Neurotechnology taboos

There is a claim that the magnitude of change that could eventually be possible with neurotechnology makes it different from other technologies. Those who choose not to buy cell phones may not be able to communicate in certain situations, but those who choose not to adopt cognitive enhancement may not be able to participate meaningfully in society.

This claim has already arisen with regard to smart drugs, that school and work environments have become so competitive, that it is not possible to compete effectively on an unenhanced basis. Professional baseball has been a prominent example of the enhancement issue, where enhancement is illegal, yet widespread. Like many other technology rollouts, and particularly given the sensitivities regarding neurotechnology, it could be that incremental tiers of pathology cures become well-grounded before being extended slowly for enhancement purposes. Legally, in certain nation-states, that is.

Philosophically, it could be queried whether mental health is any different than physical health. Humans and societies may not be able to think objectively about mental enhancement given taboos.

Prime Directive redux

As a follow-up to the last post, Technology Intervention is Moral for advanced civilizations, it could be quite useful to develop a rigorous Principles of Societal Interaction to be ready for any potential future communications. Current Earth-based treaties and norms, as well as Star Trek's Prime Directive, as Hiro Sheridan points out, could be drawn upon for ideas.

Star Trek's Prime Directive espouses a strict non-interference policy towards other societies and identifies a key technological pivot point, the development of the warp drive allowing interstellar space travel.

The Prime Directive is an interesting blueprint; however alternatives could be evaluated for at least three reasons: practicality, reality and moral imperative.

• First, as a practical matter, the Earth-based examples have been a case of societies being aware of each other, and often interfering. A clean, invisible, non-interference model is probably not practical, even for societies scattered through space. Being cognizant of the limited frame of human-reasoning, it still seems that if there are multiple intelligent societies in the universe, it is at least possible that they will start finding each other through SETI-type programs and other means, either intentionally or accidentally. At minimum, it is not ascertainable that any and all advanced societies would have and be able to successfully execute a non-interference and non-awareness policy.
  

• Second, in responding to the complicated nuances of reality, there is a difference between non-interference in the internal affairs of another society in the Prime Directive and Westphalian sovereignty sense (supportable) and complete non-interaction (less supportable). There could be many types of interaction and diplomatic mission technology sharing as has been the historical precedent for Earth-based societies whose objectives would not be in contravention with Westphalian sovereignty. Over time, it may even be that Earth-based intelligent society evolves a universal bill of rights for all intelligent life, irrespective of nation-state or other jurisdiction such that concepts like Westphalian sovereignty become outmoded.
  

• Third, as argued in Technology Intervention is Moral, it is not clear that non-interference is the most moral course and an advanced society may consider it a moral imperative to offer certain types of suffering-alleviation/quality-of-life-improving technology to less advanced societies such as vaccinations has been the case on Earth.
  

Technology intervention is moral

Advanced civilizations may have policies for interacting with civilizations deemed to be less advanced than their own. On Earth, there is currently no cohesive national or global view on contact with any non-Earth based intelligent societies. In the case of Earth-based societies, interventionism has been the norm.

Assuming safe interaction and communication can occur and intelligence or proto-intelligence has been established,

it is the moral obligation of any more advanced society to interact with any less advanced society.

It is a moral obligation to intervene for the purpose of technology-sharing first and most importantly to ameliorate suffering and improve quality of life, consider vaccines for example. Second, it is patronizing to decide whether or not to expose the less advanced society to more advanced technologies. The moral and respectful path is to expose the newtech and let the other decide.

Third, a broad goal of humanity is to lift all intelligent beings to an optimized state of fulfillment and contribution, so absent existential risk to the more advanced civilization, there is no reason not to share technology. Fourth, considering the 'do unto others' principle, the majority of humans would likely support intervention.

An alternate but less tenable view is that intervention is immoral, that the independence of the other civilization should be respected. The more advanced society does not have the right to interfere. It is better to let someone learn for themselves instead of teaching them; forget the matches and wait a few more centuries for lightning to zap the meat. However, even if the intervention is resented later, it is still more moral to intervene in the sense of improving suffering, quality of life, etc.

Ethics of an Advanced Civilization

What kinds of policies is an advanced civilization likely to have regarding interacting with other societies it encounters?

Thinking of the most interesting case, a discretionary interaction, a more advanced society could probably easily identify ways of preventing pain or hardship in a less advanced society with their more advanced technology, spreading the smallpox vaccine would be an example in the human case.

If there were no existential risk to either civilization, and the more advanced society could adequately communicate with the lesser advanced society, to what degree if any should an advanced society be morally obligated to share their advanced technology with a less advanced society?

Presumably high up in the most likely example of an advanced society’s goals would be the furthering of knowledge and technology, and presumably this could be better accomplished with additional agents. So an advanced society would be more rather than less likely to share advanced technology, most likely overtly, even if it could adversely impact the culture of the less advanced society.

How the technology would be shared could be an interesting question, if the possessing society were advanced enough presumably it would be shared non-pecuniarily. Identifying which technologies should be shared could also be an interesting question as there will likely still be some competition for status and resources but probably nearly all technology could be shared as lesser advanced societies advanced to parity.

The foresightedness and cohesion required to consider the possibility of encountering other societies and have a universally agreed upon policy for this situation would seem to be one early mark of an advanced civilization.