Bonum Certa Men Certa

Technology: rights or responsibilities?

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Sep 25, 2024,
updated Sep 25, 2024

By Dr. Andy Farnell

Introduction

I've been wondering why I enjoy occasionally writing things for the Techrights site? What does "tech rights" mean to me? Where does my philosophy touch on "digital rights"? Are there even such things as digital rights or might that idea actually subtract from more fundamental human rights? If they exist, where do they come from? Who claims them? Who defends them? And most of all - since I firmly believe that all rights are accompanied by duties - what are the obligations that people have toward technology?

On digital rights

human rights

The nub of this windy essay is that while the Free Software movement has changed the world, its effect is largely "internal". It has been more about the developers and project founders who make software than the users of software.

philosophy

That's because we frame things in terms of "rights". Despite the fact that all of us are now beneficiaries of Software Freedom, most people do not recognise the ideals undergirding the code that runs the world. We experience it only as packaged (Tivoised) proprietary produce much the way that consumers of processed food from supermarkets are disconnected from farmers.

Freedoom

I've recently read upsetting comments about the progress of Libre software as a social movement. Alexandre Oliva took some flack for his LibrePlanet 2024 talk. Though the response was clumsy and rude, the frustration expressed by people struggling to survive in techno-authoritarian regimes is not without merit and behoves reflection. As the crimes of mass surveillance and dehumanisation through technology grow, we seem at a loss to explain the failure of humans to steer digital technology, either by democracy or markets, and the failure of "rights and freedom" alone to offer a credible counter to our plight.

unity and peace

My suggestion is that we need to turn this around and re-frame the problem in terms of responsibilities. Rights always come with them. Technology already offers us so much freedom. Maybe too much? Squandering great opportunity for unity and peace we've mostly used it to spread hate and fear, and amuse ourselves to death. Shouldn't we examine this? If digital technology as a whole were a single program we would be furiously typing at the debugger by now.

hate

fear

Next we want to use it to kill art and culture in the name of "efficiency" and in vainglory of our golden calf of the week, "AI". Libre software (and any connected movement for digital rights) is thus drunk on the same wine as Capitalism. But what is wrong with Capitalism, tree of all the fruits we relish?

rights and freedom

golden calf

Someone recently asked me, "am I anti-capitalist?". With serious and sincere thought I had to say "No. I'm just anti-asshole". With further reflection it's not even that, since my friends who would happily call themselves Capitalists are anything but. So I go back to what I think is the most incisive comment I've ever read about Capitalism since Marx, and it's by a psychologist and psychotherapist Adam Phillips, who says:

"Capitalism is for children"

I hope we are able to read that in a non-threatening and non-judgemental way just for a moment. For children?

Capitalism

Having children really changes your perspective on life. You get to see, rather than experience, the transition from helplessness to earned security and self-dependency. Becoming "responsible" rather than being a jangling bag of nerves, confused and dependent, with no patience or situational awareness of time or space, is an epic milestone. Some of us take longer to get there. Not all of us get there.

We find, perhaps not by accident, that the kind of technology capitalism begets and the influence of that technology on culture, does feel a little bit like that of a child. As climate change is forcing us to confront that and rapidly grow-up with respect to energy tech, I think smartphones, AI and social media are similarly provoking a crisis of maturity around communications technology.

technology and capitalism

Thinking about our responsibilities is an escape from the frustration of childhood. We have to face, viz Sartre, the burden of condemnation to be free. Free to make anything and everything we like of digital technology, including all that we mustn't. Or in Snowden's words, "Just because we can, doesn't mean we should". Peter-Pan Capitalism, and its lust for ubiquity, immediacy, omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, absolute safety and unqualified freedom, will not serve us in navigating a world we've furnished with adult technology like atom bombs, AI and mind control networks.

tyranny

And since digital technology is built by we the people a more mature relation with it might also adjust our relation to needs and resources, government, intelligence, the law, police, health, education, religion and all the other things we need other than a facsimile of social-connection and entertainment.

For those opposing tyranny and ignorance it may provide us with weapons we had never dreamed of in the fight against corrupt and lazy creeds like "surveillance capitalism" which trades in our dignity, and corporate "enshitification" that preys on our gullibility.

ignorance

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Killed the Term "Open Source" (by Bribing/Taking Over OSI, 'Linux' Foundation Etc.) and Now It Needs to Kill the Brand Linux (Because Windows Just Won't Run!)
Why else would Microsoft falsely describe Windows as "Linux" and "Open Source"?
Slopwatch: Liars for Microsoft, Plagiarism, and IBM Red Hat Markets Slop as "AI"
Today was a bad day news-wise
Slopwatch: Slopfarms 'Think' Redis is "Linux" (RedisRaider)
Today we'll keep it short and to the point again
 
Bigots and Lunatics Who Attack Microsoft Critics, Projecting Their Own Bigotry by Accusing Others of Imaginary Things (Which They're Innocent Of)
"In psychology, projection refers to assigning your negative traits or unwanted emotions to others without being aware you’re doing it."
"The Appeals Committee [at the EPO] Unanimously Stated a Formal Flaw in the Consultation of the General Consultative Committee (GCC) on the Reform"
It's a truly horrifying situation
Links 21/05/2025: Climate Problems and Ceasefires No Longer Foreseen
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/05/2025: "Shrimps of Doom" and "ASCII-graphs"
Links for the day
Links 21/05/2025: GitHub Becoming Slop, MElon as a Drug Addict Considered National Security Risk
Links for the day
IBM Has Allegedly Just Sacked Mr. McKinsey (McK), Clay Cowan, Its Fourth CMO in a Few Years
To insiders he represented the company that's killing IBM or advising IBM on how to self-destruct
Gemini Links 21/05/2025: Trips, 4D Golf, and Writing Software
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 20, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Links 20/05/2025: Biden's Cancer, GDPR Changes, and UK Defamation Cases (or SLAPPs) Fail Again
Links for the day
Microsofters Targeting the Wife of the Critic of Microsoft
false claims and loaded statement
Links 20/05/2025: "Bankrupt 23andMe Just Sold Off All Your DNA Data" and "Free Speech Warriors" MIA
Links for the day
Microsoft a Top Sponsor at Red Hat Summit (IBM Selling Proprietary Spyware and Back Doors in a "Red" Trench Coat)
They both work for Microsoft
Openwashing of Windows, Back Doors, Persistent Surveillance, Keyloggers, Screen Loggers, DRM and So On
WSL is not "Linux", it's Windows
New 'Interview' With - or Talk Coverage of - Richard Stallman in the European Union
automated English translation
IBM Mass Redundancies Likely This Coming Thursday
We're not in a position to judge if that's true or false
Gemini Links 20/05/2025: LLM Scraper Bots in Gopher and "Starmer and the Somewheres"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 19, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 19, 2025
Skype Fell Off a Cliff (Microsoft Killed It), All Microsoft Has Left Now is Slop and Spaghetti Code
"This isn’t about AI. This is a puppet show to drive stock prices up and down."
The Official SUSE Blog Uses LLM Slop to Compose Fake Articles Promoting Microsoft and Azure
even a little slop spoils the broth
Slopfarms (Machine-Generated Fake News Sites Authored by Bots With Slop Images) Spread GNU FUD
This isn't about Linux (GNU doesn't run just on Linux)
United States Federal Government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP): GNU/Linux Users Represent Close to 6% of Visitors This Year
How far has GNU/Linux gotten? Very far!
The "LLM Ouroboros of Shit" is Complemented by Even Worse Phenomena Caused by Microsoft's Contribution of SPAM and Pollution
Microsoft became a world leader in promotion of LLM slop
The LLM Ouroboros Phenomenon
Fact #1: over time slop gets worse (training set is like some blurry JPEG). Fact #2: People's "smell" for slop improves over time, as they 'train' on slop and can detect it based on prior encounters. Put 1 and 2 together.
Links 19/05/2025: Charges of Blackmailing Over Son Heung-min, Chad Opposition Leader Detained
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/05/2025: Ableism, Silicon Monkeys, and More
Links for the day
How We Defeated DDoS Attacks
One of the best things one can do is migrate to an SSG
Microsofters Issuing Threats to Microsoft Critics Who Blog About Microsoft
So far we see that their "legal strategy" revolves around trying to discredit people like Theodore Ts'o
Links 19/05/2025: Political Catchup and CISA Advisories
Links for the day
TheLayoff.com Has Begun Deleting Trolls/AstroTurfers Infesting the IBM Section to Discourage On-Topic Discussion About Culls and Maladministration (Bad Strategy)
Moderators have realised there's a problem
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 18, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 18, 2025