If something is technologically possible, is there any real way to stop its use?

[Duer 157099]

Back before the digital age, it would have been literally impossible to collect the kinds of data they now can collect with the push of a button.

The same discussion has been had concerning nuclear technology, genetic engineering, and so on.

Once something becomes possible, is there any real way to prevent the use/abuse of it?

Yes, laws can be made, but we all know that money trumps laws, everywhere all the time.

So I ask: is it a foregone conclusion that we could not avoid the current situation in terms of collecting data?

[MineralMan]

1. It's difficult to stop the use of technology.

That's for sure. Can it be done? Maybe, but it's going to take a really new Congress to do it. The old one is not going to do that.

[The Magistrate]

2. History, Sir, Suggests No

The only instance I can think of off-hand of a technical development being forgone once present was a decision in old Japan to end the use of fire-arms in the seventeenth century, but even this was neither complete abandonment nor very long-lived.

In the spirit of the old maxim "What is not forbidden is required", it may be safely presumed what can be done will be done.

[FarCenter]

3. Only if it is sufficiently expensive technology

For example, the control of nuclear weapons is predicated on the fact that it is hugely expensive to produce bomb grade fissionable material, so organizations with the resources to do so can be monitored closely.

Other technologies, such as those for the production of certain poison gases, require less expense, but what they do require is available from a restricted set of suppliers and carefuls surveillance and police work can prevent their production on any widespread scale.

Laws prohibiting technologies are generally ineffective, since they will simply be ignored.