Ethical Software

Software companies know they have to get into this, but they have been dragging their feet over it.

Software itself was perfectly logical, but making it ethical also, would mess it up - make it more human, and developers were not sure they wanted to go that way.

But the world was telling them - they had to go that way, whether they wanted to, or not. Software was too important to exist in its own separate, little world.

This has always been true - our technologies have always had social implications. Take, for example, the Railroads. They took over the economy of their time, and made Industrial Warfare inevitable - with its enormous loss of human life.

Did the people in the early 19th Century realize this? No, and WWI resulted. Europe had become united by its Railroads (that could move huge amounts of material (including solders). Their military planners knew this, and included it in their war plans - without anyone else being aware of this.

No one considered how interrelated all these countries were - and how they could easily descend into mutual destruction.

And this is still true today, a century later. We live in a global economy, without any global governance, or planning.

Software could help us do this - it is good at gathering huge amounts of data, and analyzing it.

America could know how much American money exists, and who owns it - by requiring American banks to report this to a Federal agency. This information already exists - it is only a matter of making intelligent use of it.

But Americans will have none of this - the Government, in their opinion, should not mess with their internal affairs - especially anything involving money. No one else should know anything about anyone else's money!

This is crazy! And not just a little crazy - but completely crazy. Money does not exist in a world of its own - but the Human world. They make it and they spend it (if the have any).

And they have to be protected from financial panics - that are now called recessions, or a financial crisis. They have to be protected from themselves, and their own irrational behavior!

Americans are saying, in effect "If we want to commit economic suicide, that's none of your business!"