Communications technology, human nature, and law

Any commentator on human affairs has to reckon with two things: that certain things do not change, and that certain things do.

The job is to work out the difference.

In one way – perhaps the X-axis – there is nothing new under the sun.

And in another way – the Y-axis – there is always something new.

Pundits will also have preferences: some prefer the old and will disparage the new, and some will prefer the new and disparage the old.

Some pundits will be small-c conservative and others small-r radical.

But all commentators have to wrestle with the two same things: continuity and change.

*

Internet-based communications are new, at least in their technology and availability and reach.

For those who grew up before around the year 2000 it was actually quite difficult for most people to communicate outside of your own circle. You could write a letter to the newspaper or someone on the telly or print a pamphlet and hand it out, but that was about it.

To publish or broadcast to the world at large required access to resources in the hands of the few, not of the many.

Broadcasting houses and publishers were the gatekeepers.

(And, in the case of publishers, had been for about 500 years, since the spread of printing presses.)

Now, anyone with access to an internet connection could – in principle – publish or broadcast to the world.

That has to be counted as a fairly profound change.

And we maybe as a species have not yet fully realised the implications of that change.

*

But one thing cannot have changed that much in a couple or so decades: human nature.

Human beings are still a fairly cruel species.

Human beings were cruel before internet-based communications, and unsurprisingly human beings are still cruel after internet-based communications.

The only difference is the availability of new technological means for human beings to be cruel to each other, and at scale.

Some blame the social media platforms for enabling this cruelty – but the key word is “social”.

Yes, the platforms could curb and censor at lot more than they do (and they should), but the ultimate problem is still the people who use the platforms.

People are still people.

*

The problem this combination of the new and the not-so-new is that the law is so far not able to keep pace.

The law is most useful in concrete and practical inter-personal relationships where causation and a lack of remoteness between things can be established.

The law is less useful where causes and effects are two or three steps apart.

As such the law is not helpful in what one can call “stochastic” violence or terrorism – the general and vague encouragement of hostile and lethal acts against groups and individuals by instigators using communications networks.

And over at Prospect last week I set out how the law is similarly not helpful in mainstream and social media pile-ons – where each contributor will (at least to themselves) feel justified, but the aggregate effect can be dangerous, if not lethal.

*

We may be a cruel species, but we also have developed forms of law and government to regulate human conduct.

Survival of the fittest can sometimes mean political innovation and conceptual change.

It is perhaps no coincidence that human ability to make tools – weapons – to kill each other was more-or-less concurrent with our ability to organise ourselves in more complex political groupings, regulating the harm we can do each other.

But we are are now developing communications technologies which mean we can harm each other in ways undreamed of by our ancestors.

The question is whether, if at all, we can limit the lethal effects of this.

***

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.