I remember another from an old speech by Richard, explaining what
technical knowledge is by a comparison:
* Knowing that some person has a sexual relation with another is
personal non-technical information;
* knowing some marvelous sexual technique *is* technical information,
and educating people about it is good for society. Preventing people
from disclosing such information is morally unacceptable.
For the record, this is from a speech by RMS, at the New York
University on May 29th, 2001:
> Now there are other kinds of information, which raise different
> ethical issues. For instance, thereâs personal information. If you
> wanted to talk with me about what was happening between you and your
> boyfriend, and you asked me not to tell anybodyâI could agree to
> keep that a secret for you, because thatâs not generally useful
> technical information.
> At least, itâs probably not generally useful [audience laughs].
> There is a small chanceâand itâs a possibility thoughâthat you might
> reveal to me some marvelous new sex technique, [audience laughs] and
> I would then feel a moral duty [audience laughs] to pass it on to
> the rest of humanity, so that everyone could get the benefit of it.
> So, Iâd have to put a proviso in that promise.
> If itâs just details about who wants this, and whoâs angry at whom,
> and things like that soap opera ... that I can keep private for you;
> but something that humanity could tremendously benefit from knowing,
> I mustnât withhold. You see, the purpose of science and technology
> is to develop useful information for humanity to help people live
> their lives better. If we promise to withhold that informationâif
> we keep it secretâthen we are betraying the mission of our field.
> And this, I decided, I shouldnât do.
