Abstract :
Although the literature concerning the fruits of the development of science and technology falling into wrong hands existed before his writing of Human Use of Human Beings, (i.e. London 1908, Capek 1920, Lang 1927, Huxley 1932 and Orwell 1949), Wiener was probably the first scientist who seriously addressed the issue in a language understandable by the public. Sixty years after the 1954 version of the book, and thirty-five years after first reading it with a feeling of total enlightenment, the author of this paper tries to follow Wiener´s tradition of intellectual honesty against the so-called “political correctness of the time,” to discuss the already clear dangers that Wiener had foreseen long time ago. What understandings should we update, given observations of the changes of the world, directly or indirectly caused by new technologies especially cybernetics related types, in the last sixty years? What would Wiener have been concerned more if he were still here today? While Wiener and other authors describing various versions of dystopias mostly on the track of technology falling into an evil government by ourselves, or conspiracy elite groups, the author wants to emphasize dangers coming from all dark corners of the world, not only North Korea. Using simple methodology of literature review and internet search, the author identifies two processes of “human becoming” — not a static “being” but evolving and changing “becoming,” that are being accelerated by cybernetics-related technologies, or the lack of them — computer, internet, learning technologies, infrastructure of effective education, and a culture in favor of progress and the improvement of civilization. One process is the creativity track, from which entrepreneurs, inventers, problem solvers, and system integrators are being generated. Another process is the destroy track, from which free-riders, rent-seekers, thieves, pirat- s and robbers are being generated — you still have to call them human, especially when they have their diplomats, weapons, and all the high-tech tools. Nevertheless, this bifurcation is beyond the “Digital Divide” or even “Global Digital Divide” already being discussed by scholars or by the media. Using Wiener´s analogy in Human Use of Human Beings, the so-called Digital Divide is just caused by an Augustinian Devil who is an honorable enemy, in Wiener´s words, who does not cheat, and who can be defeated by human intelligences. Worse, the key danger that the author describes here is from a Manichaean Devil, who is rooted from closed-local-area values, rotted cultural believes, uncivilized religions and die-hard ideologies. To highlight such division of two types of human becoming which still have to share the same planet earth, the author compared two real cases of two teenagers, one in California and another in Somali, to illustrate the main points.
