Do not hesitate to post a topic on the strategies you use to draw young people towards face-to-face in-person interactions, @greenz1.
Note that as a result of this discussion I have changed the mission statement (e.g. in the forum header) to:
Good work as always. Many philosophical considerations to consider:
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Our goal could be to improve the world, meaning the universe including our planet. The current language unintentionally places human interest above the interests of the other species and above the world. Human interest is mostly positive but also does not fail to include the selfish horrors of our ongoing extermination of the other species and the destruction of the environment. Our world extends beyond our species and even beyond all life forms to the edges of the universe, just as our world extends beyond our own individual bodies and beyond “our” countries.
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“Best interests” seems like an ideal yet unattainable state. We can however improve or better the world even if we know we’ll never achieve perfection.
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Humanity is now moving toward a new era where we as humans will putting more and more of our focus on designing a better world. Once it’s designed, it needs to be built. Combining design and building, we can say “create”.
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What about bridging the chasm between the quantitative aspect of technology and the ethical, meaningful side? In the jargon of a bygone era, connecting or uniting the sciences and arts.
Given these considerations, the mission statement could be restated for example as “To Connect Ethics and Technology to Create a Better World”.
Yes, some interesting points. But I don’t think these changes are necessary. Let me explain:
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“Humanity’s Best Interests” - The way I read this is the interest of humanity to live in harmony with the world and doing so sustainably (in the long run, and in environmental, societal, economical and political sense, i.e. holistically). So it is not in our current selfish and capitalistic - if you will - sense of the word.
- This encompasses humanity living along with other species.
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Also as I said before, there is nothig wrong with a Mission Statement being unattainable and utopic, but it should be clear in the direction it is taking.
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Re: Ethics. What I’ve noticed (though it is slightly changing among certain groups, e.g. Ethical AI, Ethical Tech are becoming more popular) is that when something contains the word ‘Ethics’, then many people immediately lose interest, seeing it as a boring subject or far from where they should be involved. It is not an ‘engaging’ word.
- Connecting ethics and technology is also a limitiation in scope of Humane Technology, though you could say ethics is always involved in one way or other. But I prefer the general ‘To Align’ verb, as it does not pin us in a certain direction.
Yes I agree that the adjective humane is a better term than ethical just because it works better from a marketing perspective. Humane just means kind and compassionate, though it’s not a perfect synonym for ethical. The word honorable is a better synonym for ethical, perhaps we should use idea of honor more.
I’m not a fan of utopic statements because many people including myself associate these with idealism rather than something that’s achievable.
I do still disagree with the use of the noun “humanity” instead of say “world” because as a technology group we should use the proper technical words. The adjective “humane” and the noun “humanity” have 2 very different meanings. When we say humanity than means humans and not animals, not other life, not the environment, not other planets which may even be more humane than our own. If Darwin long ago shifted our paradigms to understand that humans are not the center of the animal kingdom or the center of life on Earth, then we should no longer go around and act like we are privileged when we are not. But yes “Community for Humane Technology” is a great name.
I would like to propose the slogan:
“To Align Technology with Creating a Humane World”
I tried to expand the definition of humane tech to include technology developed to protect other creatures, but was told that it wasn’t appropriate–not by @aschrijver but by someone else. I relented and allowed my post to be archived.
I think we need to let the admins do what they think is best, though we can have our personal disagreements, of course.
I remember that topic @patm. I do not know if I was the one who advised to drop the subject. Could well be. But if I was, that wasn’t because it was inappropriate, but rather it was too wide in scope.
We’ve had numerous discussions over time on what Humane Technology exactly entails, what was relevant to our community, and what not.
Both Humane Technology and “Aligning technology to humanity’s best interests” don’t say anything about the scope in which we are operating, and that could be somewhat of a problem, were it not that we implicitly restrict ourselves to the digital realm, i.e. internet-related technology and tech harms.
If we would include e.g. animal welfare and took the broadest implied scope, then we could discuss inbreeding of dogs, maximizing milk production, or even the ethics of drinking milk. Put nature in the mix and we can discuss crop yields, monocultures, pesticides and insect armageddon. Also - closer to our subject matter - we could discuss new military weapon systems, missiles and tanks.
We are not all of that. We are focused on internet technologies: The online world as it applies to users and affects human beings, society in a broader sense, hence ‘humanity’, and tech that takes human values and human wellbeing into account, and does not destroy us and the planet, hence ‘humane technology’.
That is already immensely broad. Even (while follower count is still very low, or because of it) on Twitter I notice that when I tweet a couple of times about Privacy, some new followers will join. If I then follow up with some tweets about Cyberbullying, some people unfollow again, and some others subscribe.
In May this year, when I wasn’t forum admn yet, I wrote a paper about scope strategy, mission and vision to the CHT core team, and I think now is a good time to post it here:
BTW I see this thread as an interesting philosophical discussion, but not necessarily as a project to change our mission statement. Right now the need does not exist. The current terminology and slogan in its context make it clear enough what we are about.
If we ever go about a throroughly well defined mission, vision and slogan, then they should also accurately convey the scope in which we do operate. The current unclarity in these serves as an advantage, I think, as it gives us some freedom of movement to determine (organically) where our community interests lie. Looking back on our prior works and experiences we can then find statements that properly encompass who we are and what we do. Right now IMHO we are in a too immature state to determine that yet.
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Try to “free” your mind a bit…
All depends on your earliest memories of life on this planet. If your earliest “real” memories (as opposed to “history” or stories that we tell our children so they think they are true, or serve the agendas of the winners) are from grossly say around the appearance of Christ or the Buddha then I fully agree with you. There has been violence in various degrees since those times.
Before that there have been times when tech served to establish and maintain peace on the planet. Read Indian scriptures or dive into the oldest now called “myths” of creation, often referred to as Lemuria in some points of view; Avalon in others etc…
Research on what we consider fairy tales and try to figure out what function they have; how they fill a need in people’s education and how the essence of those stories is never lost.
If your memory only goes back some 4, 500 years then you are absolutely right and I won’t argue with you. But my earliest memories are of tech that was chosen by wise people to sustain life, not replace or terminate it.
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Check out Denise Lawrence’s Youtubes on Values, Virtues, Ethics and Morals.
In short: Ethics and Morals serve the ruling class and are a tool to maintain the status quo for those in power.
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Right on, it’s philosophy. It doesn’t have to be perfect or wholistic to make sense, 99% is good enough.
What we’re discussing is really just the underlying philosophical base upon which to build our ethical positions. Some people will mention religion (not me), others will mention “their” country (not me), and other will say all people. The broader universal approach isn’t really necessary.
The word humane actually has to do with “civilised” humans, not all humans, the word is semantically based on an arrogant notion that somehow humans are actually good or even innately different from other animals, as if humans are the center of the universe and the center of all life, which we know to be completely false. In other words we’re using a flawed word view which contains our own anthropocentric bias. Touting our own “humanity” as a value is semantically misleading as it is humans who are the problem. But if you take the meaning of “humanity” nevertheless to mean compassionate and kind, then yes that works even though compassionate and kind is not an accurate portrayal of humans.
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16 posts were merged into an existing topic: Changing community Mission Statement to attain a clearer, more manageable scope
There’re a lot of complex responses here. I don’t disagree about the intent of the image. I don’t even disagree that the image does what it was intended to do.
It’s worth pointing out that someone in our community pointed to the issue of race and representation. That issue has yet to be discussed. In my mind, this observation does not require a justification or defense. It simply requires genuine consideration. Would the same image with a different person indicate the same message? If you had a POC in that image, would it strengthen, weaken, or not change the message?
Rather than opposing that initial observation–through re-explanation, rhetorical positioning, or critical analyses–why not simply consider the actual experience that @theeryanwold (and apparently others) are having? And then consider whether or not to address it?
Thanks,
Cara
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You make really great points! I noticed this too and you put it into words better than I could. I definitely think the vintage pic is evocative and I don’t think it’s what this brand wants to portray. With any technology advocacy there’s a big risk of seeming like prohibitionists so we should avoid anything that gives credence to that perception!
(I love the idea of someone peaking out of the phone but it would look more forward thinking if it were a modern person or even a stick figure!)
As far as the picture… It could be seen many ways- but I really didn’t look at the picture. This is the only place of its kind to have an open forum discussing concerns I have with technology’s influence on our health and schools.
Never judge a book by its cover.
Yes. The image is part of the official artwork of the Center for Humane Technology and ‘borrowed’ by the community in several places (out of convenience and lack of our own ‘branded’ images). I think we’ll address it by phasing out its use within community circles. CHT might find this discussion useful to make up their mind on its use, but for HTC we’ll create a replacement or just use the textual logo.
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