My grandfather, Homer Weeks, was a brick mason who, during World War II, built the secret city in Oak Ridge, Tennessee as part of the Manhattan Project. Before he was called to the war effort, he had built modest homes, businesses and churches in rural areas of the state. But in the Smoky Mountains near Knoxville, he helped construct a hidden city where almost 80,000 people enriched uranium and plutonium for the world’s first deployed atomic bomb.
Later my father, Jimmy Mayes, his son-in-law, would also become an early contributor to this world-changing and devastating technology, but in another way. He became a US Navy seaman first on “diesel boats”, then on the first nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered submarines.
Both men died young, perhaps due to health issues linked to their work. My grandfather died of heart disease before I was born. Growing up, I saw the toll my father’s work took on him as one of the first to realize the potential destructive power of nuclear weapons, all while specializing in their launch, care and maintenance. He died of suicide at 34.
It was from these men that I attribute my life-long interest in world-changing technologies — but also the very personal pursuit to find technologies that contribute something positive to business and humanity. I’ve now worked with emerging technologies and industries for over 30 years as part of the Human Genome Project, the mobile software revolution, the emerging cannabis industry, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. With each effort I’ve strived to act ethically and to raise awareness of the moral impact of our decisions, to look ahead to the impact of new technology on society and the environment.
The Secret City
Like many who worked for the Clinton Engineer Works from 1942 to 1945, my grandfather wasn’t exactly sure what they were all doing — just that it was to help win the war. Within the heavily guarded fences, inhabitants were asked not to share details of their work, and warned with posters and signs that “loose lips sink ships” and “loose talk helps our enemy.” As a brick mason, my grandfather wasn’t exactly privy to highly classified discussions.
It was only after the Hiroshima explosion on August 6, 1945 that my grandfather received a letter from Robert Patterson, Undersecretary of War that read in part:
“The atomic bomb which you have helped to develop with high devotion to patriotic duty is the most devastating military weapon that any country has ever been able to turn against its enemy…we are proud of every one of you.”
I imagine my grandfather feeling at first patriotic to contribute to ending the war, then horrified at having helped unleash the age of nuclear weapons.
On this 73rd anniversary, it is important to remember that Hiroshima was a manufacturing center 500 miles from Tokyo. It targeted a civilian population in an effort to force the Japanese government to surrender. The first atomic bomb killed 20,000–70,000 people immediately, tens of thousands more from radiation fallout. In combination, the first atomic weapons killed over 200,000 people.
Scientists who were part of the Manhattan Project began feeling deep remorse long before the bombs were dropped. The questionable morality of dropping the bomb on civilians and its lasting, destructive power profoundly disturbed many of its creators. Less than 2 months before the first bomb was deployed, Manhattan Project scientists at the metallurgical lab in Chicago submitted the Franck Report, asking that these new weapons not be used, and to consider the broader issues to the country and the world.
The Franck Report was created and signed by Chairman James Franck, Donald J. Hughes, J.J. Nickson, Eugene Rabinowitch, Glenn T. Seasborg, J.C. Stearns and Leó Szilárd. Presented to President Truman’s Interim Committee in June 1945, it was rejected. The committee ultimately concluded there was no alternative to dropping atomic bombs.
In a recent interview with D. Leah Steinberg, author of Raised in the Shadow of the Bomb: Children of the Manhattan Project, she talks about her father Ellis P. Steinberg, and uncle, Bernard Abraham, who were both Ph.D. candidates in chemistry at the University of Chicago and recruited to the Manhattan Project at the Metallurgical Laboratory. In her book, Steinberg talks about the lasting impact on project participants and their families, and mentions her father signing the broader Szilárd petition in July.
At Director J. Robert Oppenheimer’s departure ceremony at Los Alamos, he left with these words: “If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and of Hiroshima.”
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USS Sam Rayburn Submarine
One Sub, One Country
When my own father served on the USS Sam Rayburn nuclear submarine, it carried sixteen Polaris ballistic missiles, each armed with three nuclear warheads. A single Polaris nuclear missile carries 10 times the destructive power of the second atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki, killing over 100,000. My father once said a nuclear submarine was “the most powerful country on earth” because one sub could destroy any single country.
In 1962, according to recently declassified reports, the US had 1,825 nuclear missiles “afloat”. It reached a peak in 1975 of 6,191; as of 1991 there were 4,709. Today an estimated 15,000 nuclear weapons exist worldwide with only 9 out of 196 countries in possession. More than 90% of nuclear weapons are controlled by the US and Russia.
A regional war in which two countries use 50 nuclear weapons with 15KT payloads each would destroy the entire planet. Almost 75 years after the first weapons were used, society has still not collectively understood the powder keg we created. In 2018 it appears we’ve nearly forgotten the stockpiles exist, and world politicians talk casually about nuclear weapons as if they are prepared to use them. While nuclear-armed countries unapologetically control these humanity-ending stockpiles, they also prevent other countries from developing them.
Blockchain technology probably won’t change how we secure nuclear arsenals. The “military-grade encryption” used throughout the cryptocurrency space is exactly the kind of security we hope is already employed to ensure control. But we can learn something from the nuclear debate about how (or when) moral and ethical issues should be discussed.
Mapping the Genome
My first job while still an undergrad at the University of Tennessee was a part-time copy editing position with the Information Management System of the Human Genome Project. Before the internet, the US Department of Energy was responsible for communicating Francis Collins’ and James Watson’s NIH effort to map the sequence of human DNA. The project was located inside the same Oak Ridge laboratory built by my grandfather.
I was a young English major tasked with writing newsletters and helping disseminate information using early networked systems run by the National Science Foundation. As a non-scientist, I remember being most fascinated by early court cases in which DNA was used to convict a suspect in a court of law. At the time few gene therapy studies were underway, but I’ve watched through the years as many emerged to show the real value of the project: fighting cancer, reversing birth defects and revealing predictive information about present and future health risks.
Mostly I remember the early excitement of those who imagined how their work would change modern medicine. It was also my first experience with scientists and technical geniuses who, while brilliant, were not always adept at (or interested in) explaining what they did to others. It was there I learned to be someone who listened and helped bridge the information gap — and were I earned a reputation for asking hard questions.
Unlike the Manhattan Project, health scientists on the Human Genome Project created the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) program at the beginning in 1990 as an integral part of the mission. What would the ability to alter genes mean to society? Would someone try to make an army of super soldiers, or would we commercialize the customization of fetuses? Thankfully, these ethical questions were discussed from the beginning.
In the end, the Human Genome Project took $2.7 billion and 15 years to complete the map of human DNA. Today a person’s genome can be sequenced in hours for around $1,000. Issues of privacy, fairness, design and custody of materials are addressed as part of every genetic project.
There are obvious parallels to DNA sequencing and blockchain technology. The main role of DNA in a cell is the long-term storage of information. DNA is made up of chemical building blocks called nucleotides. To form a DNA strand (which I contend is pretty secure), nucleotides are formed into alternating chains of phosphates and sugars. Understanding our genetic blueprint is obviously more directly humane than how we manage our digital cash, but digital ledger technology can learn a great deal from the way the genome project addresses ethical questions.
One blockchain start-up, Genecoin proposed to put consumer’s unique DNA sequences on a blockchain. Their pitch stated “Humans currently preserve their genes by passing them down through generations. This is an incredible but utimately [sic] unreliable backup method.” The company claimed they would “sample your DNA, turn it into data, and store it in the world’s most powerful supercomputer: the Bitcoin network.” Despite online updates as early as February of this year, Genecoin appears to be a deceased project.
Bitcoin is Neither Fat Man
Nor Little Boy
Technology that gives monetary power to the people may be nothing like a murderous weapon of mass destruction, nor is it necessarily as impactful to humanity as discovering our chemical building blocks and eradicating disease. Yet there are many current ethical dilemmas in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology development. One recent report labeled 80% of all 2017 initial coin offerings as frauds. Few inside the space seem to be asking “What does an ethical ICO look like?”
Beyond market ethics, the technology itself could impact society in ways we never imagined. For example, what human costs might be incurred in the proliferation of immutable databases? What destructive code lurks in the best DAO? What would a world currency look like, and how would it impact fiat currencies or destabilize monetary policy? How much energy will mining require in the future? How do cryptocurrencies place distance between the haves and have-nots, or simply the tech-literate and those without wifi? Who are the visionaries discussing moral implications of immutable, global, decentralized databases?
What’s more, Cathy O’Neal’s 2016 book Weapons of Math Destruction makes the argument that technology designed to make life easier for humanity can make it worse. In this age of the algorithm, many models being used are opaque, unregulated, and incontestable, even when they’re wrong. Cryptocurrencies, tokenized economies and distributed ledger technology may usher in the age of decentralization, but encrypted keys, anonymous transactions, and unchangeable data structures could have unintended consequences.
To date several blockchain projects have created foundations to help maintain development efforts. The Bitcoin Foundation was founded in September 2012 with the stated mission to “standardize, protect and promote the use of bitcoin money for the benefit of users worldwide.” It supports education and adoption efforts, and lobbies regulators and lawmakers on various issues such as cryptocurrency legislation and New York’s Bitlicense. While this popular foundation is doing valuable work, its efforts are not focused on ethics.
A More Ethical, Post-capitalist World
Some enthusiasts have suggested that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and distributed, decentralized ledgers can help create a more ethical, post-capitalist world, one democratized by computer code. The potential is real, and suggests a paradigm shift in the finance, healthcare, legal, manufacturing and government industries.
Automated, indirect reporting of supply chain events may one day allow consumers to understand the true impact of their purchases and track the sources of disastrous problems. Cryptocurrencies may one day serve over
2 billion of the “unbanked”, people without access to traditional banking systems or trustworthy banks and governments. Distributed applications, or dApps, could soon create global software systems without a commercial company’s control. Transparent, distributed autonomous organizations (DAOs), created and executed entirely through open source software, may one day be some of the largest and most efficient companies on the planet.
One working example of how blockchain is helping to address business ethics occurs in the diamond industry. Everledger is a start-up helping to authenticate diamonds to ensure they are sourced ethically. By tracking the supply chain on an immutable ledger, they can avoid the purchase of “blood diamonds” used to finance terrorist activity.
Critics of Bitcoin and blockchain have suggested they undermine the fiat currency structures of countries around the world, and disrupt financial markets that survive through regulation. Many see the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies as scams or ponzi schemes designed to dupe unsophisticated investors, and that digital currencies have no intrinsic value. Since most computer users are unaware of the complexity behind the applications they use, many people won’t fully understand encryption, distributed ledgers or token economics, making them targets of the technological elite.
With such potential impacts we can’t ignore the necessary work of considering the consequences. Blockchain tech needs to create dialogue to collectively recognize the implications on society. We should start early, similar to the way Human Genome Project approached moral dilemmas, not after the fact, like the Manhattan Project.
Do you know of an organization exploring the ethical and moral implications of blockchain technology? Please comment and let us know.
Please visit and support these organizations:
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: https://cnduk.org/
Union of Concerned Scientists: https://www.ucsusa.org/
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: http://www.icanw.org/
Michael Mayes is working with Shardus, ethically building a truly scalable, decentralized payment network for global-scale applications. Under a No-ICO model, they are building the Shardus Ledger, featuring a unique consensus model, the Shardus Consensus Algorithm. The first application of Shardus technology will be Liberdus, a coin and payment network.
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