Given the “short arm” of predictive knowledge, the cyber-society must have a unique approach to the development of cyber-policy and infrastructure. Jonas states that “…the human good, known for its generality, is the same for all time, its realization or violation takes place each time, and its complete locus is always present.” My interpretation of that, referencing his quote, “The short arm of human power did not call for a long arm of predictive knowledge…” is that humans, to a degree, will always act the same; Although we do not possess the “long arm” of predictive knowledge, we must do the best we can with the present knowledge we possess and handle future implications as they are thrown at us.

With that being said, I believe that in order to approach the development of cyber-policy and infrastructure given that we cannot predict the future consequences of our actions we must do the absolute best with the knowledge we currently have and stay open and vigilant to the everyday changes in our radiply-developing society. As cybersecurity personnel, we must tackle the current issues at hand without stressing about how our actions may have future effect. That does not mean that we should act without thinking of the future, however we cannot dwell too much on how fixing a current issue may cause problems further down the line.

Cyber infrastructure and policy today should be handled in a manner that tackles the problems of today. The NIST framework and the upkeep of the CIA Triad is what we currently know as cyber-personnel, and as long as the current system works to the full potential we can reach, we should continue on our path of fixing the problems of today while doing our best to predict issues of the future. Security professionals cannot be to blame if outdated policies that worked in the past start to fail, that is life. The best way to approach our lack of future predictive knowledge is to stay as vigilant as we can of arising issues as they approach all while protecting the things that our “short arm” knowledge hands us.

References: Jonas, H. (1973). Technology and responsibility: Reflections on the new tasks of ethics. Social Research, 31-54