Technologies of Freedom

Technologies of Freedom PDF

Author: Ithiel de Sola Pool

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0674042212

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How can we preserve free speech in an electronic age? In a masterly synthesis of history, law, and technology, Ithiel de Sola Pool analyzes the confrontation between the regulators of the new communications technology and the First Amendment.

Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom

Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom PDF

Author: Adam Thierer

Publisher: Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Published: 2016-03-15

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1942951248

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Will innovators be forced to seek the blessing of public officials before they develop and deploy new devices and services, or will they be generally left free to experiment with new technologies and business models? In this book, Adam Thierer argues that if the former disposition, “the precautionary principle,” trumps the latter, “permissionless innovation,” the result will be fewer services, lower-quality goods, higher prices, diminished economic growth, and a decline in the overall standard of living. When public policy is shaped by “precautionary principle” reasoning, it poses a serious threat to technological progress, economic entrepreneurialism, and long-run prosperity. By contrast, permissionless innovation has fueled the success of the Internet and much of the modern tech economy in recent years, and it is set to power the next great industrial revolution—if we let it.

The New Technologies of Freedom

The New Technologies of Freedom PDF

Author: Dr Darcy W.E. Allen

Publisher: American Institute for Economic Research

Published: 2020-08-03

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1630692077

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We are on the cusp of a dramatic wave of technological change - from blockchain to automated smart contracts, artificial intelligence and machine learning to advances in cryptography and digitisation, from Internet of Things to advanced communications technologies. These are the new technologies of freedom. These tools present a historical unprecedented opportunity to recapture individual freedoms in the digital age - to expand individual rights, to protect property, to defend our privacy and personal data, to exercise our freedom of speech, and to develop new voluntary communities. This book presents a call to arms. The liberty movement has spent too much time begging the state for its liberties back. We can now use new technologies to build the free institutions that are needed for human flourishing without state permission. The New Technologies of Freedom is part of a joint project between the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub, an academic research centre based at RMIT University in Melbourne Australia, and the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation. Mannkal's mission is developing future free market leaders. Mannkal promotes free enterprise, limited government and individual initiative for the benefit of all Australians. The American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was founded in 1933 as the first independent voice for sound economics in the United States. Today it publishes ongoing research, hosts educational programs, publishes books, sponsors interns and scholars, and is home to the world-renowned Bastiat Society and the highly respected Sound Money Project. The American Institute for Economic Research is a 501c3 public charity.

Team Human

Team Human PDF

Author: Douglas Rushkoff

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2019-01-22

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0393651703

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“A provocative, exciting, and important rallying cry to reassert our human spirit of community and teamwork.”—Walter Isaacson Team Human is a manifesto—a fiery distillation of preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s most urgent thoughts on civilization and human nature. In one hundred lean and incisive statements, he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together—not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups. Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport. In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity—together—we can make the world a better place to be human.

Constitution 3.0

Constitution 3.0 PDF

Author: Jeffrey Rosen

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2011-11-11

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0815722133

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At the beginning of the twenty-first century, breathtaking changes in technology are posing stark challenges to our constitutional values. From free speech to privacy, from liberty and personal autonomy to the right against self-incrimination, basic constitutional principles are under stress from technological advances unimaginable even a few decades ago, let alone during the founding era. In this provocative collection, America's leading scholars of technology, law, and ethics imagine how to translate and preserve constitutional and legal values at a time of dizzying technological change. Constitution 3.0 explores some of the most urgent constitutional questions of the near future. Will privacy become obsolete, for example, in a world where ubiquitous surveillance is becoming the norm? Imagine that Facebook and Google post live feeds from public and private surveillance cameras, allowing 24/7 tracking of any citizen in the world. How can we protect free speech now that Facebook and Google have more power than any king, president, or Supreme Court justice to decide who can speak and who can be heard? How will advanced brain-scan technology affect the constitutional right against self-incrimination? And on a more elemental level, should people have the right to manipulate their genes and design their own babies? Should we be allowed to patent new forms of life that seem virtually human? The constitutional challenges posed by technological progress are wide-ranging, with potential impacts on nearly every aspect of life in America and around the world. The authors include Jamie Boyle, Duke Law School; Eric Cohen and Robert George, Princeton University; Jack Goldsmith, Harvard Law School; Orin Kerr, George Washington University Law School; Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School; Stephen Morse, University of Pennsylvania Law School; John Robertson, University of Texas Law School; Christopher Slobogin, Vanderbilt Law School; O. Carter Snead, Notre

Future Imperfect

Future Imperfect PDF

Author: David D. Friedman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-09-19

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781107601659

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Future Imperfect describes and discusses a variety of technological revolutions that might happen over the next few decades, their implications, and how to deal with them. Topics range from encryption and surveillance through biotechnology and nanotechnology to life extension, mind drugs, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. One theme of the book is that the future is radically uncertain. Technological changes already begun could lead to more or less privacy than we have ever known, freedom or slavery, effective immortality or the elimination of our species, and radical changes in life, marriage, law, medicine, work, and play. We do not know which future will arrive, but it is unlikely to be much like the past. It is worth starting to think about it now.

The Internet in Everything

The Internet in Everything PDF

Author: Laura DeNardis

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2020-01-07

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0300233078

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A compelling argument that the Internet of things threatens human rights and security "Sobering and important."--Financial Times, "Best Books of 2020: Technology" The Internet has leapt from human-facing display screens into the material objects all around us. In this so-called Internet of things--connecting everything from cars to cardiac monitors to home appliances--there is no longer a meaningful distinction between physical and virtual worlds. Everything is connected. The social and economic benefits are tremendous, but there is a downside: an outage in cyberspace can result not only in loss of communication but also potentially in loss of life. Control of this infrastructure has become a proxy for political power, since countries can easily reach across borders to disrupt real-world systems. Laura DeNardis argues that the diffusion of the Internet into the physical world radically escalates governance concerns around privacy, discrimination, human safety, democracy, and national security, and she offers new cyber-policy solutions. In her discussion, she makes visible the sinews of power already embedded in our technology and explores how hidden technical governance arrangements will become the constitution of our future.

Stand Out of Our Light

Stand Out of Our Light PDF

Author: James Williams

Publisher:

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 110845299X

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Argues that human freedom is threatened by systems of intelligent persuasion developed by tech giants who compete for our time and attention. This title is also available as Open Access.

Children of Choice

Children of Choice PDF

Author: John A. Robertson

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1400821207

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Cloning, genetic screening, embryo freezing, in vitro fertilization, Norplant, RU486--these are the technologies revolutionizing our reproductive landscape. Through the lens of procreative liberty--meaning both the freedom to decide whether or not to have children as well as the freedom to control one's reproductive capacity--John Robertson, a leading legal bioethicist, analyzes the ethical, legal, and social controversies surrounding each major technology and opens up a multitude of fascinating questions: Do frozen embryos have the right to be born? Should parents be allowed to select offspring traits? May a government force welfare recipients to take contraceptives? Robertson's arguments examine the broad range of consequences of each reproductive technology and offers a timely, multifaceted analysis of the competing interests at stake for patients, couples, doctors, policymakers, lawyers, and ethicists.

How Machines Came to Speak

How Machines Came to Speak PDF

Author: Jennifer Petersen

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2022-01-24

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1478021829

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In How Machines Came to Speak Jennifer Petersen constructs a genealogy of how legal conceptions of “speech” have transformed over the last century in response to new media technologies. Drawing on media and legal history, Petersen shows that the legal category of speech has varied considerably, evolving from a narrow category of oratory and print publication to a broad, abstract conception encompassing expressive nonverbal actions, algorithms, and data. She examines a series of pivotal US court cases in which new media technologies—such as phonographs, radio, film, and computer code—were integral to this shift. In judicial decisions ranging from the determination that silent films were not a form of speech to the expansion of speech rights to include algorithmic outputs, courts understood speech as mediated through technology. Speech thus became disarticulated from individual speakers. By outlining how legal definitions of speech are indelibly dependent on technology, Petersen demonstrates that future innovations such as artificial intelligence will continue to restructure speech law in ways that threaten to protect corporate and institutional forms of speech over the rights and interests of citizens.