I’m not sure what you mean by tools canceling themselves out. Are you talking about the balance between the good and bad things done with tools? If so, I do agree with you. Eg guns are tools that clearly don’t have a net benefit and controlling their manufacture and possession seems OK to me.
I was in a hurry when I typed my message, and re-reading it, I can see that it sounds a bit like babble.
I wanted to say that the tools we use impact how we behave, and that impact alone can have moral consequences. The "medium is the message" link I posted earlier talks about how the tools we use influence how we behave and experience the world. For example, if I want to tell a story, I might film a movie, or write a book, or record a radio program, or tell the story around a campfire. Each of these tools will impact the tellers, the receivers, and the story itself. This logic also applies to other more boring forms of communications. For example, using complicated software to say who gets to leave jail makes a difference in how the "tellers" and the "receivers" experience the world. To make a comparison, what if the jailer recorded information on a clipboard and paper calendar?
