DIY Science, Democracy, and Dogma

Ordinary citizens today have access to much greater destructive power than ever before, and this may force the evolution of democracy, which has turned somewhat into dogma.

On July 4, 2010, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced the capture of a new weapon in the drug wars: “The first fully functional, completely submersible submarine for transoceanic voyages that we have ever found,” said a DEA official.

The sophisticated vessel in Ecuador was designed presumably to smuggle drugs into America undetected, but it doesn’t take a naval scientist to see their potential to threaten national security. These submarines also could carry terrorists or a dangerous payload as serious as biochemical weapons, e.g., ricin, or a nuclear “dirty” bomb into New York City’s harbor.

It’s ironic that this underwater vehicle—capable of breaching the borders of sovereign nations—would be discovered on the birthday of America, the new world’s first democracy. Here’s why: The invention of this underwater Millennium Falcon is a milestone for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) science, nearly 400 years after the invention of the first submarine. But democracy and its attendant values of education, information freedom, and progress are what enable DIY science. In this way, democracy has become a threat to itself.

To explain, let me rewind to about one month ago. I was a speaker at the Humanity+ Summit at Harvard, giving a talk on the link between military technology research and social concerns. The conference theme was “Rise of the Citizen-Scientist.” I’ve always had mixed feelings about this issue: science education is certainly good and desperately needed in the US, and I personally had tinkered with everything from computers to chemistry sets as a kid—but is DIY science wise in this day and age? I don’t know, but let’s return to that point later.

What’s clear, though, is that ordinary citizens are much more powerful than they ever were, and this may force the evolution of democracy, which has turned somewhat into dogma.

America was born from the struggle to be free (slavery aside). We puny individuals were no match against government troops or a well-regulated militia, so we needed Constitutional protection from the tyrannies of government. In fighting for that independence, we turned to new tactics—abandoning the orderly rank-and-file formations and hiding behind trees as guerilla freedom-fighters (or cowardly terrorists, if we had lost).

Today, the individual wields much power, enough to change government itself as well as to open an unprecedented world of hurt on fellow citizens, whether with malicious computer hacking or fertilizer-based bombs or anthrax-laced letters or any number of other ways.

At the same time, we accept that democracy is a risky venture. The Nazi Party could put forth a presidential candidate and, in some possible world, s/he might win. Of course, we really don’t want that to happen. Ever. But it’s a risk that comes with the territory of freedom.

For instance, in the Digital Age, information (and misinformation) moves at the speed of Twitter, and Presidents and candidates are reducible to single soundbites: “Yes, We Can”, “Maverick”, “You Betcha”, “Strategery”, “Lockbox”, “Monica”, “Potatoe”, “Read My Lips: No New Taxes”, and so on, working backwards. The average citizen, with a shrinking attention span, continues to cast the most important votes with incomplete or just plain misinformed knowledge. This risk—of irresponsible power among the masses—is the double edged blade of democracy.

But today, it is still a traitorous offense in many circles to question the limits of freedom and individual rights, even 70 years after the formation of the US House Committee on Un-American Activities, most infamously led by Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. Democracy has become dogma, a mantra of sorts—and God help you if you criticize those values. (You fascist! Terrorist!)

This is what John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville called the “tyranny of democracy.” But, granting that democracy is better than all other forms of government today (Plato and Marx would still disagree), is it the best form of government possible? Can we do better? Are we allowed to ask these questions?

Let me put it this way: If individuals had the power to destroy cities and societies—and we may have that soon, if we don’t already—would a democracy even work? Wouldn’t regulating that power make sense? Note that regulation itself is not a contradiction to democratic freedom. We are happy to have traffic laws, for example, to coordinate the chaos on the road. Yet, when it comes to DIY science—returning to the topic at hand and what seems to be a natural extension of democracy—it’s often a four-letter word.

To be clear, as a fan of science, I would never advocate that we abandon it. It has brought profound benefits to humanity, saving countless lives. Citizen-scientists are an indispensable, major part of that honored tradition.

But science also holds a darker side, of which we need to stay mindful. Never mind nuclear weapons, just look at the democratization of cyberspace: Escaping its military roots, the Internet has made previously unimaginable ways of life possible, from a virtual social life through Facebook to how modern business works, e.g., analytics, CRM, financial systems.

Again, private start-ups and citizen-scientists played a critical role in all this. But a relatively small set of malicious hackers are enough to keep us on high alert, even prompting the US government to appoint a “cyber czar” to oversee online national security. This isn’t to say that it would have been better to not have such technology in the first place, but only we must guard against unintended and unforeseen effects.

DIY labs, from biotech to robotics, have the same potential for good and evil. I would never advocate that we abandon research in those areas altogether, but is it wise to put so much power in individual hands? Especially, for instance, when the US Department of Health and Human Services a few years ago essentially published a recipe to resurrect the 1918 influenza virus (which killed 50 million people worldwide) that an angry biochemistry grad student might be able to cook up on his own?

Information wants to be free, and it may take new regulation—or a non-democratic regime—to rein them in, if justified, or at least to control the means of producing such weapons of mass destruction. A bioattack spawned from a DIY lab, as one scenario, could cause such murder and panic that it destabilizes society, imploding democratic controls from within. We should know by now that no organization is too big to fail.

Back to the drug-smuggling submarine that started this rant, we might expect a similar development in robotics, specifically unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Perhaps we won’t see the citizen-scientist recreate something like the Predator UAV, raining down Hellfire missiles from the sky. But a drug-smuggling or weaponized UAV is not hard to imagine, as is its law-enforcement counterpart—autonomously doing battle overhead.

I worry that the furious pace of technology and information is on a collision course with democracy and freedom. It is an act of faith to believe that democracy will always work, no matter the scale of the society or the state of science—no one really knows.

But like other dogmas, even democracy needs to be thoughtfully and productively questioned, as allowed (or even demanded!) by democracy itself. The stakes have never been greater. For instance, the new US space policy is opening doors to outer space for the average person, and more start-up companies will launch their pet projects into orbit. Engaging these kinds of questions will help determine whether we’ll see billboards on the moon or NASCAR-style sponsorship stickers on privately-funded rockets or, more importantly, the militarization of space and the inevitable terrorism that follows it.

Some efforts to regulate DIY science are already underway, but are they enough? Some don’t like them at all, but that shouldn’t be surprising for any given area of regulation. Amateur rocketeers now have to deal with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, since certain rocket-motor fuel is now classified as an explosive; some rockets can reach altitudes of over 60 miles, traveling more than 1,000 miles an hour. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is deeply interested in biosecurity and therefore the emerging cottage industry of DIY labs.

Before a fatwa is put on my head for even daring to raise these questions, let me emphasize that I have not argued for anything at this point. I am not against democracy or individual liberty. I am not against science. I am not against business or even NASCAR. I am just asking questions that I think need to be asked, to responsibly move science and society ahead.

Democracy can evolve. Like everything else, it must evolve. But change rarely comes easily, and radical change is never easy.

Sometimes it may feel as if sacred cows are being sacrificed: Is the Second Amendment relevant in the modern world? Under what conditions would a democracy allow torture? Should woefully ignorant politicos be allowed to hold office? Do individuals have a right to do science, or particular kinds of science, in their garages? But this self-reflection, the soul-searching of a nation, is essential for progress and will pay off eventually. As they say, sacred cows make the best hamburgers.