8 - Conflict, security and computer ethics

Summary

In the long history of human development, almost all technological advances have been quickly harnessed for purposes of war-making. The hunter-gatherer's atlatl – a handheld rod-and-thong with a socket into which a spear was inserted – greatly extended his throwing range, and was good for bringing down prey and handy for fighting competing tribesmen. The same was true of the bow and arrow as well. A kind of dual-use phenomenon – with the same advances having both economic and military applications – soon became evident. For example, the wheel helped move goods in carts, but also led to the war chariot. And so on, since antiquity. The pattern held right up through the industrial revolution, which began over two centuries ago, with steam revolutionizing both land and maritime trade, and giving far greater mobility to armies and navies. Next came aircraft, whose uses seemed to apply to conflict before they did to commerce, since very soon after humankind took to the air a century ago, bombs began to rain down from the sky. The same pattern also held for the atom, with the very first use of nuclear power in 1945 being to kill some hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. ‘Atoms for peace’ came later. Today, early on in the information age, it is clear that the computer too has been yoked to serve Mars, vastly empowering the complex manoeuvres of modern militaries and the disruptive aims of terrorist networks.