Future Imperfect

Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World



By





David D. Friedman





Webbed Version v1.0







This book is dedicated to

Eric Drexler

Tim May

Eric Raymond

Vernor Vinge





And all the other friends whose ideas I have shamelessly, but selectively, appropriated.





Table of Contents





Part One: Prologue



1: Introduction

2: Living with Change



Part Two: Privacy and Technology



3: A World of Strong Privacy

4: Information Processing: Threat or Menace? Or If Information is Property, Who Owns It?

5: Surveillance Technology: The Universal Panopticon



Part Three: Doing Business Online



6: Ecash

7: Contracts in Cyberspace

8: Watermarks and Barbed Wire

9: Reactionary Progress – Amateur Scholars and Open Source



10: Intermission: What’s a Meta Phor?



Part Four: Crime and Control



11: The Future of Computer Crime

12: Law Enforcement × 2



Part Five: Biotechnologies



13: Human Reproduction

14: The More You Know …

15: As Gods in the Garden

16: Mind Drugs



Part Six: The Real Science Fiction



17: The Last Lethal Disease

18: Very Small Legos

19: Dangerous Company

20: All In Your Mind

21: The Final Frontier

22: Interesting Times



Bibliography

Note to Readers