Lawler Reading Discussion

LATER READINGS—Phil 134 Atkinson. Technology Making It Worse .............................................................................. 1 Lawler. Problem of Technology. LUDDITE READING (Notes) ......................................... 11 Peslak. Improving Software Quality: An Ethics Based Approach .................................... 15 Nasr. Islam, Muslims, and modern technology. ............................................................... 31 GDPR General Data Protection Regulation (NOTES) ...................................................... 47

Atkinson. Technology Making It Worse A Study Of Our Decline by Philip Atkinson—Undeniable Signs Of Communal Senility

"When the life of people is unmoral, and their relations are not based on love, but on egoism, then all technical improvements, the increase of man's power over nature, steam, electricity, the telegraph, every machine, gunpowder, and dynamite, produce the impression of dangerous toys placed in the hands of children."—the diary of Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910)

Making Things Worse Not Better

Technology is the artificial enhancement of human power. It should make us stronger and smarter, however our demented community is discovering that it now has the opposite effect. Nuclear power has terrified and paralysed its creators, while the improved cleverness and flexibility of our machines have caused social chaos and economic stagnation.

Australia—A Nuclear Free Zone (1990s)

All over this country are signs announcing the existence of nuclear free zones, erected by councils to announce the unpopularity of nuclear technology. Our nation has no nuclear power generating stations, or nuclear weapons, despite our growing need for energy and the inadequacy of our military. Such concerns have been ignored by the electorate in favour of conventional (old) technologies. Any government that tried to ignore this prejudice would be deposed by a wave of public hysteria from a trembling electorate.

The End Of The Need To Work

Benefits Of Technology Thwarted By Our Attitude To Employment

My job for fifteen years (1975 - 1990) had been to write computer programs to make people redundant. I was not alone; throughout the western world an army of programmers have been working night and day to get rid of as many jobs as possible. Each job discarded meant improved productivity, and reduced costs. Because of our work, businesses throughout the world have become much more efficient, able to supply better goods and services, at a cheaper price. However it would seem we have wasted our time. Industry and commerce can't utilise our improvements because there is no

demand. There is no demand because people have no money. Nobody has any money, because so many people are out of work.

Luddites' Fear

The possibility of the loss of employment was first realised during the onset of the machine age. The invention and application of the steam engine heralded the industrial revolution. It dramatically extended the power and ability of the community. No longer was human strength and endurance the limiting factor in achievements. Machines could be constructed to work harder faster cheaper and more reliably than any group of people, however the initial implementation of machines meant mass unemployment and their use was bitterly opposed. People felt that such innovations were permanently robbing the community of jobs. The Luddite movement spontaneously formed which protested this change and attacked the new machinery along with its owners.

Luddites Wrong

Eventually though it was discovered that these new engines did not destroy employment, but changed and increased it - the Luddites were wrong. The explosion in raw products meant huge increase in the work needed to refine them to make them saleable, as well as a necessary corresponding increase in control and administration. The newly harnessed power extended wealth and employment for everyone. Our society became significantly richer and the Luddite's fear was forgotten.

Luddites Wrong Only In Timing Not Principle

The communal fright which then proved to be groundless has left a permanent false impression. It has become folk-law that though machines appear to create unemployment, this is only temporary. Regardless of appearances, mass retrenchments will be followed by even greater demands for workers in some new arena — this is a fallacy.

Machines Displace People From Workplace

Machines do not create jobs, they definitely eradicate the need for human effort. The fact that the engines of the industrial revolution created jobs was a reflection of their shortcomings, they were clumsy and stupid. Exploiting their potential meant employing people to make up for these inadequacies. But this did not mean that mechanised systems would always be dependent on human assistance. The development of artificial intelligence and advances in mechanical miniaturisation have overcome these shortcomings, automation has stopped generating jobs since 1980.

Machines Do Work Better Than People, Making Humans Obsolete In The Workplace

The truth is not only are people now surplus, but a liability. People make mistakes, machines do not. People get tired and cranky, machines do not. People are erratic and unreliable, machines are not. People think and act slowly, machines do not. People have very definite limitations of endurance and concentration, machines do not. These human short-comings mean that every modern system is designed to minimise or exclude human intervention; so just as horses became obsolete and were phased out of the workplace, so have people.

Machines Are Taking Over The Work

In every field of human endeavour smart machines are making improvements by supplanting workers. Jet planes are flown by computer, there is no need for a navigator, and the result is superior to any human effort. The weapons systems that protect warships need to react so quickly that any human intervention disables their effectiveness. The whole system operates without the use of a single person.

Machines Make Goods

The manufacture of goods is being automated. Whole factories build consumer goods without employing anyone. No human can compete with the relentless, accurate, speed of the robot.

Provide Superior Bank Teller Service

Automatic Teller Machines provide a continual, convenient banking service. No human agency could supply such a benefit at such a low cost. Throughout our community goods and services are being improved by reducing the number of people required.

Machines Administer

Even the administration of our society is being taken over by clever machines. All large corporations are really computerised systems. The company officials the public sees are just the servants of these entities. From when the public initiate business, to when they pay the final bill, despite the human face presented to them, the affair is primarily conducted by an electronic brain. The communications they receive are generated automatically. The cheques, invoices and reminders are sent without anyone in the business being aware of the transaction. It often only receives human consideration in exceptional circumstances, such as when the bill has not been paid within ninety days. Then the machine will instruct an officer to take action.

No Industry Safe

As I write these words in July, 1999, the Internet is threatening newspapers, the music industry, television broadcasting and even the movie industry. Instant up to date news on many and varied subjects is available, along with pictures, at the touch of a keyboard, via the Internet; a fact which directly threatens newspapers, if not the whole printing industry. Similarly music can be copied onto computer files and played without the need for records or compact discs, undermining the CD creation and publication industries; television programs and commercial films can be copied and viewed in the same way, on home computers or home theatres, making television channels and movie theatres unnecessary. Industries now share the same uncertainty as workers as they do not know how long they will be required.

The Existence Of Libraries Under Threat

The spread and popularity of the Internet is threatening the existence of public libraries, which find themselves increasingly unable to match the service provided by home computers. Already (1990s) they are reducing their collection of books to make way for a growing collection of audio and audio-visual media, as well as supplying personal computers that can access the Internet.

Foundation Of Knowledge In Danger

The newly available media replacing printed books are selected for their popularity, which has become the controlling factor for librarians. Serious works by authors such as Gibbon, Locke and Hume are slowly relegated through of lack of demand to the stack, before their inevitable abandonment. The library services controlled by various councils are slowly adapting to growth of technology by becoming Internet sites themselves, but these are not built around the classical works that once made up the heart of every public library. The selection of works being digitised is invariably parochial and populist, being concerned only with Australian antiquity and local issues (see letter from the Queensland Cultural Centre). Though their web pages often include a list of sites that do offer some traditional works, these recommended links carry no guarantee of accuracy or availability, nor are they connected to the library in any official capacity.

Certainty Vanishes In A Flash

Once knowledge existed on the printed page, which was a stable medium, difficult to alter and easy to read, and insensibly supplied certainty. Laws, agreements, observations, the transactions of a communal mind, could all be written down to be later produced to allay any doubts or suspicions. Promises, ownership and wealth became embedded in the certainty supplied by contracts, title deeds and paper money. Naturally this was not fool-proof but it gave the community a good deal of certainty. But this certainty is now being eroded by electronic replacements; fast, convenient and beyond the power of an individual to check. The message once heralded by a solid, unchanging, document is now proclaimed by a computer screen. The tangible proof supplied by paper has been replaced by a medium that can be changed faster than the blink of an eye, without leaving a single trace. Certainty has vanished in a flash.

Technology Controls Truth

The growing inability of people to know is confirmed as a machine reveals:

Financial Status The replacement of currency with electronic banking means a machine says: i. If a bill is due.

ii. How much money is in an account. (Balances can now evaporate) iii. If credit is good.

Land Ownership Tangible paper Land Title is replaced by a computer display (see Queensland Land Titling system)

Guilt or Innocence Dictated by: i. Radar cameras

ii. Red light cameras iii. Breathalysers iv. DNA testing

Knowledge The words of scientists and sages is no longer certain. Since books are rapidly being replaced by computer display,

technology has made obtaining information easy in principle, but in practice there is no one charged (1999) with ensuring the information online is genuine.

—Technology now tells us what is true, because it is becoming increasingly beyond the power of people to be sure themselves.

Machines Offer Huge Potential

Artificial intelligence offers huge opportunities to the human race which include:

1. Tiny Bureaucracy: by supplanting human industry with automation; and Australia is uniquely placed to take immediate advantage. The small population coupled with its high standard of technology and political stability would allow the rapid automation of its public service. By giving the ability to every citizen to access government computer resources direct, we could: i. Retrench nearly every public servant ii. Dispense with nearly every building left vacant by this retrenchment iii. Save the huge annual cost of the recruitment, training, supply a management

of this no longer necessary army of clerks. iv. Save the huge amount of annual resources, paper clips, paper, lighting,

heating, desks etc no longer consumed by our existing public service. v. Get the fastest, cheapest, most efficient administration ever.

2. Freedom From Wage Slavery: for any citizen who chooses could receive a government pension instead of working for a living, and conversely the community would be free from having to employ the unwilling or the unable.

3. Tertiary Education For All: blessed with unlimited leisure citizens could become educated to the level they chose.

4. Extended Research: the massive amount of free time would allow a huge extension into research.

5. Increase Of Wealth And Population: simply by using the available technology and those citizens now displaced from the work-force. Australia (if not the world) needs more drinking water than that supplied by the weather. This need can be met by using Nuclear technology to desalinate water from the sea and pipe it inland. Such a reliable supply would allow huge areas of Australia to be farmed and populated. Fast rail and communication networks could be built to support this and existing development. The oceans around our shores could be harvested in the same way that land is now farmed. Cities could be built on the Moon— or whatever project grips the public imagination. All it requires is the will to proceed.

Actual Impact Of Artificial Intelligence (circa 2000)

But the reality is very different; we are not being enriched, but reduced to penury, by clever machines. Because the money supply is traditionally connected to the number of people employed, as employment shrinks, so does the money in circulation. Instead of rectifying this problem by issuing all citizens displaced from the work force with a regular

ration of money — the dole — the community does the opposite. Except in those particular (increasingly rare) circumstances that qualify the unemployed for dole, any citizen without a job is refused an income and is no longer able to spend. That means the unemployed have no money to be a customer, they can no longer give their money to others who, in turn, would give this money to others, etc, so the whole community loses the money the unemployed do not earn.

Money For Nothing

Offering to pay people not to work invariable generates outrage in many citizens. It is clearly rewarding the lazy, as well as creating money from nowhere. Both these points are true, but they do not matter. It is unfortunate that the hard-working are just as unnecessary as those who are idle by nature, but this is a result of technology. And since the adoption of the use of paper money and credit notes, money is generated by the stroke of a pen. Which means there is no limit to the amount of money available to a community, so no community should suffer through lack of money, for as Sir Josiah Stamp (former president of The Bank Of England) said:

"The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight-of-hand that was ever invented."

Money Is The Blood Of A Community

The purpose of money is to allow the distribution of goods throughout the community. It does not benefit the farmer to have tons of turnips, or the mine owner to have tons of coal, or the garage owner to have gallons of petrol, if no one can buy these goods. All manufacturers need customers with money, which is why money was invented. The sole and only purpose of money is to distribute goods. It performs a function for the community similar to that performed by blood to a living body. If blood is cut off to a part of the anatomy, that part withers and dies, and the whole body suffers accordingly. Whereas the more extensive the circulation of blood, the healthier the individual. It is the same with money and the community; the more extensive the supply of incomes, the healthier the community, and vice-versa. The whole community is rewarded when someone who would otherwise have no income is given a wage. People do not eat money, but they pass it on to others by becoming their customers. And these recipients in turn use the extra money to supply extra custom to others. And so on.

How A Community Circulates Its Money Is Critical

Most communal poverty is caused not by a failure of production but by a failure in the circulation of money. The 'Great Depression' occurred not because our community had run short of something tangible such as food, or oil, but because the circulation of money failed. The community was just as rich before the depression as during the depression, but it relied upon mass employment for the circulation of money. The moment employment faltered then the money supply reduced which forced more unemployment etc. The simple truth is that a source of money must be given to the unemployed and then recovered by tax to maintain the necessary circulation of money. Otherwise we all starve.

The Real Cause of The Great Depression

Money is a tool created by communal understanding, its only value is that supplied by a community's understanding. So any shortcomings in the use of money must be shortcomings in the understanding of the nature of money by the community. The Great Depression was not caused by a general slump in share values; this event only exposed a flaw in our understanding of the circulation of money. There was no need for the circulation of money to fail because employment failed, this failure is easily repaired by establishing an alternate method of supplying money to the jobless—the dole. [This small conditional payment is the one thing separating the current (circa 2000) financial recession from the Great Depression.]

Communal Understanding Is No Longer Sensible

To repair the failing circulation of money (it goes to fewer and fewer citizens) the dole should be extended to every adult without a job. Unfortunately such a sensible step requires a sensible community. Our community is unable to overcome the prejudice of the Protestant work ethic, which insists that only workers get paid. And this lack of commonsense is only confirmed by official attempts to resolve the problem created by the failure of the circulation of money.

Official Attempts To Deal With Unemployment

Governments faced with the popular demand to fix unemployment, but restrained by the need to indulge popular feelings, find they are unable to do anything but fiddle with the statistics that indicate the extent of the problem. These statistics are the result of a random survey of dwellings carried out by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, where one person only is questioned from each residence. This immediately makes the result a reflection only of the opinions of the chosen sample, who could be unwilling, or unable, to state the truth.

Indicators Uncertain And Variable

By varying the definition of unemployed the truth is distorted. This random statistical selection omits all people who claim to belong to any of the following categories:

• Have given up looking for a job • Have found at least one hours paid work a week • Have worked at least one hours unpaid work in the family business • Perform voluntary work • Are on training courses

The published amended figures then allow governments to maintain their electoral hopes by hiding the community's slow and inevitable descent into poverty.

Signs Of Poverty Ignored

While the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) unemployment rate for September 1999 was 7.2%, the media were also reporting:

• Whole towns whose continued economic existence seemed to depend upon welfare handouts

• An increase in home loan defaulters, despite low interest rates. • A doubling in the number of dole recipients

Real Figures Ignored And Unpublished

The truth about our economic welfare can easily be confirmed by a statistical analysis of the figures held by the Australian taxation department. This would leave no doubt:

• If the majority were losing or gaining spending power. • The number of people and the amounts involved in such a trend. • What percentage of adults were earning at least the annual average wage, and

what percentage were below, or significantly below this standard

And these figures could easily be grouped by age, sex and financial year thereby supplying an accurate indication of what is occurring in the economy, but this is not done.

Unpleasant Truth Ignored

No mention is made of the awful change in the nature of employment. In the 1950s and 1960s citizens were the masters of their fate who could obtain a career for life in an honourable occupation by committing themselves to long years of study. Then the biggest concern was avoiding ending up in a dead-end job. That is adopting an occupation that only supplied a wage and lacked opportunities for advancement or status or job satisfaction. Now the act of winning employment is considered sufficient reason to be grateful, no matter what the job, or for how long it lasts ( few, if any, jobs are now considered for life). Citizens are now (1999) clearly slaves to the demands of commerce, but silence reigns over this degradation in the prospects of the whole community.

Ominous Trends Ignored

Little media attention is directed upon the fate of men who once had self-respect, identity and money, who suddenly find themselves impoverished, jobless and forgotten; with the skills and wisdom that took a life-time to acquire, made obsolete almost overnight by technical improvements. Little public concern is expressed at the discarding of experience and maturity from the workplace, leaving only the young and inexperienced in control (see sinking feeling). Nor does officialdom remark upon the sudden proliferation of menial activities such as:

• The appearance of people who clean car window screens at intersections • Mobile car washing services • Mobile dog washing services • Young men working as supermarket check-out operators

—All of which suggest an ominous reversal in career aspirations.

Communal Denial

Instead of resolving the problems caused by the new, clever, technology, and discovering how to maximise their huge promise, the community engages in denial. It is futile pointing out the truth to government agencies; they will merely repeat that somehow jobs lost by technology in one field will be magically recreated in another. (See letter from the minister). Our government (1999) is still trying to conjure up jobs, while it punishes the unemployed for their condition. The opinion of an Australian prime minister and his employment minister attacking dole recipients reflect views that were popular during the Great Depression. These erroneous ideas obtained the terrible poverty of those years, and prevented America, Great Britain and France from ever discovering how to deal with a major financial recession. History reveals that Nazi Germany found a solution to the slump, and it was only the Second World War that finally ended it for most of the remaining countries. But this invaluable lesson has been ignored. Our inept governments utter the same claims which were popular in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, despite their complete failure, as they deliberately repeat the mistakes of the past by insisting upon reducing the money supply in a society wilting from lack of money.

The Result Of Delusion

The community is trapped by its own delusion that nothing has been changed by technology. So we are being slowly crushed between our immovable prejudice that people must have employment to get paid, and the irresistible reality of machines displacing humans from the work-place. And this has inevitable effects:

1. An Accelerating Poverty Cycle: The money shortage forces firms (including government) to economise by cutting staff, which further reduces the money in circulation, which further reduces the number of customers able to buy services, which forces further staff cuts, etc. Naturally welfare budgets are no exception and they are also slashed; diminishing charity along with work. And the community slides into an ever-accelerating poverty cycle.

2. Exploitation By Essential Services: Corporations that are in control of essential services find themselves able to hold the community to ransom, e.g

i. Telecommunications giant Telstra has revealed its parasitic nature by: 1. Posting huge profits as well as shedding thousands of jobs

2. Introducing a fee for consumers who do not pay their bills fast enough.

3. Refusing to supply adequate services to remote areas because it is not profitable ii. The main banks have posted huge profits as they continually discover new

service charges while cutting their staff and reducing the number of bank branches. And since the year 2000 credit card regulations have allowed the banks to charge a late fee of $20 for any customer who fails to pay the minimum amount two months running. Actions revealing the short-sighted and parasitic

nature of bank executives.

3. Increasing Social Confusion:

i. There is no financial security, no one can be sure they will not lose their job. This creates an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty.

ii. The sense of identity once supplied by regular employment has been lost. A well paid systems analyst can become an unpaid job-seeker over night; a competent architect, can become a harassed taxi driver; a respected manager can suddenly discover that the only work available is as an office junior.

iii. Skills and qualifications no longer guarantee employment, which undermines the purpose of schools, colleges and universities.

iv. Rise In Crime; poverty, idleness and despair can only increase criminal activity.

4. Erosion Of The Quality Of Goods: Lack of money encourages short cuts in manufacture, so there is a continual and increasing erosion of the quality of all goods. (see Less is More)

5. Erosion Of The Quality Of Services: Typical examples of deteriorating service, are the condition of public hospitals and the police force, but the evidence is everywhere. In response to a written complaint from my wife about a lack of seating, Qantas Airways Limited took two weeks to give this reply:

"Unfortunately due to staff shortages there is a backlog but we will get back to you as soon as possible". signed Fran Williams, Customer Relations, Queensland — 7th May 1999 This major Australian airline, in a time of mass unemployment, has not enough staff to answer their mail! Anyone wishing to see staff shortages in action just has to attend the enquiry counter of a large grocery store on a Saturday morning (1999) to see workers overwhelmed by demand. Or go to a bank, either The National Australia Bank or ANZ. The firms simply do not employ enough staff, preferring instead to provide inadequate service.

Nevertheless the most common and frustrating demonstration of deteriorating service obtained by insufficient staff is the appearance of the now common phone queues (see Australian and UK experience). Nowadays (2000) telephone requests to many businesses (including banks and government) involve spending an unspecified time (perhaps hours) just sitting holding onto a telephone handset in the hopes of reaching a human operator, before the call is cut off or closing time is reached or patience expires.

Tyrannised By Technology

The Industrial Revolution (1760-1830) secured unprecedented wealth for Western Civilization by unleashing the power of technology, but this new power only enriched the community when it was the servant of genius. As communal understanding has decayed, the erstwhile servant has become the new master. Our machines, which now embrace miniaturisation and artificial intelligence, are relentlessly stagnating and impoverishing our community; which is further cowed by its terror of nuclear power. Technology is no longer our enriching slave but our ruinous tyrant.

Lawler. Problem of Technology. LUDDITE READING (Notes)

DEMOCRATIC LIBERATION THEORY Marxism predicts ever-increasing role of machine

Engels predicts:

• Government eventually will evolve into a worker-owned proletarian state. Advanced government allows for end of private property

• A high tech world Safeway/Target distribution center.

• If those without work do not overthrow State, then distribution Centers run by I.T will evolve.

• Engels predicts machines will do everything for us, we will have food clothing, shelter w/o need to work (except for creative work, academic research? & I.T.)

• Thus machines will bring about a virtual egalitarian state

• This machine-run egalitarian state is a true democracy

• High tech liberates us and gives us a democracy. This is DEMOCRATIC LIBERATION THEORY

Lawler cites and discusses various criticisms of democratic liberation theory. Read the reading carefully. I give an outline here of the discussions Lawler presents. One term is important within this discussion, the term LUDDITE. LUDDITE has come to mean any anti- technology person.

DEMOCRATIC LIBERATION means Liberation? Freedom/ rights would be not only recognized but even positive rights are satisfied. Food, clothing shelter would be provided for everyone

Accomplishments of High Tech (Lawler partially concedes these benefits:

1.keep babies & moms alive

2.free us from diseases

3.painkillers

4.extend life expectancy

5.universal education (even for mentally challenged)

6.more personal choices: sexual, educational, recreational, etc.

7.you are now free to move about the country: global travel is easy

Lawler on Democratic Liberation

LUDDITE CRITIQUES of Democratic Liberation Theory

1.Ignore the Socrates stuff (p 3) it is just weird: Plato details a Utopia in The Republic, it is NOT a democracy like the Lawler source implies. Platonic Utopia is an aristocracy: only certain special people run the world. On the other hand, there are parallels between Republic of Plato and techno-liberation (democratic liberation theory), or at least the

Platonic Republic parallels one strong interpretation of Engels: only tech overseers would have regular jobs, in this sense I.T. would seem to replace Platonic philosopher kings

2.Humans are technological or tool-making animals p. 1In principle we should be free to accept or reject various tech developments p.2 Humans are the only beings who can create new and harder to satisfy needs via our techs.

3.High tech societies overwhelm other societies.

4.We cannot lose tech developments. We are stuck w/ the knowledge of our techs a.Example: nuclear weapons

5.Rapid tech development causes almost as much suffering as it alleviates

6.Remember our discussions of rights? Rights bring duties. BUT, Democratic liberation includes liberation from duties to others: High tech frees us from dependence on others. Example: I am falling and I cannot get up! (Life Alert)

7.More choices? More like:more prisons, more pollution, more police.

8.Liberation from neighborhoods p.4. MALLS as in the generic nature of all malls: they have no flavor, no sense of different place or neighborhood or community. This is the price to be paid for universal prosperity (& democracy?) is lack of diversity.

9.Internet opens us to others & cuts us off from the world

10.USA 1ST TECHNOLOGICAL REPUBLIC a.vote has become according to interests instead of attachments

b.distance of the citizens from their representatives

c.prefer impersonal liberty protected by national government to intrusive local government

11.Today we understand the free pursuit of happiness under the Constitution to include a.mindless self-indulgence,

b.stupefying diversions,

c.almost unlimited sexual freedom,

d.and even drug-induced euphoria.

12.TECHNOLOGICAL THINKING: Heideggerian Theory of Technology p.7 a.Technology is not merely the tools we use but the idea of controlling the world and controlling human behavior, controlling human nature?

b.p.8 & 9 Thinking about how we can control technology does not free us from technological or control-oriented thinking. So democratic choice is overwhelmed by the impulse of technological thinking to conquer nature, kill God and the gods, discredit tradition, and rationalize or standardize all of human life. Everything noble and beautiful that gives human life its seriousness or dignity is regarded, literally, as nothing.

c.The unity of the human race at the lowest level, the complete emptiness of life, the self-perpetuation of doctrine without rhyme nor reason, no leisure, no cultivation, no withdrawal; nothing but work and recreation; no individuals and no peoples, but instead lonely crowds.

d.Technological thinking, by making leisure pointless, makes it impossible. There now seems to be a therapy or technique to rationalize every human activity, including relaxing. There is nothing that the technicians or experts cannot tell us how to do. Leisure depends on a cultivation that has its roots in non-democratic or non- technological education

13.Democracy is bad for genuinely liberated thought because it does not provide for the education or habituation that is at the foundation of every serious human endeavor.

a.Genuine human liberation depends on the critical examination of serious moral opinions, but in a democracy nobody defends the truth or nobility of his or her opinions.

14.Technology liberates us from meaningless leisure for meaningless work or recreation (which is not good in itself but merely a break from work).

15.Prejudice: against old people, history, parental authority, religious faith, sexual discipline, manual work, rural people and rural life, anything that is local or small or inexpensive.

16.We are prejudiced against settled communities, & anything that has not been uprooted by technological thinking.

17.We have equality and nothing else. Those who are best at manipulating others as objects will rule without restraint: a new sort of tyrannical ruling class, controlled by technological thinking, the only standards being wealth and power.

18.Nomads p.10. We road builders remain placeless people. Berry explains that we characteristically behave violently toward the land and particular places because from the beginning we belonged to no place. As Tocqueville says, what is new about American democracy is that restlessness has become common among ordinary people.

19.Techno Bohemians a.The most wealthy, sophisticated, and technologically adept Americans today

b.Characterizations p. 12 to15

c.Feeling good is more important than being good

d.Fanatical about their bodies: about health and safety

e.Aim to regulate or overorganize every moment of their own and their unfortunate children's lives

f.Most work-oriented or compulsively death-obsessed or risk-averse people ever.

g.gadget glutted

h.Torture their children with all sorts of lessons,

i.The more perfect or risk-free we become, the more we will become paranoid about the inevitable result of our remaining imperfections.

Peslak. Improving Software Quality: An Ethics Based Approach

Alan R. Peslak, Ph.D. Information Sciences and Technology Penn State University Dunmore, PA 18512 Phone: 1-570-963-2640 [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Software quality in recent years has been plagued by significant quality issues. One of these issues is the rush to market of commercial software. This has resulted in poor quality leading to numerous updates and patches to correct inherent problems and to prevent malicious software attacks from viruses, worms, or other nefarious external hacking. The author believes that poor software quality presents an ethical issue for society. The issue of improvement in software quality is proposed to relate to fundamental ethical issues that need to be addressed by software developers. The author explores various philosophical ethical theories to address this issue including Aristotelian virtue ethics, and Humean virtue ethics, settling on Humean virtue ethics as the most effective approach. The author then proposes changes to industry codes of ethics as well as strengthening of the international software organizations as a social network to support necessary emphasis on proper software quality.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

D.2.9 [Software Engineering]: Management – software quality assurance

K.4.1 [Computers and Society]: Public Policy Issues – ethics

K.7.1 [The Computing Profession]: Occupations

K.7.3 [The Computing Profession]: Testing, Certification, and Licensing

K.7.4 [The Computing Profession]: Professional Ethics – codes of ethics, codes of good practice, ethical dilemmas

General Terms

Management, Design, Legal Aspects, Verification.

Keywords

Software ethics, Business ethics, Software quality, Code of ethics, Code of conduct

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. SIGMIS’04, April 22–24, 2004, Tucson, Arizona, USA. Copyright 2004 ACM 1-58113-847-4/04/0004…$5.00.

1. SOFTWARE QUALITY AND PROBLEMS

Software quality in recent times has been extremely poor causing significant monetary and social problems in both the United States and internationally. According to the Standish Group only 28% of software projects succeed, cost overruns are at 45%, time overruns are 63% and the costs associated with these are in the tens of billions of dollars [12]. Though the full extent of quality problems is impossible to measure, software defects that have allowed viruses and worms to propagate have certainly already caused billions of dollars of economic losses. Computer

Economics estimated $13 billion of spending related to dealing with virus attacks in 2001 [10]. In the year 2000 the “ILOVEYOU” virus was estimated at causing $6.7 billion in damages [11].

Quality problems are even affecting our national security. Richard Clarke the cybersecuriy advisor for President Bush was quoted as saying that “ quality control obviously isn’t there” when referring to commercial software products being sold today. He suggested that “unsecure” and buggy software is unacceptable and as a result his organization, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board is developing a “National Plan for Protecting Cyberspace”. [23]. It is now being suggested that the Blaster worm indirectly accelerated the 2003 blackout by degrading systems performance that should have contained its spread [22].

Software quality can also directly cost lives as evidenced by the deaths of at least four patients who received extremely excessive radiation overdoses due to a software error [13].

Many authors have decried this lack of quality and sought solutions in traditional quality related areas. Deming emphasizes statistical principles and prevention techniques. Ishikawa focuses on education. Crosby presents his six C’s of comprehension, commitment, competence, communication, correction, and continuance. The IEEE recommends a TQM approach and development of a Software Quality Assurance Organization with the five components of Training and Planning, Audits, Inspections and Reviews, Standards and Procedures, and Metrics [24].

All these approaches suggest that the most important and perhaps the only issues to deal with are those that deal with the application of specific principles. They fail to address what is perhaps the most important software quality issue of our time and that is the “rush to market” concept which allows error laden as well as error prone software to reach the market before it has been properly tested and reviewed. The quality issue is not then a technical issue or a procedural issue but rather an ethical and moral issue. According to a survey prepared for PC World, eighty percent of users believe they have purchased software that contains quality problems, 29 percent

believed most or all of their software contained errors and 86 percent believed that software companies rushed their product to market without all bugs fixed [15]. According to reliable sources quoted in Computerworld, eight percent of software companies ship untested code to beta sites and only 20% do formal testing. Also a majority of companies ship product with known bugs [14]. In our haste to market product we seem to be producing software that has not been properly, extensively tested and debugged, thus resulting in the current quality problems that are resulting in enormous costs for our society.

This paper proposes that this ethical issue is one of the most important causes of software failures and needs to be addressed from an ethical viewpoint. The paper reviews current attempts to address software quality from an ethical perspective including industry and association codes of conduct. It then reviews philosophical and psychological theory to determine how these approaches affect individual behavior. Finally it suggests improvements to current codes of conduct and the need to strengthen professional organizations as well as legal remedies to improve software quality and address its negative impact on the modern networked and computerized society.

2. HOW WE DEAL WITH SOFTWARE QUALITY

With the “rush to market” approach and the intense competitive nature of software today, it is unrealistic to expect that software companies will significantly modify their operations to significantly improve software quality. This generally leaves three possible solutions to the problem: market forces, legal and regulatory issues, and developer ethics. Market forces could work in a perfectly competitive marketplace. Products that had low quality would be shunned by consumers or users and higher quality products would be developed. With today’s market conditions where major software players often dominate specific markets, it is unrealistic to expect that market forces can bring about a significant change in producers’ approaches to software quality. One potential exception to this can be through a purchaser with large buying

power such as the federal government. Clarke, Bush’s cybersecurity czar suggests that he is going to “hold him to it” in referring to Bill Gates pledge to make security job number one at Microsoft [23]. If the federal government could demand higher quality software, their purchasing clout could have an impact.

The second approach is legal and regulatory. There have been lawsuits in the past that have had mixed results in addressing software faults. The very nature of software licensing tends to preclude much immediate impact in this area. In fact with the adoption of UCITA by some states, the legal responsibilities for software defects may have been significantly decreased. Barring a major catastrophe directly related to a software defect, and given the lobbying interests of the software industry, coupled with the snail’s pace of legislation, this is again an area where significant improvement is unlikely anytime in the immediate future. This leaves with the third and final area of software quality improvement, the developer ethical level. At present developers are creating code that clearly has not been sufficiently tested in order to progress into the marketplace. Error riddled code as well as non-secure (and insufficiently tested) code is resulting in billions of dollars of damage to the economy daily. Lives are being lost and the security of our nation is being threatened by deficient software products. Clearly our professional developers understand and know these weaknesses and shortcomings. The time has come to address this issue directly by our front line professionals. The challenge is how to accomplish this.

This report will now review the philosophical approaches to ethical behavior and how it can directly relate to software quality. The report will then review the current attempts to address the ethical issues at a professional level, discuss their inadequacy, and suggest a more aggressive approach to improve software quality as an ethical imperative.

3. VIRTUE ETHICS AND THEIR MODERN ANALYSIS

A common mainstream ethical approach to computer ethics is virtue ethics [2]. Virtue ethics was first refined by Aristotle and generally consists of the notion that individuals should cultivate

positive virtues and internalize these virtues. As a result, individuals will be guided by these virtues and subsequently do the right thing under varying and changing circumstances. The virtues that Aristotle suggests should be cultivated include: bravery, generosity, magnificence, magnanimity, mildness, friendliness, truthfulness, wit, shame, and justice. The virtues are developed through acts but do not consist of the acts themselves. They should be voluntary, be a conscious deliberated decision, and be wished. We should deliberately perform our virtuous acts and work to the good [1].

Upon first review the Aristotelian concept of virtue ethics overcomes the inherent problems of societal complexity and seems to be a good ideal for computer ethics. If individuals are taught the concepts of virtue ethics, consciously perform virtuous deeds and continue these actions into the workplace then shoddy workmanship and deliberately released untested, low quality products would disappear as virtuous women and men would not allow these practices to continue. But alas, the Aristotelian ideal does not hold up in practice. The concept of man being able to holding him to these high standards has been empirically disproved by a number of philosophical and psychological researchers. A noted study was undertaken whereby it was tested whether individuals would help a person who had dropped their papers outside a phone booth. The determining factor in whether an individual would help was the immediate preceding circumstance of whether the individual who would provide help had found money returned in the coin slot of the pay phone. Neither the gender nor the personality nor the compassionate nature of the individual mattered. What only mattered was the immediately preceding mental state generated by the finding or not finding of money [6]. Given the relatively trivial nature of this experiment is unlikely that inner virtue can withstand the pressures of supervisors and competition. The Aristotelian concept given the nature of modern man unfortunately will not support an improvement in man’s ethics or a subsequent improvement in software quality. However, there is a philosophical approach that does seem possible from a computer ethics and software quality viewpoint: Humean virtue ethics. David Hume was a popular and influential 18th century

philosopher who had wide ranging views on a variety of political, economic, and ethical issues. In his major philosophical work, A Treatise on Human Nature he presents a view of virtue ethics that is consistent with modern psychological findings as well as providing a basis for contemporary ethical theory [7]. His proposals can be found to be particularly applicable to computer ethics.

Merritt [9] specifically attempts to reconcile psychological findings of virtuous deeds with an underlying concept of virtue ethics. She quickly discounts Aristotelian virtue ethics echoing Doris [6], suggesting that people have not been shown to be capable of the sustaining virtuous character upon which practical ethics can be based upon. She call this concept MSC or motivational self-sufficiency of character. Individuals have been shown not be to be able to sustain virtuous or ethical behavior in light of external pressures or influences. These pressures she labels as “situationalist descriptive psychology”. But she does see a practical possibility for virtue ethics the way that the virtue ethics principles are espoused by Hume. According to Merritt, Hume suggests that virtue and virtuous conduct can be maintained not by individuals alone but through a socially supporting cast. What is important according to Hume is that the virtuous characteristics are maintained, not that they are maintained solely by individual character as Aristotle suggests. This supporting cast can include relationships with others including partners, friends, co-workers, co-religionists or most importantly for our purposes, fellow members of associations. The associations which are most appropriate for software quality can be the professional organizations of developers and software engineers. Stronger associations and more specific and detailed codes of conduct coupled with appropriate disciplinary actions can be the social support necessary to maintain and strengthen virtue ethics in software development and produce safer, more effective, and more secure software throughout the world.

4. SOFTWARE ASSOCIATIONS AND CODES OF ETHICS

The three most important software development associations in the world today which have prescribed codes of ethics/conduct are the IEEE or Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineers and the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc (Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice), the ACM or Association for Computing Machinery (ACM Code of Ethics and Bylaws), and the British Computer Society (Code of Conduct and Code of Practice). All are voluntary associations and though all have strong participation and membership, employers rarely require membership for employment. The three associations deal with software quality in a general way but given the natural bent of man toward situationalist personality ethics, enforcement of software quality via the current organizations and codes has not been successful.

The IEEE/ACM Software Engineering Code deals with quality in two locations in the code section 3, Product and section 5, Management. Section 3 states

Principle 3 PRODUCT Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standards possible. In particular, software engineers shall, as appropriate:

3.01. Strive for high quality, acceptable cost and a reasonable schedule, ensuring significant tradeoffs are clear to and accepted by the employer and the client, and are available for consideration by the user and the public. [8]

Though quality is mentioned, it is weakened by terms such as “highest . . .possible” and “ensuring tradeoffs are clear”. It is difficult to understand how software engineers can ensure tradeoffs are clear when they are unlikely to know or understand all the company and societal tradeoffs.

Section 5 states

Principle 5 MANAGEMENT Software engineering managers and leaders shall subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance. In particular, those managing or leading software engineers shall, as appropriate:

5.11. Not ask a software engineer to do anything inconsistent with this Code. [8]

This principle is good and appropriate but given the unclear nature of the quality concept in principle 3, it is difficult to properly and ethically interpret this section.

The ACM Code of Ethics states

2. More specific Professional Responsibilities: As an ACM computing professional I will...

2.1 Strive to achieve the highest quality in both the process and products of professional work. [3]

This statement of quality is a bit less ambiguous than the former but comes across as somewhat vague and not as important as it needs to be.

Finally the British Computer Society in its Code of Conduct

The Public Interest

1. You shall carry out work or study with due care and diligence in accordance with the relevant authority's requirements, and the interests of system users. If your professional judgement is overruled, you shall indicate the likely risks and consequences.

- The crux of the issue here, familiar to all professionals in whatever field, is the potential conflict between full and committed compliance with the relevant authority's wishes, and the independent and considered exercise of your judgement.

-

If your judgement is overruled, you are

encouraged to seek advice and guidance from a peer or colleague on how best to respond.

2. In your professional role you shall have regard for the public health, safety and environment.

- This is a general responsibility, which may be governed by legislation, convention or protocol.

- If in doubt over the appropriate course of action to take in particular circumstances you should seek the counsel of a peer or colleague.

3. You shall have regard to the legitimate rights of third parties.

- The term 'third Party' includes professional colleagues, or possibly competitors, or members of 'the public' who might be affected by an IS project without their being directly aware of its existence.

17. You shall accept professional responsibility for your work and for the work of colleagues who are defined in a given context as working under your supervision. [4]

And in its Code of Practice states:

Responsibilities of Information Systems Practitioners

Information Systems Practitioners shall seek to upgrade their professional knowledge and skill and shall maintain awareness of technological developments, procedures and standards which are relevant to their field, and shall encourage their subordinates to do likewise.

The Practitioner has a duty of professional care to abide by those BCS sector-specific Codes of Practice which have any bearing on the practitioner's current role.

Should the Practitioner discover any difficulty in applying a Code of Practice, he or she shall immediately bring it to the attention of the BCS Registrar.

Information Systems Practitioners who are BCS members adopting the General Code of Practice are also bound by the requirements of the BCS Code of Conduct. Others adopting this Code of Practice are also advised to adhere to the Code of Conduct. [5]

Overall the British Computer Society takes a much more explicit role in stressing quality and the responsibility of its members to maintain quality.

5. ACCOUNTING PROFESSION CODE

In contrast to the voluntary nature of information technology societies and adherence to codes of conduct, the public accounting profession has for years taken a much more aggressive approach to codes of conduct. Though racked by scandals in recent years, the profession did not suffer from lack of rules and regulations but rather from instances of significant high profile cases, which for a long time went undetected and/or not enforced. With strict standards in place, when the problems did surface there were specific rules and policies that were there to fall back on and enforce. The software profession should review these types of rules and regulations and provide the ethical social network to support virtuous software engineers and counteract situationist personality psychology.

The AICPA or American Institute for Certified Public Accountants specifically requires adhering to its detailed code of conduct for continued membership. For many financial activities, CPA certification is required by employers, thus there is a strong incentive for practitioners to maintain membership and abide by its rules. Some of the more applicable rules include:

Section 52 - Article I: Responsibilities

In carrying out their responsibilities as professionals, members should exercise sensitive professional and moral judgments in all their activities.

.01 As professionals, certified public accountants perform an essential role in society. Consistent with that role, members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants have responsibilities to all those who use their professional services. Members also have a continuing responsibility to cooperate with each other to improve the art of accounting, maintain the public's confidence, and carry out the profession's special responsibilities for self-governance. The collective efforts of all members are required to maintain and enhance the traditions of the profession. [19]

Section 54 - Article III: Integrity

To maintain and broaden public confidence, members should perform all professional responsibilities with the highest sense of integrity.

.01 Integrity is an element of character fundamental to professional recognition. It is the quality from which the public trust derives and the benchmark against which a member must ultimately test all decisions.

.02 Integrity requires a member to be, among other things, honest and candid within the constraints of client confidentiality. Service and the public trust should not be subordinated to personal gain and advantage. Integrity can accommodate the inadvertent error and the honest difference of opinion; it cannot accommodate deceit or subordination of principle.

.03 Integrity is measured in terms of what is right and just. In the absence of specific rules, standards, or guidance, or in the face of conflicting opinions, a member should test decisions and deeds by asking: "Am I doing what a person of integrity would do? Have I retained my integrity?"

Integrity requires a member to observe both the form and the spirit of technical and ethical standards; circumvention of those standards constitutes subordination of judgment.

.04 Integrity also requires a member to observe the principles of objectivity and independence and of due care. [20]

Section 56 - Article V: Due Care

A member should observe the profession's technical and ethical standards, strive continually to improve competence and the quality of services, and discharge professional responsibility to the best of the member's ability.

.01 The quest for excellence is the essence of due care. Due care requires a member to discharge professional responsibilities with competence and diligence. It imposes the obligation to perform professional services to the best of a member's ability with concern for the best interest of those for whom the services are performed and consistent with the profession's responsibility to the public.

.02 Competence is derived from a synthesis of education and experience. It begins with a mastery of the common body of knowledge required for designation as a certified public accountant. The maintenance of competence requires a commitment to learning and professional improvement that must continue throughout a member's professional life. It is a member's individual responsibility. In all engagements and in all responsibilities, each member should undertake to achieve a level of competence that will assure that the quality of the member's services meets the high level of professionalism required by these Principles. .03 Competence represents the attainment and maintenance of a level of understanding and knowledge that enables a member to render services with facility and acumen. It also establishes the limitations of a member's capabilities by dictating that consultation or referral may be required when a professional engagement exceeds the personal competence of a member or a member's firm.

Each member is responsible for assessing his or her own competence— of evaluating whether education, experience, and judgment are adequate for the responsibility to be assumed.

.04 Members should be diligent in discharging responsibilities to clients, employers, and the public. Diligence imposes the responsibility to render services promptly and carefully, to be thorough, and to observe applicable technical and ethical standards.

.05 Due care requires a member to plan and supervise adequately any professional activity for which he or she is responsible. [21]

There are also specific rules and regulations specifying “acts discreditable”, disciplining, and peer review [16] [17] [18].

6. SUMMARY

In summary, a direct comparison between the various Codes of Conduct on the issue of quality can be made. Table 1 illustrates the most relevant language directly addressing quality of work. Though none of the codes clearly spell out quality requirements, the progression is fairly clear. The most ambiguous statement is in the IEEE/ACM SE code which asks members to strive for high quality but also incorporates further vagueness by including cost and schedule into the statement. The ACM code only asks members to strive for highest quality, vague, but uncomplicated by other factors. The BCS code addresses quality by asking its members to accept professional responsibility for their work. Their work is to include a regard for health, safety, and environment. This proposes a reliance on strong virtue ethics among its members. Finally, the AICPA spells out the concept that the services performed must be to the best of their ability (quality) and consistent with their responsibility to the public. This is arguably the strongest statement of quality among these four examples.

7. RECOMMENDATION

Improving software quality is not an easy task but is a task that must be undertaken. The cost to society at present in terms of economic and impact are too great to remain with the status quo. The increased reliance on computers and information technology for all aspects of everyday life has made it essential to improve software quality. The question then is how best to improve this quality. Market forces have not been successful thus far. Legislated solutions do not seem forthcoming or promising. What remains is a moral and ethical initiative. To depend on the virtuous nature of software developers given all the pressures and influences on them is unrealistic. My proposal is to provide a strong social association network with strong a strong code of ethics including specific guidelines on software quality. I believe the following steps need to be taken as quickly as possible.

Table 1. Quality in Selected Codes of Conduct

IEEE/ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics

ACM Code of Ethics

British Computer Society Code of Conduct/Code of Practice

AICPA Code of Conduct

Quality of work

Strive for high quality, acceptable cost, and a reasonable schedule

Strive to achieve highest quality

Accept professional responsibility for your work. You shall have regard for the public health, safety and environment

Perform professional services to the best of a member's ability with concern for the best interest of those for whom the services are performed and consistent with the profession's responsibility to the public.

1. Revise the software engineering code of ethics and professional practice to incorporate many of the strong concepts of quality included in the British Computer Society’s Codes.

2. Review the AICPA code and incorporate concepts of quality, integrity, specific discreditable acts, disciplinary procedures, and peer reviews into the SE code.

3. Form a partnership with governmental agencies such as the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board (Cybersecurity) to require membership to ACM/IEEE and adherence to the strengthened code for all software engineers working on government projects.

4. Work with industry to demonstrate the necessity of quality software and reduction of software errors and encourage their participation in requiring membership in organizations that adopt the new Code of Ethics.

We face a crossroads in our society today. We have an increased reliance on computers but face uncertain quality from these computers. Appropriate, aggressive steps must be taken to address software quality before more major calamities occur.

7. REFERENCES [1] Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, tr. Terrence Irwin Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1999. [2] Artz, J. “Virtue vs. Utility: Alternative Foundations for Computer Ethics”, Ethics in Computer Age, 1994, 16 21. [3] Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. “Bylaws of the ACM”, 1998, http://www.acm.org/constitution/bylaw15.html [4] British Computer Society. “BCS Code of Conduct”, n.d. Available at: http://www1.bcs.org.uk/bm.asp?sectionID=263 [5] British Computer Society. “BCS Code of Practice”, n.d. Available at: http://www1.bcs.org.uk/bm.asp?sectionID=263 [6] Doris, J. “Person, situations, and virtue ethics”, NOUS (32:4), 1998, 504-530. [7] Hume, D. A Treatise of Human Nature. Penguin Books, London, 1969. [8] Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. and the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. (1999). “Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice.” Available at: http://www.computer.org/tab/seprof/code.htm [9] Merritt, M. “Virtue ethics and situationist personality psychology”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (3), 2000, 365-383. [10] Middleton, J. “Major viruses cost industry $13bn in 2001”, Vnunet, October 1, 2002, Available at: http://www.vnunet.com/News/1128147 [11] Ohlson, K. “’Love’ virus costs approaching $7B, research firm says”, Computerworld, May 9, 2000, Available at: http://www.computerworld.com/news/2000/story/0,112 80,44810,00.html [12] Schwalbe, K. Information Technology Project Management, Course Technology: Boston, 2002. [13] Sipior, J. and Ward, B. “Ethical responsibility for software development”. Information Systems Management (15:2), Spring 1998, 68-72. [14] “Software quality: facts and stats”, Computerworld, August 18, 1997 Available at: http://www.computerworld.com/news/1997/story/0,112 80,17522,00.html [15] Spanbauer, S. “Software Bugs Run Rampant”, PC World (17:1), 1999, 46-52. [16] The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants “BL Section 740 7.4 Disciplining of Member by Trial Board”, 2003, Available at: http://www.aicpa.org/about/bylaws/BL740.htm [17] The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants “ET Section 501 Acts Discreditable”, 2003, Available at: http://www.aicpa.org/about/code/et501.htm

[18] The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants “Exposure Draft - Proposed Revisions to the AICPA Standards for Performing and Reporting on Peer Reviews”, 2003, Available at: http://www.aicpa.org/members/div/practmon/2003_05_ ed.asp [19] The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants “Section 52 - Article I: Responsibilities”, 2003,Available at: http://www.aicpa.org/about/code/article1.htm [20] The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants “Section 54 - Article III: Integrity”, 2003, Available at: http://www.aicpa.org/about/code/article3.htm [21] The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants “Section 56 - Article V: Due Care” 2003, Available at: http://www.aicpa.org/about/code/article5.htm [22] Verton, D. “Blaster worm linked to severity of blackout” Computerworld, August 31, 2003, http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/ recovery/story/0,10801,84510,00.html?SKC=home8451 0 [23] Verton, D. “Cybersecurity czar takes stand on software quality”. Computerworld, August 31, 2003, http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/ story/0,10801,73245,00.html [24] Wheeler, S. and Duggins, S. “Improving Software Quality”, Proceedings of the 36th Annual Southeast Regional ACM conference, 1998, 300-310.

Nasr. Islam, Muslims, and modern technology.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. "Islam, Muslims, and modern technology." Islam & Science 3.2 (Winter 2005): 109(18). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. SAN JOSE PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM. 13 Jan. 2007 <http://0-find.galegroup.com.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC- Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A139516230&source=gal e&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=sjpllib&version=1.0>.

Full Text:COPYRIGHT 2005 Center for Islam & Science

In this interview, Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr highlights the impact of modern technologies on human habitats and ecosystems. The destruction of environment by modern technology is seen as one of the most serious threats faced by humanity. Modern technologies have also replaced traditional methods of making objects of daily use. This replacement has serious consequences for the spiritual health of humanity. In discussing the impact of modern technology on the Muslim world, suggestions are made to preserve various aspects of Islamic civilization.

Keywords: Modern technology and its impact; Muslim world and modern technology; aspects of Islamic civilization; role of machine-made objects in the destruction of natural balances; traditional crafts and their spiritual significance; Islamic urban design; modern technology and Islamic civilization.

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In this article, modern technology refers to technologies which have been developed during and after the Industrial Revolution mostly in the West and which have now spread all over the world. There are two very different dimensions to this discussion: one pertains to the actual situation that exists in the world, that is, what is going on now; the other pertains to the question of what we believe should go on as far as the Muslim world is concerned. Let me give an example. There is no government in the Muslim world today which does not support any form of technology that brings with it either power or wealth. No one resists any form of technology that is believed to bring certain conveniences, like the cell phone which has spread like wildfire all over the world, and which has many detrimental effects upon the brain, as many studies are showing, though most people usually do not care too much about such negative factors--at least for now.

So, at that level, discussing the relationship between Muslims and modern technology is not efficacious in the sense that whatever form of technology comes on the market--and it is usually from the West, and occasionally from the Japanese and a few other peoples who invent new things--if these new technologies are perceived to bring wealth, power, or conveniences, they spread very rapidly among Muslims as elsewhere and it is no use talking to them about the danger of their spread with the hope of having any positive influence.

But there are other questions which can be discussed, for instance, the destruction of the environment which modern technology is causing. Then there is the dimension of this issue concerning what should take place. What should be the Muslims' attitude toward modern technology whose negative effects are obvious? It is about this dimension that I wish to say something and this is where the deepest issues lie. Otherwise, if we go on debating whether this particular country, or that particular country, has or is going to have or should have knowledge of nuclear engineering or certain types of lasers or this or that, this I think is a wasteful effort at the present moment, because we, who are supposed to be the intellectual figures of the Islamic world, who are supposed to clarify these issues, cannot do much at the level of action by Muslim governments and companies in relation to technology. There is, however, something very important that we can do and that is to create an understanding for the future as far as these issues are concerned. We are responsible for creating an awareness of what is really involved for Muslims when it comes to the adoption of modern technology. And in this domain, in fact, a number of people in the West have a much greater

awareness of the dangers of technology than do people in Asia or Africa, who are on the receiving end of modern technology, and this itself is one of the major issues that should be discussed.

In light of this, I think we should turn to the issue of what the problems are which modern technology poses for Muslims, not only as ordinary human beings, but more specifically as people who belong to the Islamic religion and are rooted in the Islamic worldview; then to try and analyze these problems, and in light of that, to discuss what can be done, if anything, and what Muslims should do.

First of all, it is important to define terms. The word technology comes, of course, from the Greek word techne which means "to make" and is related to the word for art, which comes from the Latin word ars, also meaning to make, and both are related to the word san'at in Persian, or the word sina'ah in Arabic which we still use in these languages for both technology and art. Quite interestingly, the division has not yet come about for us, as it has in the West, where art is one thing and technology another, despite the fact that there are some modern sculptors who go to junkyards and put various parts of cars together and call it art. That is a minor matter.

What we have in the modern world is a situation in which technology in the modern sense is the source of most of the objects that surround human life, whereas, before the Industrial Revolution, when things were made by hand, the products of arts and crafts surrounded man's life. This is very important to understand. There is a qualitative difference, although the root of the word "technology" goes back to a Greek word with a very different meaning.

A very important event took place in the Industrial Revolution that completely changed the nature of technology. Machines were made as means to create objects for human beings in Western Europe and gradually elsewhere and they soon replaced human beings in many realms. Now what was the significance of this change that occurred? Let us take a concrete example. There were water wheels in ancient times and complicated clocks created by al-Jazar and many other Muslims, but ordinary objects of human life were still made by human agents. Moreover, there is a very big difference in the techniques used to make ordinary objects by hand and the ways of modern technology. Of course, there always was some technology like the water clock in Muslim lands, but it always remained secondary and peripheral. What surrounded life was the product of art and had a spiritual significance. It is very interesting to note that the very complicated machines

made by Muslim scientists were considered mostly for play and amusement. They were not seen as a means of increasing production and serving economic purposes. This is very significant.

So there is a qualitative as well as a quantitative change that took place when the Industrial Revolution occurred. A number of eminent Western writers, going back to William Morris and John Ruskin in the nineteenth century and Ivan Illich and Jacques Ellul in the twentieth, wrote about certain negative aspects of modern technology that Muslims should know. Illich wrote a remarkable book, Tools for Conviviality, and the French author Jacques Ellul wrote The Technological Society. Ellul has recently turned against Islam because he does not understand it, but he has produced some important and profound critiques of modern technology in its relation to the human soul, the human spirit, and human society.

In the 1970's, I invited Ivan Illich to Iran and on purpose I organized a session that involved some of the higher authorities of the land who were in charge of various activities which required technology from the department (ministry) of national economy, the department of industry, and so on. Ivan Illich gave a talk to them on the significance of traditional technologies in contrast to modern technologies. He gave a simple example of a water closet. He said that if all the people of Asia and Africa were to have the same water closets as do the people of the industrialized societies in the West, that fact in itself would destroy the water system of the whole world. Everyone was shocked. These were all highly educated Iranian administrators, some on the ministerial level with advanced degrees from the best Western universities, and precisely because of that they did not have the least notion of what Illich was talking about. We have the same situation in Pakistan, in the Arab world, and in many other Muslim countries.

Now what we have to do first of all is to understand the difference between traditional technologies, which were an extension of our hands, senses, and other parts of our body and which, like the body, were subservient to the soul, and the modern machine which dominates over the human being; an example may explain this: if you were to go to a part of the Muslim world where we still have traditional craftsmen, let us say Isfahan, Fez, Damascus, or somewhere like that, you will see a person sitting with a simple hammer and a simple chisel and producing remarkable geometric patterns in stucco, stone, or wood. Traditionally, the know-how and the art resided within the being of the craftsman and the tool was very simple. But if you go to a Detroit factory where they are producing cars, the worker there has very little know-how--he just presses a few buttons. All of the know-how is in the machine. In a sense it is a transfer of human knowledge

and art to the machine. And now we have the second step of the same process in the form of the computer, where knowledge in the mind has been transferred to the machine. I have many students who can no longer spell because they rely on a computer to spell for them. They cannot do any math because the computer computes for them, and gradually the computer empties the mind as the machine emptied the dexterity of the hand, the eye, and other parts of the body of the artisan and craftsman.

Now, that is what modern technology does. Modern technology is not simply the continuation of the Persian waterwheel or some medieval contraption. It changes the relationship between the human being and the means of creating things. Therefore, it takes away from the human being's creativity--it takes away the creativity and the spiritual content of work. The only creative part of modern technology is done by those engineers who design the machine. For someone who is designing an airplane or a ship or something like that, yes, there is still creativity in that work. But for those who make things, especially in mass production, objects that are made no longer involve creativity, which is why work in a modern factory and most other places has become so boring. That is why you have to have long vacations. In traditional societies, you did not go on vacation. Have you ever thought of that? Vacation was integrated into life. Weekends were not necessary like today. Nowadays, many people say 'I hate Monday', 'thank God it is Friday'--this sort of thing. This attitude exists because work has come to be emptied of spiritual content, thanks to the machine.

All of these negative effects on human beings are consequences of modern technology. The first thing we have to understand is that this technology is not neutral, that is, claiming that if you are good, you make good use of it, if you are bad you make bad use of it. That is not at all the case. Of course, if you are good and make good use of it, you do not drop a bomb on somebody's head--that part I accept--but even if you go for a drive down the road peacefully, so-called peacefully, this gadget, this automobile, is a major source of aggression against nature. Now of course we realize, or I hope we realize, that global warming is destroying many ecosystems and so many other things and that much destruction comes from the so-called peaceful use of the automobile. Therefore, it is not simply a question of good use and bad use of technology. There is something more involved. Technology itself brings with it a certain technological culture which is against the soul of the human being as an immortal being, and is against the fabric of all traditional societies which are based on the spiritual relationship between the human being and the objects he or she creates, that are based on an art that is creative and reflects God's creativity, as the Supreme Artisan. God is called

Al-Sani in the Qur'an; He is the Creator, the Artist, the Supreme Artisan, and He has given us the power of creativity which we share because we are His khulafa, vicegerents on earth.

In Islamic civilization there was no line of distinction between art and technology, between the high arts and the low arts, between the so-called fine arts--this terminology is total nonsense from the Islamic point of view--and industrial arts. What is fine arts? All such terms were created in the West including "beautiful arts" (the French beaux arts) because art as the means of creating objects for use in everyday life was taken away from human beings in the Industrial Revolution and replaced by, for the most part, ugly products of the machine. In traditional civilizations there was a continuous spectrum of creation which was always related to God, from the making of a simple comb to the composition of f poetry and everything in between; everything was related to God and reflected His quality as the Supreme Artisan on the human plane. Now modern technology destroys that relationship. Whether or not the person driving a car is a pious person, who uses the car to go to the masjid to pray, or go to a night club, the destruction of the environment is there and the making and driving of the car--which is a machine--are cut off from the divine prototype of creativity.

Many of us think that the sacred character of life can be preserved simply by saying our daily prayers. I wish it could. But those are simply the pillars; the rest of life also needs to be made sacred. In Islam every activity has a symbolic and sacred aspect. In agriculture, for instance, when one cultivated the land, the whole process of sowing seeds and cultivation has a spiritual and religious significance, whereas now with mechanized agribusiness this spiritual dimension of agriculture is all gone. The use of animals in transportation necessitated a relationship between the human being and the animal. There is the hadith about treating animals well. That attitude is mostly gone and of course the fact that animals are used less for transportation does not mean that they are better treated. Let us remember how many species disappear and become extinct everyday as a result of the use of modern technology or through painful experiments performed upon them.

The structure of our traditional cities was one of the greatest artistic creations in human history. I mean the Islamic urban design, of which we can still see remnants (al-hamdu li'Llah they have not completely disappeared in cities such as Fez in Morocco, Yazd in Iran, in parts of Isfahan, in parts of Damascus around the Umayyad Mosque, in the old quarters of Cairo, etc.). These urban designs were meant to create a human ambiance in which religion, commerce, education, and daily living were all combined and integrated

into a whole in which unity dominated over multiplicity. And what we today call amusement, or having fun or entertainment, which is such a big part of modern society, that also was integrated into life. The reason that amusement (including sports) has become such an important part of today's world and treated as an independent reality is that work is so unentertaining and so depleted of the sense of the sacred, thanks to the modern machine. It is so boring for most people that entertainment has to become a major independent event to make life bearable. It has practically replaced religion for many people.

I have said all of these things in order to prepare the ground for Muslims to understand the nature of this technology and not to be naive and think that it is simply neutral. It is true that sometimes we have no choice. God has placed me at this time and place in history where I cannot get on a donkey and go to a madrassah as my ancestors did in Kashan. There are no donkeys here and the roads are long. I have to use a car. God knows in what condition we are in this world. Yet, this does not mean that we should be blind to the consequences of the technologies that are involved and adopt every form of technology that comes along just because it is out there.

Besides the loss of subtle spiritual elements, some of which I have mentioned and some of which I have not, modern technology is literally leading us to our death. It is as simple as that. We are witnessing the destruction of the natural environment on a vast scale and no amount of putting our head in the snow and trying to forget what is going on is going to solve the problem. If the Muslim world, China, and India really take off industrially and become as industrialized as, let us say the United States, and have the same rate of consumption as does America, then the whole ecosystem in the world will probably collapse or be radically modified. Everybody knows that. Already without having reached that point, numerous places are at the verge of catastrophic destruction--from the coral reefs of Australia to the Amazon forest. Every intelligent person knows these facts, but few want to pay attention to them. I think that it is the duty of the Islamic intelligentsia to draw attention to this situation. This issue is, from the point of view of our earthly life, much more important than any other single issue in this world. I am not talking about the spiritual matters which, from the Islamic point of view, are the most important, of course, in human life, but of issues such as poverty, economic crises, political oppression, dictatorships, revolutions, all of these things: none of these poses as great a danger as this problem of the destruction of the natural environment, because those things may gradually be solved, whereas if we do not turn immediately to the issue of environmental degradation caused by modern technology, we are not going to be around to solve anything else unless God intervenes in nature

in ways that we cannot think of--that is in His Will--but from the human point of view, the way we are going, we have just a few years left to completely change the way we live, or we shall perish.

Most people in the West will say, "Ah! The solution to this crisis is new technologies to replace old technologies." It is here I believe that they are completely wrong. What has to be done is to revive the sacred view of nature which is totally opposed to how modern technology views nature. What Muslims have to do, in fact, is not to employ every new foreign technology that comes along, but only use technologies which have less negative impact on the environment. Yes, I agree, there are relative benefits in, for example, having factories which do not create as much smoke as before, but that is minor compared to something much more profound and that is the general negative impact of modern technology upon the environment and upon the souls of modern human beings. Modern technology creates a negative impact, and this impact increases not only tenfold, but up to hundredfold with many new technologies, so that the more technology we have normally, the more negative of an impact we make upon the environment, and also upon minds and psyches.

We have to change our whole way of living. We--and I mean everybody on this planet--have to change in a basic way and think of technology in another manner. This is where the Muslim world can play a positive role. Let me say a few things specifically about Islam. Educated people in the Muslim world want to be technologically like the West, including, unfortunately, even those who are pious and do not like the West, and even those who are so-called 'fundamentalists'. When it comes to technology, they are as Western as the most modernized Muslims. You take the most secularized Turk in Istanbul or from some other city, and the most fundamentalist Muslim preaching in some mosque in Saudi Arabia; their attitude toward technology is probably the same, which is a remarkable comment to make when you consider their very different interpretations of the Islamic worldview.

Now, that has to change. Muslims have to realize what we cannot and should not do in this realm. There is no choice for a Muslim community in having or not having telephone or electricity. Let us, therefore, not talk about things which cannot be done and technologies that cannot be avoided, even if we realize their negative aspects. Let us talk about things which can be done.

The Muslim world can still preserve many things. First of all, in the field of agriculture, for instance, genetic engineering is a dangerous practice to be avoided if possible. In countries like Pakistan and Iran, which have major agriculture sectors, we must strive to preserve as much as possible, and it is possible to preserve the traditional modes of agriculture production by keeping small farms, rather than changing the whole method by adopting large agro-businesses, using genetically engineered seed, taking over the traditional farms; these agro-businesses are hardly the hope for providing food for the whole globe as is usually advertised.

Secondly, it is possible to preserve to a large extent the traditional urban design of Islamic cities and the technologies which affect human relationships, modes of transportation, the use of energy, and many other forms of technology. The preservation of traditional Islamic architecture and urban design can play a major role in preserving something of traditional technologies and a saner way of life.

We must not be like a sleepwalker who accepts whatever comes along without even thinking about its consequences. It is paradoxical, just to take the case of cell phones that have spread like wildfire over the earth in the last twenty years. We even have people circumambulating the Ka'bah while their cell phones are ringing--this is a blasphemy of the worst kind that you can imagine. These cell phones have so many negative medical effects, but many Muslims are just blindly following the trends that originate in the West. But the irony is that in the West, at least a small number of people have their eyes open, whereas the Muslim world is blindly copying whatever comes from Western technology. Even those who are against the West have a deep trust in Western technology. They think that whatever technology comes from the West must be good. We need to have a greater sense of discernment in this matter.

That does not mean that tomorrow morning we can stop having anything to do with modern technology. Some people in England have recently created small villages which are completely pre-industrial, with natural agriculture, natural water, and so on. Alas, I do not think that many in the Muslim world would envisage such a thing at this time.

There are, however, many wise choices which we can still make and are not making, for example in the use of traditional technologies in making objects such as carpets and utensils, traditional irrigation systems, traditional use of energy in relation to architecture, and so on and so forth. More generally I believe that we must do everything possible in the Muslim world not to allow our tradition of making of things in an artistic

way to be totally destroyed. The weakening of this tradition was one of the major results of the impact of colonialism in the nineteenth century, parallel to the destruction of our scientific tradition and of much of our educational system. The arts have not been completely destroyed but they have suffered a great deal.

Let me give you an example: the Persian carpet is a very important element in many homes. It is true that for the most part its dyes have become chemical, imported originally from Germany, since the 1920's and 30's, but still carpet making remains a traditional artform. It is woven by artisans and has a spiritual significance. The carpet plays a very important role in traditional Islamic society because we sit on the floor, pray on the floor, eat on the floor, sleep on the floor. A carpeted space becomes the living room, the dining room, the prayer room, and the family room where everyone sits together in the small traditional home, which is the case for the majority of Muslims. In many places, say in a village in Afghanistan, many have one room, where they do everything. The same is true in Iran, Pakistan, Morocco, everywhere. Now, we must not allow the traditional carpet to become the industrialized carpeting that we have in the United States, though such an industry makes money. Unfortunately, some carpet factories have even come to Iran, which is the most important country for the making of carpets. We have to prevent such destruction of the traditional crafts to the extent possible and this is an instance where the preservation of traditional technologies is possible if there is the will. We have to try to preserve the making of hand-woven cloth. A lot of the things that Gandhi said that everyone scoffs about today, even in India, where he is the father of the nation and yet nobody wants to listen to what he said, were completely true. Once you destroy over 100,000 Indian villages whose economy is based on recycling, what is left of India? The same holds true for us.

The wonderful hand-woven cloth still made in Morocco or Algeria is there, but many other arts, crafts, and traditional technologies have been destroyed in the central lands of Islam; much has been lost. But in certain parts of the Muslim world, traditional methods of production continue and these should be strengthened rather than lost. The governments should try to help in this task of preservation. There are projects like this in Amman, in Morocco, in Iran, and other places. They should try to expand the production of traditionally produced objects not as luxury items, so that you can buy a vase and put it in your living room not as a so- called piece of art, but as part of daily living. Your grandmother and my grandmother took a cloth to go to the public bathhouse once a week, as almost all men and women did in those days--those pieces of cloth were all woven by hand, and many of them are in textile museums today.

It is remarkable how the quality of life has gone down, and not up, with modern technology. The clothing, the bowls from which people ate food, the quality of the food itself, its fragrance and everything else has gone down as far as quality is concerned. So, we should try and preserve these islands, those sectors of human life in which the traditional technologies still survive. Such technologies are combined with art, with a meaning in the making of things, with the satisfaction of the person who makes them, the satisfaction of the person who consumes them, because there is something directly human and at the same time spiritual in the production of handiworks, even if it be a simple comb made by hand.

Titus Burckhardt has a wonderful story in his book on Islamic art that a simple comb maker narrated in Fez, Morocco. He told of how this art was first taught by God to Seth, the son of Adam, and has a spiritual significance. The simple comb, if you go to the bazaar and buy one made by hand, you feel the difference between it and the one produced by the machine. Even an American tourist feels it. In Western society with its high technology something made by hand is considered to be valuable and not inferior. People pay a lot more money if something is made by hand, whereas in much of the Muslim world things have been going in the reverse direction for the last hundred years. Machine-made objects are considered by many to be better than hand-made ones. We can, however, reverse these trends. This can be done. This reversal has to go hand in hand with the intellectual critique of modern technology along the lines of first dealing with its cosmological/ spiritual aspect and second its impact upon the environment, both natural and human.

In response to this point of view, it is often said that it is impossible to go back to those technologies which cannot produce massive quantities because our needs have increased manifold, because the number of people on this planet has increased tremendously from the pre-Industrial Revolution era. This is true to some extent in certain fields, but not all. For example, let us take the big cities of India where women still wear saris made by hand. Today there are about 500 million of them. Two hundred years ago there were probably 100 million of them; a 1000 years ago 50 million of them. It is true that the consumers have increased from perhaps 50 million in the Middle Ages to 500 million now, since there are now a billion Indians, out of which approximately 500 million are women. But the number who can produce the cloth have also increased. If one has a somewhat simpler life there will be also more people who can produce things which are made by hand, as their consumption is also increased in proportion. This is one of the fallacious arguments (supposedly on firm economic basis) that is given to create a consumer society.

A consumer society consumes a lot more than it needs. It feeds upon the creation of false needs, which is driving the world to its annihilation and always, the argument is given, that "oh, yes, more people need more things." That is not necessarily true, because when you have more people, you also have more people who can produce simpler things and do not always need machines. In fact the sudden explosion of the world population is itself a product of modern technology, for medical technology is a part of that technology; there is no doubt about it. Modern medicine is a double-edged sword. It saves many lives but it is also indirectly destroying the world through making possible over-population and the greater impact of human beings on the natural environment. They all go together. Right now, if there were a billion of us on the surface of the earth rather than six billion and a half, this catastrophe--that several species have already disappeared from the surface of the earth just during the forty-five minutes that I have been speaking--would not have occurred. It is a catastrophic situation.

So, it is true that we have now a much larger world population, but we also have a much larger population to produce simple things, as I gave the example of hand-woven saris in India. This could work for many other objects. For example, Iran now has a population of over 70 million people. Just a generation ago we had 35 million people, doubled in a period of 30 years. That means that the usage of Persian carpets has more or less also doubled. That could be the pretext, and it was something that many in the government said both before and after the Iranian Revolution, that we have to bring in machine-made carpets because the population and its needs have increased. But also, the people who make the carpets have increased. In fact, in the villages in Iran today, you can see that there are lot more people making carpets than there were thirty years ago. Appropriate government policies can help a great deal in such situations. I am not saying that it should be done in every case, but in many cases, efforts should be made to preserve the qualitative relationship to production and to consider happiness in life not as having more and more, but in valuing what one has while providing for basic necessities.

This is a very challenging matter because many people will criticize me and say, "Oh! You are against wealth. You are against this, you are against that." No, I am not. There have always been poor people and rich people. But the human collectivity--six billion people--cannot together have the so-called standard of living (which is a dangerous statement but it is made all the time) of the highly industrial nations of the world. The earth cannot support that. And despite all of this modern technology, far from destroying poverty, the modern world has made poverty much worse in cutting man away from nature. Look at the difference

between the rich and the poor--there are few places on earth where the difference is as great as in the United States, where the head of a company makes nine million dollars and the janitor makes 10 thousand dollars a year. This is very common here. It is in many ways worse than the difference between the maharajas of India and their subjects during the rule of the Raj. This is one of those very fallacious arguments that are given by economists of communism and socialism on the one hand as well as capitalism on the other. All claim that they will make people richer and destroy poverty. Now this is possible to some extent but not completely. You see what has happened in practice. Those countries which have the modern technologies, the North, look how different their life is from those who do not. And the idea of chasing after this technology in the so-called underdeveloped world is of course based on the fact that you are always receiving the breadcrumbs of someone else who has eaten at the table, and this so-called chase is not going to improve matters.

We need to think of poverty and wealth in other terms. Let us take a village that lives close to nature, has natural water, has good clean air coming from the mountains, deserts, or forests. It does not have to have all of the wealth of the city of New York in order for people to be happy. That is not the case. We need to rethink our whole attitude towards happiness, towards poverty. Of course, no government can refuse food or clothing or water to its citizens, I am not saying that. Modern technology could of course help these things, but the fact is that most modern technology is associated with greed; it is associated with modern economics, which is based on greed, and you have seen the consequences of it. We do not have to go into that matter here but we should not blindly accept such arguments that modern technology is the only means to a happy life. The Muslim world can, perhaps, do a better job if it can control greed, if it can control the negative elements, and have a better distribution of wealth, as the Qur'an teaches us. That it can do if it remains faithful to Islam. But that does not mean that it has to forego the intimate relationship between human beings and the means of production, while trying to have economic justice. That is the whole issue.

Coming back to the main point, "what should be the attitude of Muslims toward modern technology", let us first analyze this matter. This is a very complicated question. The Muslim world encountered the modern West in a situation of a power struggle, that is, the West invaded the Muslim world and Muslims tried to understand how it was that they were being dominated. They thought it was modern Western technology, science, and managerial organization which had allowed the West to colonize them. And power brings with it a sense of respect, unfortunately. There is a beautiful Arabic saying, "al-insanu 'abid al-ihsan", "man is the

servant of virtue". But unfortunately, there is also the axiom: "al-insanu 'abid al-qudrah", that is, "man is the servant of power". This is human nature. And the Muslim world, seeing the power of the West, just as did the Chinese and the Japanese worlds, began to have a sense of servitude, obedience, and awe, combined with an inferiority complex, from the nineteenth century onwards: attitudes which are still very much with us.

Although during the past fifty years many voices have spoken very strongly against this inferiority complex (and insha'a 'Llah it will gradually diminish) it is still present to a large extent. This inferiority complex does not only involve technology; it is a subset of something larger, that is, the attitude towards the whole of Western culture's organizational strength, its political and economic power and so forth, although not, strictly speaking, religious thought. Even among the most Westernized Muslims would few would say, "Christianity is superior to Islam because that is the religion of the West." But in other domains the inferiority complex remains.

There is, however, one very important mistake that has complicated this discussion. Muslim society has tried to reassert itself during the last half century, or a bit earlier, but certainly since the Second World War, and has tried to redefine its own identity. Many people have said, "We are no longer mesmerized by the West, its philosophies, its this or that, but what the West has that is positive is its technology. We are against modern Western culture, but technology is neutral, and we want to adopt it." The supreme case of this way of looking at things can be found in what happened in Saudi Arabia between the 1960s and early 90s. The Saudis became very docile in the acceptance of Western technology, as if it were totally neutral. This attitude, although it is a subset of a larger problem, is in fact a new problem that is even more dangerous because it is based on an illusion of the worst kind, and that is that modern technology is culturally and ethically neutral. It is not. It is culturally bound. And it cannot be separated from a worldview which affects man's understanding of himself, of the world around him, not to speak of God and the spiritual world.

But there is some hope. Let me turn to the subject of Islamic architecture and design which are so deeply related to traditional technologies. In the early 1970s I organized the first conference ever held on traditional Islamic architecture in modern times in the city of Ifahn. I brought Hasan Fathy, the famous Egyptian architect, from Cairo to Iran. We helped publish his book Building for the Poor and Fathy's style has now changed the whole area around Lake Fayyum in Egypt. It really began to take off from the Isfahan conference. And it became a turning point of sorts. From about the early 1970s, a number of Muslim

architects and city planners began to realize the significance of what in Persia we call "baft", that is, the texture of the Islamic City, meaning not only individual buildings, but the urban design itself. My own former students Nader Ardalan and Laleh Bakhtiar wrote a book The Sense of Unity which analyzed the urban design of Isfahan and other places on the basis of the idea of "divine unity", the integration of various functions of a city and the cosmological and theological significance of urban design.

Since that time, some thirty years have passed. One of the things I did was plant, along with others, the idea in the mind of the Aga Khan to give an award for architecture which now has become very famous, though the Aga Khan award, I believe, does not only deal with buildings that are Islamic architecture, but it gradually grew out of the ideals of Islamic architecture and then came to also include other buildings. Its concerns have remained in any case mostly Islamic. This program has helped to gradually draw attention to the importance of Islamic architecture and of the urban design of Islamic cities, which are a very important part of Islamic civilization and culture and include traditional technologies.

Now, what can be done? The first thing that can be done is to preserve what has not been destroyed. All those areas of cities such as Tehran, Lahore, and Cairo--where people infatuated with Western models have demolished beautiful traditional quarters to make big boulevards which are extremely hot during the summer and have destroyed the whole environmental context of the city and all of these things--cannot be resuscitated anymore; nothing can be done to undo this destruction, at least in the short term. But there are quarters of some of these cities which are still partly traditional, like the area around the Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore or the Grand Bazaar of Tehran or of course the old Mamluk and Fatamid Cairo. The first thing to do is to prevent these areas from being further destroyed by having big streets run though them, or building tall structures which would destroy the texture of the area. And some of this has been done, thank God. This is one area where things are better now than before. Can you imagine that in the 1970s the mayor of Fez wanted to cut a big boulevard across the middle of the city? Fez is the largest urban area in the world which has no cars in it. And Titus Burckhardt saved the city by going to UNESCO and getting a commission to save Fez and finally speaking with the King of Morocco so that they stopped the plan. Nobody today would think of doing such a thing in Morocco. Things have improved a great deal in this respect. So the first thing to do is to preserve those areas which we still have in many of our countries, especially the smaller cities-- for example, Aleppo, Kashan, and Yazd--those magnificent cities in Syria, the central and southern parts of

Iran, and also in Morocco, the whole of Yemen, perhaps Hyderabad in Sindh, some of the Indian cities, and so forth. This is the first thing to do.

The second step, and this has also been taken to some extent, is to try to be inspired by this traditional Islamic urban design in the designing of new towns and villages, rather than simply using Western designs. I was very happy to see that a few of these traditional designs have been implemented in even Saudi Arabia which destroyed so much of its old architecture so rapidly, as well as in Iran, Egypt, Morocco, and elsewhere; of course they are still a minority voice (the architects that are doing this) but this trend continues. Now, I accept that it is not possible in the big capitals of the Muslim world; you cannot undo what has been done to Istanbul or to Cairo. But for the smaller cities, I think, it can be done: many great cities of the Muslim World still have areas which have traditional Islamic architecture or urban design: Damascus, Istanbul, Isfahan, Mashad, Lahore, even Delhi--much of which is really an Islamic city because it was ruled by Muslims for so long--Cairo, and of course the cities of North Africa, which are exceptional in the preservation of their medinahs. All of these can still be preserved.

A new generation of architects has to be trained to carry out this task. Right now there is only one school of traditional architecture in the Muslim World that gives a degree in traditional Islamic architecture. That is in Jordon. Until a few years ago, there was just the Prince of Wales Institute in London. There is still no other university in the Muslim World which grants a degree in Islamic architecture and design. When they have a "school of architecture", it is Western architecture. So, we have to start changing by having more schools of Islamic architecture. The same is true for medicine; we have to teach Islamic medicine and pharmacology in medical and pharmacy schools, to teach their philosophy as we should teach the philosophy of Islamic architecture and design. What is important is to understand the principles of Islamic urban design, not only its external form.

For example, in the planning of the city of Lahore--which was one of the most beautiful cities in the world when I first saw it in 1959, and when I saw it thirty years later, I was flabbergasted by the sprawl, it was one of the big shocks of my life--Islamic architecture took into consideration local natural and social conditions, traditional technologies, as well as metaphysical and cosmological principles. They knew that the climate of Lahore is not the same as the climate of Yazd, nor that of Tangiers, so they took everything into consideration: climatic conditions, the social fabric, social dynamics, etc. But above all, these cities had

something common in their design: they were all based on certain metaphysical principles related to the nature of reality, cosmology, and the relationship between the human being and God from an Islamic point of view. These principles are now gradually being studied by younger Muslim architects. This type of study has in fact made a lot of progress in the last few decades. For this, we owe a great deal to the writings of Titus Burckhardt and a few others, and perhaps some of my own humble writings which I wrote to try to explain the cosmology and the philosophy behind Islamic art and architecture along with their related technologies. But we also owe a great deal, of course, to the few architects, such as Hasan Fathy, and then the younger generation of architects--people such as Abdul- Wahid al-Wakil and Umar Faruq in Egypt and Sami al- Anghawi in Saudi Arabia, who have tried to apply some of these principles. In this domain, I am more hopeful than I was thirty years ago when I organized the conference in Isfahan. Let us hope that, insha'Llah, this will continue and that in-depth critique of modern technology will enable Muslims to preserve at least something of their traditional ambiance, which was always permeated with the presence of God and was also in harmony with the natural ambiance. Let us also hope that Muslims will gain a deeper awareness of what modern technology entails and develop a more discerning attitude toward it.

This is the transcription of an interview with Seyyed Hossein Nasr by Islam & Science. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is the University Professor of Islamic studies at The George Washington University, Washington DC and President of the Foundation for Traditional Studies; Gelman Library 709R, 2130 H Street, NW, Washington DC 20052, USA. Email: [email protected].

Thomson Gale Document Number:A139516230

GDPR General Data Protection Regulation (NOTES)

You may have noticed over the past few months that our tech companies are apologizing, and promising that from now on, they will protect our data. All of these companies are suggesting or leaving implicit that they are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, out of a wish to do the right thing, to be ethical. This is not their motivation for suddenly promising to protect our data. GDPR is the reason they are suddenly promising to protect our data

GDPR stands for G eneral D ata P rotection R egulation . In French, it is RGPD. GDPR is the new EU law protecting user data from abuses by tech companies. GDPR took effect on May 25th, 2018. Please note that GDPR is not named a privacy law. As I have been maintaining in this class for over a decade, data property rights are usually more important than data

privacy rights. This is especially important because companies anonymize data, and humans virtually never see any shared data. Privacy is thus seldom violated in the sharing of our data, but property rights to control of our data, those property rights are violated every time you visit most sites.

HISTORY OF GDPR: 10/24/95---EDPD—European Data Protection Directive adopted (precursor to GDPR) 01/25/12—proposal for data protection law reforms, EDPD is outdated. 2012- 14---GDPR proposals discussed and preliminary GDPR is written 03/12/14---European Parliament votes—621 votes for GDPR out of 653 possible votes. 06/15/15—language of GDPR finalized 12/15/15—EU bodies reach agreement on terms of GDPR 02/02/16---action plan for implementing GDPR 05/24/16---GDPR adopted by EU, implementation period begins. 05/25/18—GDPR becomes active enforceable law

GDPR –LAW: PROTECTIONS

What Tech Companies cannot do • TOS cannot be vague and/or confusingly worded • NO BLANKET TOS-- consent to use of user data should be an ongoing,

actively managed process • no auto-profiling of health data, • no auto-profiling of political belief • no auto-profiling of religious affiliation • no re-identifiable anonymized data sets • no withholding of info about data breaches (must be disclosed in 72 hours) • no automatic refusal of an online credit application • no e-recruiting practices without human intervention.

What EU users can do (does not apply to US users, so check if a company is extending rights of European users to include rights for us.)

• right to access data held about them (a copy of the data must be provided to them free of charge, typically within a month of a request);

• right to request rectification of incomplete or inaccurate personal data; • right to have their data deleted (another so-called ‘right to be forgotten’ — with

some exemptions, such as for exercising freedom of expression and freedom of information);

• right to restrict processing; • right to data portability • right to withdraw consent at any time.

USA users rights we can now expect (because of GDPR)

• TOS cannot be vague and/or confusingly worded (one TOS globally will be easier and no chance of violation of shared platforms, etc.

• NO BLANKET TOS-- consent to use of user data should be an ongoing, actively managed process (treating US users differently would mean different front portal managed by some gps coordinates, too difficult) .

• no auto-profiling of health data,(aggregating data by country would be difficult and less valuable, and current US law provides most protection already)

• no re-identifiable anonymized data sets (if a tech company is investing in this level of coding security, they would do so, most likely, globally

GDPR—PUNISHMENTS. Maximum Fine for each violation of the law :

• eu 20,000,000 (20 million Euros= over $23,000,000 (dollars)) or

• 4% of their global annual turnover

Whichever is greater.