessible only to a small audience,
everything anyone decides to publish will be available to everyone
in the country or even everyone in the world.

	The next question is what will get read.  Much of what is
published today as very few readers, and we don't suppose that everyone
will suddenly become an avid reader, so we can be sure that
most of what is published will go unread.
We can also be rather certain that not many people will decide what
to read by browsing through the giant catalog of everything that
is published.  40,000 books a year are published in the U.S., and the
number will more than double.

	Many reading decisions will be made just as they are now.
People will have favorite authors, and will have the computer
tell them when something new appears.  There will be many book
reviewers, and there will still be packages of material called
magazines, collected together by editors or split the take with
the authors.  People will also here of things to read from their
friends.

	However, there will be important changes and they will
be important for freedom of publication.

	First, a writer with a public can work independently
of a publisher.  Since eighty percent of the costs won't go
for production and distribution, and since one act of publication
will suffice for the world, the author make a living with a smaller
public, and can distribute to that public much more easily.  There
will be less need for almost all writers to appeal to the same average
public.  This will make possible a much greater variety of opinion.

	Second, there will be an effective right of reply.  More
and more controversy is carried out by hit-and-run argumentation
based on the fact that few people who read something or hear it
on TV have any way of immediately learning what the other side
says or what the person or institution attacked says in his or
its defense.  If a reader could immediately ask his computer
if the person attacked had filed a reply, the attacker would
have to anticipate it and would have to use sounder arguments.
I don't suppose this will save the world, but the Lincoln-Douglas
debates of 1858 were on a far higher level than the Carter-Ford
debates of 1976.


.bb Electronic Funds Transfer and Crime

	
.cb The Right to Innovate

	In the good old days, an inventor had only the problems
of completing his invention, protecting it from copying
buy getting a patent that would stand up
in court, finding financial backing, producing
the product and selling it to the public.  If the public would buy
it in sufficient numbers, he was a success.  Many inventors succeeded,
although many failed.  Many American companies today still have
the names of the nineteenth century inventors of their first products.

	Today he has a new worry - the technology assessors.
This movement wants to hold hearings to decide whether
the public will be better off with or without the invention.
Only after the invention has been certified as good does the
public have its say about whether it wants to buy it.