RE: Moral 'Enhancement' Technology: A Bad Idea
It's "selection bias". Technology is a magnet that attracts selfish people who are attracted by the money and the high social status. ("Gee, wow! You know how to program computers?") Zuckerberg and Gates both dropped out of school to pursue riches. Nothing wrong with working to get rich, if that's your thing, but these people did not complete the moral formation that occurs in most university programs. Even those who complete university educations tend to go for the engineering degrees rather than the liberal arts degrees, and it is in the liberal arts programs that you really get molded and developed as a moral human being.
None of this is to say anything negative about people who don't get university educations. What I am saying is that this industry tends to populate itself with the most selfish people available.
I agree with your comment but would like to also add the perspective that many programmers and people on the internet work countless hours providing to open source that is given freely. I can tune my guitar using a free app on my phone for instance. Greed is rampant in our society but I believe this is because our current market system fosters and rewards those human behaviors. We tend as pack animals to take on the mentality of the pack. If our political and market system served to strengthen the pack rather then its design to amass and protect private wealth then you would probably see a change in our behaviors and less greed overall
You are TOTALLY correct and have just stated the essence of my view of where the seflishness comes from. Your are also correct to point out my overgeneralization; people who write software are IMO the hope of the world. But it is no coincidence that most people who write software have liberal arts educations. The purity of their hearts isn't entirely to their credit, however, since their career choice insulates them from getting their hands dirty and confronting the moral choices that those in other occupations must deal with.
I am an economist and a C++ software developer. When I was young, writing software wasn't about the money. I came to Silicon Valley and was dismayed to find that, here at least, it had become all about the money.