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Within the framework of the WSSs, ethics should be based on the principles of sustainable growth, equity, justice and inclusion. Then the ITCs can be part of the solution to the undesired effects of human development, breaking down the barrier of the dominant ethics of the development processes which are subject to technologic, economic and commercial powers that make the ICTs instruments that turn the current societies into more complex ones.
"Utopia is the path to the essence of what is human. To the delight and the exaltation of spirituality. It is the endless search for individual, supportive and committed freedom towards neighbors. It is the path to a fairer society, without exclusions... Along this path I asked myself something I can't answer satisfactorily: the technological development contributed to make present societies more complex. Why is it necessary to turn to that same technology in order to find solutions to the undesired effects of human development and to create the conditions for an equitable, sustainable growth? Are they part of the solution?" (LGR)
"I dream of a world where commercial interests will never be on a par with the ethics that imposes respect for dignity and integrity of people". (MZ).
"... Part of the Venezuelan population got back this constitution on April 13 -a year ago- and turned it into their own utopia. They prepared it, they voted to approve it and they defended it twice from that other nation which does not share this vision and is full of technical knowledge and economic power... and communicational power... Are the ICTs a means to adapt this utopia or is it necessary to adapt the utopia of a nation to the ICTs?" (IP, 4.12.03)
"I join this constitutional utopia and the role of the ITCs will be appreciated in relation to the capacities and limits of the technical and social agents... fortunately, during this painful process it has been proved that there are many ways to produce alternatives in this country... and that the technical paradigms, apart from being fragmented, are options not always based on "good" interests... or inevitable" (IP, 4.12.03)
From the power relations and from the position each person assumes regarding that power, one basic ethical principle is to envision the consequences, the result of actions, no mater its conception or realization. Then, there is a need to answer some questions about the dreams, starting from our identities at local level and our reality.
"That's why one of its most ancient ethical aspects (talking about the Orient) is to consider the actions by their consequences and not by their motives... I can't think about the ICTs without considering the ethics, because the instrumental power is nowadays as great as the nuclear power was in the 20th century" (IP, 4.15.03)
The present reality of LAC is a spectrum of great poverty and political and economic crisis accelerated by corruption and a historical and systematic looting of our countries.
It is necessary to re-measure ethically, keeping a sense of cosmic justice (that is to say, from every possible angle reality can be seen).
With the title "Adapted dreams"44, [sue�os acotados] it is identified that
"if the 4000 million poor on our planet had the same life conditions as the millions that live in the 'developed' world under the same consumer patterns (and CO2 emissions45)
six planet Earths with their respective forests would be required. Our dreams should be adapted to this reality" (Mapa, 4.20.03)
A matter of ethics and survival of the planet. Is this the scale which is thought to establish the responsibilities for the construction of information societies46?
CyberEthics has to answer the following questions without exclusion, with justice and equity:
"The ICTs are a means for what? for whom? why? how? which aspects are convenient for us? which are the aspects we don't need to assimilate?...is it a tool or a symbol to disqualify?..." (IP)
And CyberEthics shall have to assess whether the ICTs are used as tools, as construction means and the sharing of wisdom and knowledge or, on the contrary, as a resource to manipulate, to use and to keep subordination and oppression practices, as modern resources to update the exercise of authoritarianism.
"I've dreamed of working with the little I know about technology to contribute to the development of my people. They gave me the opportunity to create a lot of on-line solutions to provide training for the Mexican CSO and in fact they invested millions in donations from companies with social responsibility. But last month the President of the Foundation decided that the Internet does not give votes to her party (and probably not even to her) so now that's a project of the past" (Mapa).
"My utopia doesn't want a world of individual globes each one connected to their computer, but does want individuals who go their own way and that's it. Mi utopia wants humanization of technology, through communication that enables a truthful exchange" (JP).
"(...) how to combine the private, the public, what belongs to everybody?
"Notice how utopias are devised in a way they don't deny what we are as a local culture... as western parts and very local ones to the point that when we try to think of them as gaps we are denied the possibility to be authentic..." (IP, 4.15.03)
Similarly, cyberethics, will have to give answer to the utopias of the rest of the young people who
"dream of a society in which the government does not take advantage of the new technologies to spy or control, in fact one of them proposes four principles for the information societies: the ICTs must be used to expand human knowledge, the State must not use the ICTs to strengthen the military; the information made public by the State must be true, verifiable, reliable and not a means controlled by the people in power; the information society must be a tool to achieve equality among the nations" (Mapa, Collaborators Synthesis).
To discuss ethics allowed us to make visible the multitudes that surround us in individual terms and, as Victor says, to understand that
"...there is no linearity in the human evolution... only spiral development".
"An ethics proposal states: '... this shows us the reality of Raisa's son (Corrado) the youngest mystic... we all have angels and demons... occasionally some appear, sometimes the others and if we don't stigmatize maybe we can communicate...' (I found this in a book of person... with whom I strongly disagree in relation to his vision of local events and those actions that screwed us up when the GDP fell down to 29%... and however it is fantastic and pedagogic)" (IP, 5.28.03).
"Ethics means self-esteem and self-responsibility, solidarity and generosity, admitting the differences and reciprocity, accepting the other regarding differences and becoming aware of the person I am turning into, starting from my improvement, comprehension, confidence and honesty, integrity and integrality, empathy and compassion, tolerance and transparency... It [ethics] is more related to virtues than to prohibitions...
"Ethics identifies with various dimensions: philosophical (to do good for good itself), religious (to do good for God sake and for thy neighbor), human (to do good for oneself), political (to do good for the social cohabitation), institutional (to do good for the improvement of the organizations) and legal (to do good for legal prescription)..."
"To walk daily in this direction is not easy, as Luis Germ�n says, sometimes it is hard to forgive others; for example, in my case the technocrats whose instrumental capacity and institutional ethics I admire but whose socio-political, religious and philosophical ethics I'm scared of... but anyway if their instruments cut the wings... I'll be just another tiny bug..." (IP, 5.28.03)
The only guarantee of non-exclusion, agreeing with a cyberEthic principle that it is only possible to think utopias if they refer to a collective and universal context and if they are projected to collaboration and solidarity.
"Thus, it is not possible to think about my utopia but about the utopia of many people in the country, and as I have always done, to see in what way I am contributing to the desires of the majority... who now take care of transforming what it used to be a social model until 1999 (...)" (IP, 4.12.03)
[43] Chapter taken from Girasoles Synthesis
[44] In the dictionary, besides the classic definitions of the Spanish word "acotados", ["mentioned"] appears the following [it only applies for the Spanish word]: "Inform. to change the magnitude of a problem to another scale to adapt it to the computer", in this case to make it more visible to the society.
[45] Previously, the following information is required: Each year, an average home releases 60% more CO2 than an average car. One point four (1.4) acres of forest is needed to absorb the emissions of an average car... and 2.3 acres of forest to absorb the emissions of an average home" (Mapa, 4.20.03).
[46] "A computer can be fed with a long-life battery, in turn charged with solar energy. A Helios plane fed with solar energy has flown to a height of 24000 feet during many hours and can replace the daily mission of a low height satellite, transmitting data and e-mail "packages" for example, from an isolated rural community to a communitarian doctor. For example, digital images of the eyes from people living in the rainforest can be transmitted to a tele-hospital to early detect glaucoma or trachoma. The terrestrial base could be a UHF radio transformed into a satellite transmitter (I have checked a Hitachi World space receiver model). These technologies are non-pollutant, they do not release CO2, they do not damage the environment" (Mapa, 4.22.03).
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