It’s true that when humans “manipulate nature,” terrible accidents occasionally occur. The incompetence of its crew caused the Titanic to sink, and the artificial creation of killer bees was a catastrophe.

Therefore, many environmentalists and “bio-ethicists” argue, a bulk of new laws should be passed, banning certain new forms of technology, or at least increasing the government’s power to dictate over which technologies can or cannot be used, according to the standards of “the public interest.”

This is something they usually call “sustainable development” or “smart growth.”

Before we say that there are some forms of technology that are too dangerous to meddle with, however, it should be pointed out that, while some scientific mishaps have killed several people, they never brought an end to the entire human race.

Are these rare mistakes killing a few people -- the exception -- reason enough to violate the property rights of innocent individuals and ban technological innovations that will save and expand millions of lives in the future?

If geneticists wish to use a bio-engineered organism to produce a vaccine for cancer, should we forbid this, out of fear that they may accidentally create some sort of “Frankenstein monster”?

Mere presumptions of guilt are not reason enough to curtail new products and services that can potentially raise the standard of living for all who are free to purchase them.

Besides our dependence upon technology for survival, what go ignored by the technophobes’ argument are private property rights and contract law.

If consumers purchase a new product or service that poses a potential threat to their health, then whether or not they suffer any ill effect as a result is their own responsibility, because they have consented to the risk.

The providers of such products and services are only liable for damages done if they sell their product or service under the explicit contractual condition that it does not pose the risk in question.

For example, many people currently consent to the alleged risk of being adversely affected by the radiation emitted by their cellular phones. Such users may verbally deny this, but their continued use of the product shows otherwise.

However, assuming that such dangers do exist, the cellular phone companies would owe their clients compensation if they made their sales while publicly stating that there were no such risks in existence, since false advertising is a form of breach of contract.

In cases involving negative spillover effects from irresponsible uses of technology, such as the creation of killer bees, the institution of individual property rights is our best means of defense.

If an experiment goes awry, or if a machine malfunctions, resulting in property damage, injuries or death, from widespread contamination, explosions or animal attacks, then the persons responsible have violated the property rights of those who were not involved but adversely affected, and can rightfully be sued on such grounds.

The property in this matter can consist of land, material objects or one’s own body, and one can claim damages for a relative’s death that was caused by the accident.

For example, if a “mad scientist” creates a new life form that destroys the crops of unsuspecting farmers, or makes third parties sick, then, to his intended or unintended victims, he and he alone should pay restitution.

To instead punish all inventors, scientists, engineers and industrialists for this misdeed, with broad, sweeping technocratic edicts, is to stifle the work of thousands of innocent people, with a bureaucrat’s gun as the final argument in any dispute.

Machines and genetically engineered plants, animals, and microbes have no volition, thereby making them incapable of truly being moral or immoral. And any device can be used properly or improperly, depending upon what one does with it.

Thus, we should not blame technology itself, or even any specific type of technology, for someone’s death, when the actual culprits are people who fail to take responsibility for their own actions, and those who would misuse machines and artificial life forms to initiate violence upon others.

In short, as long as individual rights are upheld, people have nothing to fear from new technologies or their creators.

Stuart K. Hayashi is the president of the Reason Club of Honolulu and an undergraduate in Entrepreneurial Studies at Hawaii Pacific University, though his opinions do not necessarily reflect that of either institution. He can be reached at radical_individualist@hotmail.com (If you would like to continue seeing Stuart Hayashi's editorials on this site, please let Hawaii Reporter know at info@hawaiireporter.com)

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