“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” — Alan Kay
Alan Kay’s famous phrase reads as inspirational. I support the spirit of it entirely as it accords with the American spirit, the hacker ethos, the do-it-yourself revolutionary philosophy. It’s comforting and empowering to think that all it takes is some elbow-grease and ingenuity to make a difference, shape society, right wrongs. And although I certainly don’t intend to discourage cultural participation, I find troublesome implications in that statement.
The first problem is that an invention needs to be adopted before that invention is able to define the future. Alan is proposing a form of technological determinism: he is subtly implying that technology drives society, rather than the reverse. I find this belief dubious. How and why inventions are adopted is controversial; if there were a formula for determining relevant technology, there would obviously be no failed startups, no failed product launches. But we know that the marketplace is a fickle mistress. Sticking to technology, why did CISC win the computer instruction set wars? Why is Outlook a prominent email/personal management client? It’s clear that in the marketplace, sometimes good ideas fail and bad ideas succeed.
Also lacking is any consideration for how the presence of technology affects societal behavior. Taking a cue from Infinite Jest, would it be good to invent a film so entertaining that it permanently paralyses its viewers with the need to endlessly consume it? More practically and perhaps more damagingly: why have we adopted so much technology that we’re living in a fashion that our ecosystem cannot sustain?
Stepping back from computers for a moment, let’s look at inventions and technology as ideas. We tend to look at the physical products, the signifiers of technology, as the technology itself. But technology exists in the idea space; we’re really looking at ideas. Language is a technology. Government is a technology. And so on. Many good social technologies have not been adopted. Say, civil unions. And why is it so hard to deter Americans from creationism? Many wonderful things that are not economically expedient have been invented.
Convincing people to adopt GUIs (One of Alan Kay’s major innovations in the tech-space) is easy. We need to invent a way to get people addicted to ethics, to reason, to justice.
On Alan Kay’s Technological Determinism
Alan Kay’s famous phrase reads as inspirational. I support the spirit of it entirely as it accords with the American spirit, the hacker ethos, the do-it-yourself revolutionary philosophy. It’s comforting and empowering to think that all it takes is some elbow-grease and ingenuity to make a difference, shape society, right wrongs. And although I certainly don’t intend to discourage cultural participation, I find troublesome implications in that statement.
The first problem is that an invention needs to be adopted before that invention is able to define the future. Alan is proposing a form of technological determinism: he is subtly implying that technology drives society, rather than the reverse. I find this belief dubious. How and why inventions are adopted is controversial; if there were a formula for determining relevant technology, there would obviously be no failed startups, no failed product launches. But we know that the marketplace is a fickle mistress. Sticking to technology, why did CISC win the computer instruction set wars? Why is Outlook a prominent email/personal management client? It’s clear that in the marketplace, sometimes good ideas fail and bad ideas succeed.
Also lacking is any consideration for how the presence of technology affects societal behavior. Taking a cue from Infinite Jest, would it be good to invent a film so entertaining that it permanently paralyses its viewers with the need to endlessly consume it? More practically and perhaps more damagingly: why have we adopted so much technology that we’re living in a fashion that our ecosystem cannot sustain?
Stepping back from computers for a moment, let’s look at inventions and technology as ideas. We tend to look at the physical products, the signifiers of technology, as the technology itself. But technology exists in the idea space; we’re really looking at ideas. Language is a technology. Government is a technology. And so on. Many good social technologies have not been adopted. Say, civil unions. And why is it so hard to deter Americans from creationism? Many wonderful things that are not economically expedient have been invented.
Convincing people to adopt GUIs (One of Alan Kay’s major innovations in the tech-space) is easy. We need to invent a way to get people addicted to ethics, to reason, to justice.