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