Dave Rogers: quotable
He's right...
[Dave Rogers]
...Technology changes how we do things. It doesn't change what we do. Ain't no technology that's gonna do that for us. Wanna better world? Be better people.Exactly. But the real poetry comes later on in the post:
You're a pimple on the ass-end of progress! So just shut up already!I just had to add that one. Perhaps Hugh could make a cartoon? ;)
[Dave Rogers]
7 Comments:
Tara, I'm wondering about those statements. (Maybe there's just something inside me that Nick Carr-ish contrarian!)
Without technology, I'd never have had any contact with Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, or any of a number of big cheeses. Also, I'd never have known of you, or of Joe Smith Blogger in Pennsylvania.
Technology doesn't only change how we do things. It also changes what is possible to change.
Ask the guy who video-taped the Rodney King beating.
Ask every guy who's been beaten by a copy after Rodney King.
dmr
er... that should have read, "...beaten by a cop after Rodney King."
The cops in New Orleans even knew they were on camera.
Taken to it's logical extreme, John Koetsier's example suggests that the solution to behavior problems is continuous surveillance, and technology will soon offer us the possibility to achieve that, what with facial recognition software and all. And there will be well-meaning people who will advocate just that. I predict a growth market in fashionable face masks.
"Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned by acid, or something like that?"
"Oh no. It's just that they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future."
If we want a better world, we just have to be better people.
No technology is necessary, and none is sufficient, to achieve that.
But we do love our toys, don't we?
dmr
Anonymous,
I just pulled that example from a hat. My point is that technology sometimes enables totally different behavior or new opportunities.
(I'm not advocating continous ubiquitous surveillance, please!)
:-)
And I think I recognized that. I'm just pointing out that "totally different behavior" is usually not "totally different," and the "new opportunities" are often just new opportunities for doing the same things to one another, both good and bad, in different ways. The differences are superficial, but because we don't often take the time to really consider what we observe, we think that because they look different, they therefore are different.
My point is, a better world is within reach within each of us, and it doesn't require a tool or a toy to reach it.
=:^)
dmr
There is an interesting example of technology contributing to a change in society in "unleashing the killer app" by downes and mui, page 17.
The example is the "stirrup" which the Franks adopted from an Asian design. The change was, among other things, creation of a new class of landed gentry along with a new relationship between church and state.
I agree with the idealism that about a better world and better people. But "what" people do is influenced by technology for better or worse.
But "what" people do is influenced by technology for better or worse.
People seem to grow tired when I try to explain this over and over again, in the face of multiple examples of technologies that "changed everything."
So at some point, not this one, sorry, I'm just going to stop and suggest that you really think about this some more.
Your example is a fairly typical kind of example. But it's really an example of how technology sometimes alters the relative advantages held by different classes or groups of people. What it doesn't alter is the fact that people either acting as individuals, or as members of a class or group, seek advantages to compete with other classes or groups of people.
As I recall, the invention of the stirrup was primarily useful as it allowed the horse to be a more effective fighting platform. It didn't suddenly create the phenomenon of violent conflict, or the threat of violence.
We have a certain repertoire of behaviors that are innate in us, they vary to one degree or another by culture, but in the main they are all very similar. How those behaviors are manifested may change based on technology available in a particular instance, but what those behaviors are remains fairly similar across history.
The invention of the pill changed the social mores surrounding sex, but it didn't change the fact that sex is a pleasurable activity and people engaged in it for that purpose at least as much as for procreation. It may have been a technological advantage for women who could pursue sexual encounters without the consequences of pregnancy on an equal basis with males. So, no big surprise here I think, more people had more sex. Surprisingly, I think, that didn't seem to lead to a decrease in wars or violent crime, but I'm not sure that question has been definitively studied.
In the '20s and '30s of the last century the invention of the long range bomber convinced many visionaries, much like the people who tell us today that the net and blogs "change everything," that warfare would soon be a brief affair and that all other forms of warfare were rendered obsolete. A nation would send a fleet of bombers to an opposing nation's capitol, and the devestation they would wreak would cause them to sue for peace.
Here's a link:
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Air_Power/Prophets/AP11.htm
They were tragically mistaken.
Yet this pattern is repeated over and over again, though it doesn't appear as though many of us are discerning it yet.
This is not to say that many hows are not problematic, nor that technology doesn't have the capacity to alleviate suffering. Just that the larger questions, the biggest problems, all seem to relate to how we behave toward one another, and that is not something technology is equipped to address, though that hasn't seemed to stop anyone.
Even behavior is being approached from a technological standpoint in psycho-pharmacology, and that should give us some pause as we might wish to consider who accrues the advantages from that technology, and how that advantage might be used.
Again, I must reiterate that no technology is necessary, and none is sufficient, to address the problems that genuinely vex us. To the extent that we allow our finite resources of time and attention to be surrendered to the pursuit of yet another blind alley, we forestall the day when we might begin to actually achieve a better world.
And for nearly all of us, "a better world" is something that can be achieved internally with some, relatively modest, effort. The world isn't here so that we may save it, the world is here that we might learn to save ourselves. But we operate from the misguided perspective that "I'm alright, Jack!" and focus on the "other" as the source of the problem and the object of a solution.
And we do love our toys.
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