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The Technology of Law and The Law of Technology - Part I

[ Posted On: 2006-04-25 ]

An Epistolary Dialogue Between Roberto Calvo Macias and Sam Vaknin Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

"The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make it its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore, so it eats it. (its rather like getting tenure)." Daniel Dennet - Quoted in Paul Thagard's Mind - An Introduction to Cognitive Science

"Everything in nature, in the inanimate as well as the animate world, happens according to rules, although we do not always know these rules." Immanuel Kant, Logic

"The fuzzy principle states that everything is a matter of degree." Bart Kosko, Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic

"When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also add that some things are more nearly certain than others." Bertrand Russell, "Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?"

"Most of us can learn to live in perfect comfort on higher levels of power. Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. It is evident that our organism has stored-up reserves of energy that are ordinarily not called upon - deeper and deeper strata of explosible material, ready for use by anyone who probes so deep. The human individual usually lives far within his limits." William James

Hi, Sam

Thanks for the info. Those problems reveal the contradictions of legality and the new technologies. In fact, this is a question of "statism and mobility". To resolve this (apparent?) contradiction is a great task for judges and legislators. F.G. Junger studied this matter on "Die Perfektion of Technology" (1939). He said that technicians were going to attack the law, transforming traditional law (with its classic proceedings) into a technological regulation. This is, in my opinion, inevitable. So, it seems to me, that we shall work in that direction. How can technological regulation - as fast as it is - be humanlike? One (possible) solution(?) is the one I have developed in "Chaos AD", which is biased towards the big difference of the speed between the dissemination of financial and other information and the much slower democratic proceedings. My idea (based upon the book "The Economy of Chaos" by Antonio Escohotado, 1999) was to reduce this unevenness by speeding democratic transmissions (elections, referenda, legal procedures) while, at the same time, reducing legal complications. But my idea seem to be just that, an idea(l). The problem remains because the law, of its very being, is slow (compared to the speed of light financial movements).

>From another angle, we should study not only the legal questions but the real possibilities. It is evident that normal persons will always have legal problems (remember that prisons and madhouses are usually inhabited by the poor). But to the cyber-elites things are quite different for they know the THE SECRET ART OF POWER of the internet. The problem to an elite of hackers lies not in legal impediments but in divining its proper real name.

As I have said in Elite, hackers, as a techno-vanguard, are not subjected to any moral or legal constraints, for they are out of the boundaries of the law (in time and space). They are like conquerors, the law follows them. This does not mean that they do not have (legal) problems but they are of another kind and of other risks. So, I think we should distinguish in our work between those two kinds of actions (positive and passive).

Before start I would like to make some refinements. As the Law is directly related to language, I shall declare that my knowledge of the Law is practically non-existent. To this understatement, we must add my precarious knowledge of the English language. So, I am in a disadvantaged position. Due to this you should take the heavy part of this dialogue. My position will be confined only to making some intuitive questions. In doing that we could also clear some obscure questions on "The Economics of Law and the laws of Economy" - as if this dialogue were to be an appendix to that large course of economics you have been running on your website for some years now.

As you can see, I have tied "economics" and law. In my opinion the two are, in civilized cultures, tied inextricably - just like the Romans observed very well. This won´t be a problem to our study because economics is, since the 70s, under the complete dominion of technology and its new race of techno-economic engineers and their financial computing.

Its also necessary to delineate some aspects of this subject. It is my contention that historical points of view are not enough to evaluate correctly this "strange world of ours". So, I will use, apart from historical reviews, mythical contexts.

There are some major questions that arise in that terrible "clash" between technology and law. Here are several tracks to take off:

Ethics have been always related to slow motion. Does technology mean the death of morality (to use Nietzsche's terms:-). What kind of justice and laws can be applied in such a fast tempo? There are great problems with official documents and digital formats.

Some good analysis of a space with fast changing laws are: Alice in Wonderland and in a more technologically-orientated way: Wittgenstein's study of the transformations of language.

Another important feature of technology that has a direct relationship to the realm of the law is the cybernetic field (the pennant of this complex world is the book "Cybernetica" by Norbert Wiener), which has the revealing subtitle: "Control in Animals and Humans"). The ever increasing figures of mechanic, electronic and photo-technological controls belongs to "the sign of the times".

The eruption of a enormous amount of lawyers which almost form a new class.

The problems inherent in legislating in the financial realm with its new instruments and techniques which include financial computing, special contracts "over the counter" of great complexity, new theoretical products that appear at great speed (the great problems of the USA administration to control these "volcanic eruptions" of money).

The using of money as Leibniz´s universal characteristic (and its consequences: devaluation of all values).

The ever increasing complexity of Laws and their (priest/secret) arcane languages which open an abyss between the normal person and the "initiated".

Well, I think it is enough for a start. Your turn.

best regards
roberto

(continued)

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

Sam Vaknin ( samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited & After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, & eBookWeb, a United Press Intnl. (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, & the editor of mental health & Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Gov. of Macedonia.

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