How Technology Created Cold Evil and Why Emphatic Innovations Are The Answer

“Technology is a way of organizing the world so that we do not experience it.”

—Max Frisch

I’m sure you would agree it would be very difficult for you to name any evil people you know personally…

… yet the world seems to be falling apart from artifically created environmental disasters to continuous suffering.

Why?

Andrew Kimbrell, Director of The Center For Food Safety, in his seminal lecture “Cold Evil: Technology and The Modern Ethics”, distinguishes two types of evil – one is obvious and easily recognizable, the other one is less evident but much more malign.

When a heinous act or a crime is committed by an individual or a group of people, we immediately react to prevent it from occurring again. Yet when countless damages are perpetrated upon our environment, our physical, psychological and economic health, and upon neighbor societies, we often notice it too late if ever.

But why?

The answer to this question lies in understanding the nature of technology and its impact on our behavior.

Andrew Kimbrell describes this particular type of evil as cold evil. The evil which consequence is experienced at a safe distant from the doer of the deed.

For example, when a war plane pilot destroys the whole village, he does not feel the kind of horror and emotional distress experienced by the villagers upon whom the hell is unleashed. The pilot is operating at a psychological distance from his victims. Moreover, he tries to separate himself even further by making the age old excuse of “I was commanded, I had to obey”.

by youtube channel "VÉRITÉ ou RIEN"

That is precisely the vicious cycle that was fine tuned by perpetrators (knowingly or not) at all levels to distance themselves from terrifying effects of their actions behind the veil of policies, technologies, and employees/soldiers.
Technology, if not used responsibly, can quickly inundate the user with comfort of detachment, whereby he/she becomes desensitized to other people and the nature.

This technological cocoon, in turn, facilitates the acts of cold evil, evil at a distance without direct emotional and physical feedback loop.

It destroys empathy.

Kimbrell suggests that in order to defeat cold evil, the most important and hardly recognized problem of the modern society, and restore empathy,

• We must start to engage with each other more on a face-to-face fashion (especially the people whom experience the consequence of our actions) and directly connect with nature and its wonders by either visiting the wild or living naturally for some time.

• We must change our vocabulary, for the words are windows to the world of meanings. For example, we need to quit calling ourselves “consumers” (consumption was a common name for tuberculosis in 19th century), and start calling ourselves “creators”.

• In addition, we need to change our approach to work, and consider not only financial aspect of it (despite enormous pressure), but also the consequence of what that work ultimately produces and how it affects well-being of other humans and the planet.

• At last, we need to complement quantity with quality, efficiency with empathy, and competition with cooperation (watch the lecture above).

But what if there is a technology that can reduce the effect of technology?

How blockchain could restore empathy

Today I’ve read an intriguing article on blockchain based sea food traceability.

Companies like Provenance and Bait-To-Plate are using data from attached RFID tags and QR codes to insert onto blockchain distributed ledger and track the progress of tuna fish journey from catch-to-consumer. They claim it can help reduce illegal fishing and slave labour in South East Asian and Pacific Seas.

But most importantly,

It reconnects consumer and product. Shoppers can discover the history behind making of the product and decide for themselves if they approve of the practices and resources that were used to produce it.

As long as…

… the process of verification is objective (sensors) and no middlemen is involved, the traceability blockchains can finally bridge the gap and establish direct track record (unfortunately for groups of greedy individuals) among the doer, the subject, and the benefactor.

This deadly opaque, desensitized and cold evil loop is finally being closed and all the effects will soon be fully felt by the initiators. Only by establishing such direct feedback loop of actions-consequence, can we once again restore empathy, which is a necessary condition for truly advanced civilization.

Immutability of blockchain seems to possess the potential to finally connect the world in its authentic way, by publicly recording true history of objects and people. This transparency will force accountability, which will cause empathy to emerge as a solution. And empathy will make the world spiritually healthy, accelerating the projects like EunnovaX.

Things like loving family, calm mind and physical health cannot be bought, but they can certainly be earned through empathy and wisdom.