The Timekeeper 95
This is the fourth in a series of articles on Technology and the Future called "Tomorrowville," which appears on Slashdot from time to time. The series began a month ago with several reports from Orlando, Florida, but it seemed fitting to hold this one until the New Year.
"The Time Traveler vanished three years ago, and as everybody now knows, he has never returned."
-- H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine."
At this time and this point in the evolution of technology, it's probably never been more important to consider the future clearly and ethically. The evolution and advance of powerful new technologies - genetic, digital, AI, nano - are inevitable. They represent the best tendency of human beings to attempt to master life's secrets and curb human suffering. If you believe in history at all, however, they will not work quite as we expect or hope.
War and poverty were supposed to have long ago been eliminated. So were slums, poverty and disease. A century ago, one historian wrote that the age of conquest was about to yield to "an age of glory and enlightenment. Aluminum will be the shining symbol of that age. The houses and cities of men, built of aluminum, shall flash in the rising sun with surpassing brilliance."
Today we use aluminum for soda cans.
All these years later, we're still hearing Future Hype. Artificially intelligent machines will soon pass us in intelligence; nanites will zip through the human body to repair damaged blood cells; supercomputers and computer networks will transform politics and commerce; genome projects will isolate the origins of diseases so that we can eliminate them.
We'll see. I have the nagging feeling that when the next Millenium rolls around they'll probably be jeering at us too.
There's no more fitting place to grasp America's tortured relationship with technology and the future than an exhibit called "The Timekeeper," in the heart of Tomorrowland in Disney World.
Orlando is as close to a universal experience as Americans have. More of us go there in our lifetimes than any other single place. Some visitors want to have fun, to take their kids. Others are drawn by the astonishing technology and innovation that goes into its imagined worlds.
Orlando transcends entertainment. There's plenty of politics and propaganda there, too, especially when it comes to technology. The Disney Imagineers have cheerfully pillaged the past to invoke a bright and shining tomorrow. Small wonder Americans have no coherent philosophy of technology.
"The Timekeeper" is a monument - a shrine maybe - to the way we struggle with the future, and to the death of a kind of corporate idealism, generosity and imagination no longer possible in the contemporary world - where corporatism seeks not only to control technology but to rewrite the past in order to shape the way we view the future.
The Millenium may technically be a year away, but socially, culturally and politically, it's here. We've already entered an era in which marketers and venture capitalists have much more to do with shaping technology and the future than inventors, visionaries, politicians or educators.
The battles of the 21st Century - individual humans versus greed and bigness - are underway, from protests in Seattle to the Microsoft wars to the evolution of Linux to legal battles over DVD's and MP3's.
Increasingly, technology is the battleground. In small, symbolic but powerful ways, this battle's roots and stakes are visible all over Orlando.
"The Timekeeper" is literally the first thing you encounter when entering Tomorrowland and perhaps the most subtly ideological exhibit in Disney World.
Inside, visitors meet an audio-animatronic robot, also called the Timekeeper (narrated by Robin Williams) who takes them back to the Paris Exposition at the turn of the century, where H.G. Wells and Jules Verne are meeting - warily - for the first time.
The auditorium is actually a diorama surrounded by giant cinema screens; pictures envelop the audience. The Timekeeper character manipulates an iron time machine, whose obvious inspiration is Wells' first novel, "The Time Machine," in which a Victorian Time Traveler creates a machine that takes him 800,000 years into the future, to a bitterly-divided and horrifying world.
"The Time Machine" is one of the most famous works of science fiction ever published, even though Verne is often considered a more prescient author than Wells.
The truth is that neither saw the future very clearly, and the work of both underscores the hubris of people who think they know how technology will evolve. The only thing predictable about technology over the centuries is that it isn't predictable.
Verne's most successful forecasts were Captain Nemo's submarine in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea" and the Baltimore Gun Club's mission to the moon in "From The Earth To The Moon." Wells described a color television displaying remote events instantaneously, and airplanes flying from London to America in two hours.
But neither writer really conceived what twentieth-century life would be like: the dominance of the car, the spread of telecommunications, the advent of the Internet and personal computers, the disappearance of European empires, the scope and savagery of modern warfare, the Holocaust, the Nuclear Age.
Disney's version of The Timekeeper, however, is an entirely sunny one. For obvious reasons, corporatists dread losing control of visions of the future, since somebody might actually start considering who owns technology, who ought (or ought not) to control it, how freely it will be distributed and who should profit. This isn't a problem in Orlando. There, Imagination is brought to you by Kodak; Innovation is presented by IBM, and the American Experience itself comes courtesy of American Express.
By accident, the Disney Timekeeper brings Verne into his future, our present, where he joyously discovers cars, planes, cities and space travel. Verne nearly gets run over in Paris and almost falls out of a helicopter, but that hardly diminishes his rapture at finally encountering the future.
The last thing the audience sees is Verne and Wells happily sailing off together in a Wells-designed spaceship, towards a dazzlingly futuristic city of the kind Disney once hoped to construct on the grounds of Walt Disney World.
How very Disney. Verne even exclaims at one point of his trip, "So it's true. If it can be conceived, it can be built!" - an unmistakeable echo of Disney's and his Imagineers' theme, "If you can dream it, you can build it!" Nothing this Verne sees in the future - the world's problems seemed to have vanished - disturbs or troubles him, or even makes him think much.
But there are lots of ways to regard the future. The Time Traveler's journey back through time in Wells' disturbing novel was a very different trip than the one in Tomorrowland. It was a nightmare, not a celebration.
Wells was one of the first writers to place his characters in the context of science and technological evolution. "The Time Machine" was a blistering attack on the British class system, on the fact that the haves were using science and technology to create a superior class at the expense of the have-nots.
This idea is eerily relevant in the age of widening gaps between the technologically - equipped and those left behind. Wells fictionally portrayed the human species as a deeply flawed biological experiment, sure to ultimately fail because of internal weaknesses even if it didn't succumb to external disasters. Some of the history of the Twentieth century has reinforced his ideas. His novel, unlike Tomorrowland's happy roller-coaster ride, ends on a note of melancholy and reflection.
At the end of Wells' "The Time Machine," the sorrowful narrator wonders if the Time Traveler will ever come back. "He, I know - for the question had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was made - thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so."
And we have. If the families and tour groups clapping and laughing at Robin William's upbeat narration had heard a rendering of Wells' real vision, most would have run screaming from the room.
One thing Wells got right: at almost the same time that Walt Disney died in the late 60's, the old-fashioned American corporation had begun to fade and something new - something imagined by gloomy futurist writers like him, Orwell and Huxley - came into being. They'd thought the enemy would be oppressive governments and political regimes, but the most despotic political systems of the 20th Century - Nazism, Communism, apartheid - collapsed or were defeated. Corporatism, though, has become a political system unto itself, one of the most powerful forces in the world.
Almost as if his death sounded the signal, Disney's own company, like so many others, was transformed from one man's powerful vision into a global media and entertainment conglomerate with properties and interests too numerous to remember.
As in the grim future envisioned by Huxley and Orwell, the individual feels powerless and helpless against elements that dwarf free choice and spirit and threaten his humanity.
Increasingly, such bigness has become linked with technology, which provides the tools and means for corporatism to expand and dominate, and the economic motive for doing so.
Individuals seem to have little chance against such enormity. Everywhere, they are pressed, losing ground, elbowed aside. The individual dwells in a parallel universe, struggling to sort confusing realities: Times are great; jobs suck. Vast amounts of wealth are generated, but a comparatively small number of people benefit. Life is easier; life is more stressful. We are more connected, we are farther apart. There has never been more freedom, or more people wanting to take it away, sell or control it.
On the eve of the Millenium, it seems only right to honor Wells, the father of science fiction, by noting that his amazing work, his vision of the future that spawned so many others, has been butchered and redone into a big Disneyfield lie fobbed on thousands, even millions, of unsuspecting pilgrims, young and old.
Wells would probably have been the last person to argue that we could or should turn back, though. We have no choice but to keep trying for that brighter tomorrow, even if our fate is to grope, stumble and sometimes fall.
Anyway, Happy New Year. And Happy Millenium.
I have seen the enemy, and it is us. (Score:1)
Re:corporations and individuals (Score:1)
* "That's the way things are, you can't change them."
* "If I don't do it then someone else will anyway."
* "If it's for money, then it's ok, that's capitalism."
* "I'm just doing my job."
Another reason why I don't expect corporations to start acting in an ethical way any time soon is the Drone Mentality that most people apply to thier job. The Drone Mentality is basically the philosophy that when you are on the job your employer 'owns' you. Between 9 and 5 you do what your boss says while the 'you' is turned off and put on hold for that time. What happens then is that people distance themselves, become diviorced from, thier work and accept no responsibility for what they do. You can't expect people working in big businesses to act ethically when they don't even accept any responsibility for thier actions. ("it's company policy").
When you've got a civilisation based on greed what do you expect.
--
Simon
Some timekeeper :) (Score:1)
if he's going to talk of a new millenium
You could also ask them about statistics (Score:1)
statistics and they'd get that wrong too. What's
your point?
Re:Samples please (Score:2)
who to vote for is pretty much like
a visit to KFC.
Do I get the Southern Fried Bush?
Or the Extra Crispy Gore?
...eat the fries...
Jon
corporations and individuals (Score:3)
But the observation about corporate power and the diminishing relative power of the individual is well received. Given recent experience, it is probably safe to make one prediction: The future will be increasingly shaped by corporate powers for some time to come.
The average corporate entity has no defined, consistent, or evident ethics, and any attempt to change the nature of the corporate beast internally lands one either in endless mission statement and vision definition meetings (universally derided within corporate culture as roughly on par with being a United Way chairperson -- a sign of being useless), or labels the company as a hippie granola farm or religious cult. Attempts to change corporate culture externally by individuals are generally portrayed as signs of nuttiness or foolish idealism (something Michael Moore tried to change with productions like TV Nation). To be serious about changing unethical corporate behavior, one has to use the clout of connected supplier or vendor corporation using money as leverage, or perhaps the US Department of Justice. A gloomy state of affairs indeed.
The obvious question, here at the end of the millenium, is what to do about it. I don't have much faith that a corporate-power driven future holds much good for me, even though I'm a white male in the top 99.5+% of income worldwide. Not much good at all. For my part I'm trying very hard to make a lot of money, concentrate and contribute it in a manner that maximizes my financial and political power, while trying very hard not to lose my sense of ethics. I may work for big, powerful, sometimes passively benevolent, sometimes actively evil corporations, but I am first and foremost and individual. But it sure as hell is hard not to lose oneself in a corporate culture.
What's your plan for making it ok to look at yourself in the mirror each morning?
Re:Samples please (Score:3)
It's easier on so many levels it almost defies decription. Do you work with a large corporation to define its job title and description before you take the job, or do you accept the role and work within it? Do you write up your own mortgage agreement, or sign the documents put in front of you? Do you define your needs and buy a vehicle to meet them, or do you select a car that best matches your self-image according to a set of options put forth by a car manufacturer? Do you buy a cheeseburger and drink, or do you buy meal #3 and get the fries anyway?
Of course it would be silly to imply that people have no choice in these matters. One always has a choice. You can be an independent consultant. You can privately finance your house. You can take the bus or ride a bike to work. And you can cook your meals at home, be a vegan, or even grow your own food in the hills and never talk to another person. But the simple reality is that most people choose what's easist in their daily transactions, and that means choosing from a limited set of options defined by a commercial entity.
Does this mean I'm running for the hills? No. And I'll just eat the fries like everyone else. But I do worry that many people become so complacent in their decision-making that they select a president with no more cognitive effort than they select between Southern-Fried or Extra-Crispy. They lose sight of the big picture, and allow themselves to be financially and politically herded. It's important that people maintain a sense of self, a sense of perspective, and an independent sense of ethics against which they can judge the actions of corporate entities (because they're rarely self-regulating and will continue to concentrate financial & political power for the forseeable future), just as a lot of greater minds suggest that one must keep a watchful eye on one's government lest it become oppressive. I'm not even necessarily advocating activism -- just awareness.
DisneyWorld != Dehumanized Stark Reality Park (Score:1)
Actually... (Score:1)
More info (Score:1)
There's the book. The guy's name is Eric Drexler.
No Fate (Score:1)
If you don't like corporatism, go change it, beginning now.
Re:"Nano" technology is not invevitable (Score:2)
In Charles Babbage's time, an automated calculating machine that could automatically draw pictures that were perspective correct would have been unthinkably complex. It would have been an immense job.
And, in a sense, it was. It took us 100 years to get there.
Enjoy Quake.
Schwab
Re:Corporativism (Score:2)
The culture you postulate is partially explored in the film Rollerball [imdb.com]. Go rent it.
Schwab
Re:Is there a way... (Score:2)
Re:Is there a way... (Score:3)
Have a happy... (Score:1)
I think a lot of the problem is that too many people (myself included a lot of the time) are defeatists: acting like the game has already been lost, giving up before the whistle blows.
Yes, there are some selfish/thoughtless people out there, but we don't have to give up already. We can still win by quietly, politely informing those people that that is not the way things are going to be allowed. If you're going to be a selfish, pushy brat, then you'll have to leave the sandbox to us kids who can get along with each other.
Have a good day and a good new year!
Re:Katz and Social Justice... (Score:2)
The USSR tried "scientific socialism", distributing wealth and technology to everyone. What notable advances did they produce? That is what you are talking about, of course -- centralized planning. Whether you call it "justice" or "Communism" it's still the same thing.
Corporations and "the market" will do nothing but increase the disparity of wealth unless they have the incentive to do otherwise.
So, corporations won't sell to me, because they want to "increase the disparity of wealth"? And here I thought that all they wanted was to make a buck. I haven't heard of AOL refusing new subscribers, or of Motorola rationing cell phones.
Only the government can give this incentive.
Yes, only the government can take from the producers and give to the parasites. Don't have the money for a computer? Don't bother to work harder, just get the Government to take some money from other people and buy one for you.
You might not like big government, but without it nothing can stop big business.
Let's stop big business. Henry Ford? He's anti-semitic, and he's making huge profits at the expense of the proletariat. Stop him. Westinghouse? Why, they're selling radios, and making addicitive radio programs, too. That's a monopoly. Close 'em down. Texas Insturments? They have the majority of the semiconductor market -- that's not fair to the Peepul.
Look at Communisim, and see what it has produced (~60 million dead under Stalin). Now look at Big Business, and see it has produced:
The cheap & plentiful food that you eat, never farther away than the all-night store nearest you. Your job(unless you work for the government or are on Welfare, two sides of the same coin). Your computer and 'Net connection, the electricity that powers them, the people that developed the hardware that led up to them, clear back to Bell Labs.
But why wait until someone else changes things for you? Why not do it yourself? I'm sure some underprivledged child somewhere needs your computer more than you do -- why don't you give it to him/her? Why not sell your furniture, and donate the proceeds to someone with NO furniture? Why don't you go get a second job, and give the money away to street people? After all, you'd be redistributing corporate wealth.
Or, is all this talk of "a just dirtribution of wealth and technology" something that you want the government to do to other people?
Finally! (Score:2)
I'm heartened to read Jon Katz saying that a careful study of history shows that futurism never quite gets things right. (I hope I'm not misinterpreting him.)
Where's my flying car? Or my city on the moon? What about all the things that were promised by the year 2000 or 1990 or 1980 or whenever? The one lesson I take from all of this is, no one really knows what's going to happen in the future, and we'll probably all have just about the same concerns. Will I be able to pay my bills? Can I raise my kids right? Can I take care of my aging parents?
Maybe the real tragedy of technology is that it's not our savior, no matter how much we like to believe otherwise.
--
Is there a way... (Score:1)
Corporativism (Score:1)
Imagine the horror scenario where "The Company" governs most of your life from the cradle to the grave. We see trends in this direction already today. The Corporation, upon hiring you, offers you a house in "Company-ville", arranges the education of your children, and pays your health care. To switch companies might become awkward if you are too entangled. In effect the companies might replace the role of the government. The only difference being that companies are not (necessarily) democratic from the employers point of view. I bet someone has already written a SF novel (or short-story) on the topic...
\begin{music}[jaws-theme,to-crescendo]
\end{musi
BTW, don't take this as a political statement, it was just a what if thought in pure SF manner
Re:Katz - wrong again (Score:1)
But, how about Mary Shelly's Frankenstein (1818)?
That's sort of SF to me, and way ahead of Poe...
Re:Corporativism (Score:1)
A pity that the opinions on imdb wasn't very encouraging.
The Power of One (Score:1)
Oh, I dunno. We wouldn't all be here if that were entirely true.
Now, I hate Disney's constant efforts at coopting our little pea-brains, hate it with a white-hot hate (read Hiaasen's Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World). But still, today I think there's far more cause for faith in the individuals' chance against enormity than ever before in our history.
I agree with good ol' Esther Dyson when she said, about a million years ago, that networked minds will change human *institutions* not human *nature*. That's either good news or bad, depending on which side of the philosophical bed you roll out of each morning.
I happen to think it's good news. I think this space, here, is evidence of the power of the strength of individual minds working together over the power of corporatism.
The revolution of the individual empowered by the Web is bringing many large corporations to their knees these days. They're having to listen to what their customers actually want and think and feel for the first time. They're playing Web catchup at the moment, and it's going to consume their attention for the next year or two.
Meantime individuals who never before had voices have them. We have been given the opportunity to affect policy, set prices, determine trade protocols, meet, group, and manage the world in all sorts of ways we don't yet fully understand. But we're moving faster than they are. I'm certain of that.
The real question is, will we do it? Will we take advantage of this moment of weakness, this chink in the armor of the corporate globe, or take naps?
As for me, I'm getting kind of snoozy just thinking about it.
advancing technology (Score:3)
Jingoism. That's what Jon's reduced to. These last few articles have all been full of sound and fury, but are ultimately hollow. Take the above line, for example. It's typical, in that at a first, superficial glance it looks like it might say something. But if you ponder for more than a nanosecond, you'll pause, and say to yourself 'hang on'.
How many years after the Wright brothers took off did Voyager photograph the gas giants? How many years after Galileo first saw Jupiter's moons did Hubble give us the Deep Field, possibly the most awe-inspiring photograph of the mil^H^N^H our time?
How many people are alive today, having been cured of -- or at least saved from death by -- illnesses that killed millions a scant fifty years ago?
The population of the earth is over six billion, not because we've suddenly started breeding like rabbits, but because technology has improved our overall standard of living. As Jon said, we still have poverty. But he implies that we lack the technology to deal with it. Not true. Political will and technological wherewithal are radically different things.
I've read my last Katz article until he decides he's got enough for his book, and gets back to writing stuff that's worth reading.
Efficiency vs Effectiveness (Score:1)
What technology is good for is that economic efficiency leads to a growing leisure class. Back in the middle ages, only the theocracy retained wealth [aei.org] (selling indulgences to a captive audience has got to be the ultimate business plan) which led to serious abuses and thus Reformation and resulting separation of church and state. However, instead of independently wealthy merchants indulging their star-gazing hobby, now you have amateur astromony and radio clubs everywhere open to any member of hte pulbic with time and interest. In the Renaisance, only the wealty offspring of nobles could travel, now anyone can hop on a plane and pick up new exotic diseases
While the technological tangibles can be somewhat predicted (if not the timing), social movements and beliefs are entirely unpredictable as these heralds permanent shifts of power. Our concept of humaness has continually expanded over the centuries. From colonial times where signs like "no dogs or chinese allowed" proliferated, to slavery was considered "normal" because the bible gave dominion of beasts and subhumans to forthright Christians, to granting women the vote and equal rights, to today's soul searching to restore native rights (e.g. dispute of Terra Nullus in Australia leading to the legal system granting aboringinal preownership although the resulting land rights and associated wealth is still contested). Thus good SF story-tellers have an eye for detail (George Lucas and Star Wars based on Vietnam era, Gulliver Travels, Dibert, 1984, etc) and amplify these social traits as a means of warning about potential consequences.
Will nano-, bio-, info-, change anything? Possibily but it is predicated on having an equitable educational system that encourages talent to success regardless of the originating class. Here corporatism is not well-suited because ultimately a profit-oriented institution plays only a peripheral role in creating a civil society [aei.org] (except as bully-boy target). Ultimately it comes down to a sense of identity. Who are you? Are you an American (national), Hacker (profession), Trekkie (fandom) Nikie (pop culture) or Mr Average Joe Blogg? Here is where branding does make a perceptable difference as nobody wants to be Mr/Miss Joe/Jane Blogg and megacorporations offer ready-made lifestyles to go, irregardless of the underlying reality. Americana (ie all the gung-ho patrotism/mythology) is now replaced with so many subgroups that the media companies have given up on the concept of mass communications and just caters towards them all, whether it is paganism or gun-tottering 15 minutes of infamy. You want your own genuine Star Trek phaser (set to stun of course), then sooner or later someone will combine the right intellectual knowhow (combination of laser + sonics?), ally with the production studio and make appropriate merchandising agreements. Why go to the effort of figuring out what the consumer wants when you can define a cultural ikon/universe and associated salable do-dackys whether it is Nike Air Jordans or the magical Walt Disney MickeyLand theme. While individual artists struggle for attention and are lost once they retire, a corporation is brutally efficient at sustaining an idea forever, perhaps beyond the point of relevance. However, if an individual can step outside the hustle-and-bustle, they can realise they can make an informed-choice and consciously alter their habits (pruchasing, behaviour, voting, etc) to reinforce their values. Individual free will and ideas cannot be contained by government or corporations forever unless it is so oppressive (theough legal red-tape or simply attention congestion) that it has other negative backlashes.
So what is the point, I suppose
- technology leads to economic efficiency
- average lifetime leisure options increases
- give more time to indulge in social reflection
- while tech is an enabler, creating the necessary creative chaos for change, it is still up to individual actions (e.g. Tim Berners-Lee vs Bill Gates) to follow their belief system and perhaps illuminate a previously unknown choice for others to follow.
OpenSource and
LL
Acid-free trip (and where Katz should have gone) (Score:2)
Actually, I might argue that the closest thing to an acid trip without really doing it is a day spend in silence in the Nevada desert just outside of Vegas, followed by an evening return to the lights and greed and excess and sanitized sin of the strip.
Which brings me to the real point. If Katz wants to find the future...and if he wants to find what is the common uniting experience of Americans...and if he wants to stick to the sort of pessimistic prophesizing that we've seen so far...he shouldn't be writing about Orlando.
No, I've seen the future, and the future is Vegas.
Re:Science fiction has more than one father.. (Score:2)
who ? (Score:1)
control.
Re:Is there a way... (Score:1)
--
Full Time Idiot and Miserable Sod
Someone kindly expalin "science-fiction" to Katz (Score:3)
The truth is that neither saw the future very clearly, and the work of both underscores the hubris of people who think they know how technology will evolve. The only thing predictable about technology over the centuries is that it isn't predictable.
I was never aware the ability to predict the furture is what makes or breaks the notoriety of an SF writer ....
Moreover, I guess Katz thinks Orwell's 1984 is/was about, well, 1984 ....
Last I checked, an SF writer is there to predict/explore/comment on the potential interaction with humanity and his/her surroundings, with a [key word coming up] SCIENTIFIC pretext ....
Not Y2K Compliant (Score:1)
Science fiction != science tutorial (Score:2)
Orwell never pretended to be writing predictions about the future of technology and civilisation: he was writing allegory about the betrayal of the Revolution by Stalin and his cronies. 1984 is an anagram for 1948 the year in which the events that most disturbed Orwell took place.
By the same token, Wells' time machine was, as Katz notes, "a blistering attack on class structure." It wasn't about predicting the future at all, it was about using the future as a setting for a burleque that lampooned the social order of the day.
Disney, on the other hand, has always taken the tack that they are predicting the future (in fact, this is an occupational hazard of dark-rides and themeparks going back to the Futurama [aol.com] at the 1939 World's Fair).
The disconnect that Katz sees between Wells' novels and Disney's interpretations can be explained by this key difference: prediction is an inevitably goofy exercise that lays bare the predictor's agenda, while allegory is a subtler undertaking.
Like a man once said, "Reading science fiction to learn about science is like reading romance novels to learn about love."
Say it in song, baby. (Score:1)
I guess I just kinda struck a chord with me
Imagination Pavillon (Score:1)
The future will be different, but probably better (Score:1)
Just like we can never accuratly predict where technology is going or what its effects will be, we will never be able to predict where society will go. It's true that communisim or dictatorships aren't as big a worry as in earlier years, but we do have to worry about corporate power.
Still, as year 2000 is almost upon me (20:30 ET) I can't help but think that as a species we haven't done a bad job. We are definatly not perfect, and we keep making the same mistakes over and over again, but we've come a long way. I am currently reading Daniel J. Boorstin's The Discoverers - a great read that has shown me how much humans have created and that we take most of it for granted.
Re:Forgive Us for Our Wealth (Score:1)
America is the kingdom of the "haves". We exploit the rest of the world so we can have more.
I certainly don't want to drive our living standard down to that of the poorest countries, but there has to be a limit somewhere on this society of consumption.
It's unfortunate that we allow a bunch of Madison Avenue hucksters to dominate our lives.
Re:Katz and Social Justice... (Score:1)
Looks like the fox guarding the hen house to me.
Not just jingoism ... (Score:2)
The problem is the arrogance of people in assuming that they have the solution to all the world's problems -- whether the solutions are technological in nature or not.
I mean, sure I'm grateful for the set of circumstances that surround my life (I may complain sometimes, but they could have been so much worse). But things aren't universally "better" for people now than they were X number of years ago. It all depends on who you are and where you happen to be at the time.
And unfortunately, sometimes in "fixing" a problem, we actually manage to make our problems worse. The widespread use of pesticides and antibiotics have caused resistant strains of the stuff we were trying to get rid of to develop, for instance.
There were certainly problems with the 1950s love affair with "progress." I've seen the old videos with DDT being sprayed directly on kids to show how wonderfully safe it supposedly was. (Something that was not very well thought out IMHO.) Now, I see the same people who perpetuate the War On Some Drugs on the one hand throwing Prozac at women and Ritalin at active boys on the other. Is this, honestly, progress? I don't think so, sorry.
Forgive Us for Our Wealth (Score:1)
Now, you don't have to like the gross disparity that exists. I don't like more than a billion people living in abject poverty on this planet. But a lot of people champion the idea of US somehow reducing its "consumption and waste" to something more along the lines of second- or third-world nations...Which, of course, translates to living conditions along the lines of second- or third-world. No thank you. Personally, I'd like second- and third-world nations to not be blocked from development by both hostile (tariffs, sanctions, and quotas) and well-meaning (limitations on foreign investment, attempts to force higher wages for foreign companies than the economy can bear or to impose environmental regulations identical to another country's) economic barriers, as well as destructive "assistance" from entities like the IMF or local government attempts to "plan" or "help" their economy once it actually gets going.
As to "destruction of the environment", it's pretty demonstrable that as technology advances, it gets cleaner. Private groups and companies can provably reduce the harm they cause and do so. On the other hand, the US government happens to produce more pollution that every company in the US combined...and is largely immune to environmental laws (the Boston Globe had a story about this recently - I'd direct you to their online archives, but I'm not a subscriber and don't want to pay for a single article
So, to get somewhere resembling a point before the cough syrup claims me...
The problem is not that westerners and Americans in particular consume too much. The problem is that in other nations, the people are too poor to consume as much, and hence have poorer living conditions.
Re:Not just jingoism ... (Score:1)
Even with massive population growth in impoverished nations, the aggregate well-being of humanity has increased almost steadily since the dawn of agriculture - and sharply in the last few hundred years. A smaller portion of the species goes to bed hungry each night than it did 100 years ago - and a larger portion than then has a bed to sleep in.
Real, honest example to give you the idea of the sort of change technology has allowed: Someone living at the poverty line in a trailer park in the modern-day US enjoys a higher standard of living than nobility and royalty possessed in Europe 200 or more years ago.
Re:Samples please (Score:1)
I'm still waiting for a voteworthy candidate...
Ha1Koo 4 j00 (Score:1)
Once again I do not care.
Shut the fuck up, please.
Trolling For Jesus [trollingforjesus.org] -- salvation through irritation
A view through mud-colored glasses. (Score:2)
Today we use aluminum for soda cans.
And for aluminum siding.
Katz continues to provide views into the Liberal Arts / Mainstream Fiction mindset - where progress is pollution, net improvements are to be judged only by their downside components, and no matter how bad things are you should not try to fix them because you'll only make them worse. It is no surprise that he identifies with the Wells "Time Machine" vision of the future/our present, preferring it to those of Verne or Disney.
But have things really gotten worse, or better? I don't know about you, bunkie, but as I look back over my half-century of life I see an enormous net improvement in quality of life - not just for me, but for humans in general.
And the biggest fly I see in this ointment is government interference in the lives of the people. And one of the most useful tools of the control freaks in power is the distorted mindset that Katz so aptly demonstrates.
There's a distinction between Science Fiction and Mainstream Fiction that corresponds: Science Fiction is the art of the techie, and it has a central theme: If it's useful you can do it. If it's broken you can fix it. Even the cautionary tales are a variant: Be careful, because if you break it THIS way you could break it so bad you CAN'T fix it. But even that is upbeat, because it assumes the power and decision-making is in the reader's responsiblehands. Mainstream fiction, on the other hand, is art for the serfs: It's all going to hell. But don't try to change it, or you'll make it worse. Just be thankful you're not going to hell as fast as those other people. (But while you're going to hell, you might as well try to spike the wheels of anybody who's trying to fix things. After all, if they do manage to change anything they'll just get you to hell faster.)
Sigh (Score:1)
Wake up Jon! Most of us are into this stuff because we are wild-eyed dreamers and revolutionaries determined to change the world where we can for the better through technology. If the vision and dreams are missing or misplaced then show us how to dream and vision better and to make it real.
Individuals have little chance? Give me a break.
Re:Katz and Social Justice... (Score:1)
Is "social justice" some variant of justice that ignores reality? Reality does not in the least guarantee equal consequences for all parties. Why is it supposed that this is what we should do?
Re:Disney (Score:1)
First and foremost, Disney is in the business of moving merchandise and putting asses in seats. That is what has made them a $100 billion company. Their ability to separate you from your money (which I have seen firsthand this week) is absolutely mind-boggling.
They do this by selling you on *Dreams*. The suspension of disbelief that makes people cry in movies is what makes them buy Disney sweatshirts, Mickey Mouse ear hats, rice krispy treats in the shape of Mickey's head, leather briefcases with silver Mickey head clasps, etc.
They keep up the suspension of disbelief to an amazing degree. There are constantly things going on to encourage it. Buffet breakfast lunch and dinner with characters in costumes walking around handing out autographs and hugs. Goofy's voice talks to you on the elevator in the hotel. Thousands of people are involved in putting on "special" parades which are actually held 2-4 times per DAY, 365 days a year.
What Disney is NOT in the business of is predicting the future. TomorrowLand in the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT (aka "Eisner's Personal Coin-Operated Toy"
To think that they have created that futuristic stuff as a serious attempt to model future society is very naive. All they are doing is making a synthetic reality, mirroring back to people what those people think is cool. "That was a great ride honey! Let's get the T-shirt!"
Regards,
Crash
Re:advancing technology (Score:1)
I mean, come on Katz. You take a goddamned robot at the entrance to a amusement park ride and turn it into the Future of All that is Technology During This Millenium That Will Change Everything. WHATEVER. It seems to me that your desire to be a part of something is causing a distortion in your reality field. You want your time to be the most momentous and glorious period of time in the history of technology, but it's not.
I come to
Bigness, enormity (Score:1)
"Bigness" is too a word. Not only is it a word but everyone knows what it means. My fave quote from this piece was:
Individuals seem to have little chance against such enormity.
That's sweet. Reading it lights up my day and reminds me once again why I love Katz so. You suggest an editor but one of those would spoil things I think. A picky editor, a pedant, would have rejected that line, making the distinction between "enormousness" (yes, that too is a word) and "enormity." But whether or not one does make that distinction, Katz's sentence happens to be correct.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Marketers & Capitalists + Freedom (Score:1)
I have at times been elected with power over 18,000 people by very small margins. My competitors and those voting for them had no influence over me, there was no reason whatever for me to care about either their interests or their opinions.
On the other hand, each customer and each transaction matters - at least to some extent - to the marketeer and the venture capitalist. We may think that other people make stupid choices about what to do with their money - for example, to visit Orlando like you did - but the point is that the choice is theirs.
I may vote out of anger or for little reason but how I spend my money is deadly serious in this sense: I tend to buy what I want, not what someone else thinks I should want. If you can make something I actually am willing to pay for, you have done a rare thing indeed.
It really amazes me how head-in-the-sand most
Under Capitalism, capital flows to those who do things people willingly spend money on. So there tends over time to be more of what more people want, and less of what minorities think we should want.
Get with the future Mr Katz, you are in great danger of being left in the dustbin of history.
Some People... (Score:1)
Call me a utopian dreamer, but surely in any controlled society there are a few that choose to buck the system, and a few of these could possibly help the technological have nots. Think about it, if I (and i mean me personally) lived in an oppressive society, and had access to the technology that made the oppressors of that society powerful, then I would do everything I could to bring this technology, and its use to those who otherwise wouldn't have it.
The more people who had access to this technology, the more intelligent the people, the more likely they are to realise how their lives are being screwed by the large corporations/governments.
I must admit, i find myself doing this now (in a limited, certain-large-computer-company is bad, other-large-computer-company is good kind of way:)
I'm sure there was a point to all this, but I seem to have forgotten it (3:21am 01/01/2000 Melbourne.au) Sorry.
Or something...
battles (Score:1)
hey Katz
who do you think is greedy, if not the individual humans?
Each of us individuals must make responsible decisions and become aware of the consequences of our actions if we are to change the world. It does no good to protest in seattle, then go back home and eat a cheeseburger in your "tommy" jeans.
We have power as citizens with voices, consumers in a global economy and (most of us) voters in a democratic country.
Stand up and be counted or get out of the way!
Screw H.G. Wells (Score:1)
"Nano" technology is not invevitable (Score:1)
...assuming you mean "nanobots", in the science fiction sense of being able to change/build objects at the molecular level.
Others know a lot more about this than I do, but this has always struck me as pure fantasy. Sure, it would be cool -- in the sense that a star trek transporter would be cool. However, the engineering and practical aspects would be immense. Power, organization, communication, reliability -- it would just be insanely difficult.
On the other hand, small bots that deliver medicine, swim through the bloodstream to do surgery and micro-repairs, that seems very doable and practical.
---
Re:"Nano" technology is not invevitable (Score:1)
I might point out that we still do not have a mechanical Babbage machine. Even with modern materials, it would be impractically difficult.
It's not necessarily the case that everything is possible given enough progress. To use my original example, we will probably never have a Star Trek-style transporter, unless some esoteric law of physics falls out of the sky.
---
Katz - wrong again (Score:1)
Poe also invented the Detective story when he published "Murders in the Rue Morgue" in 1850. He referred to this genre as "ratiocination" or "exact thinking." This story and "The Gold Bug" both include strong components of cryptography.
In 1863, the great Jules Verne published his first Science Fiction novel, "Five Weeks in a Balloon." Verne proved himself the master of modern Science Fiction, in fact presaging many scientific advances.
Wells' first work of Science Fiction, "The Time Machine," was published in 1895. This publication began a long and prolific career that extended until his death in 1946.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
Re:Katz - wrong again (Score:1)
http://www.desert-fairy.com/franken.shtml
-- refer to "Frankenstein" as Science Fiction, but when I graduated, (1975, BA English, American Literature) Poe was generally considered to have developed the genre for reasons of structure and style.
This page --
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/thisthat.ht
-- also provides some historical information and definitions of Science Fiction.
You make an excellent point, though. Numerous examples such as Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," (1726) do not fit the definition for technical reasons, but also embody aspects of Science Fiction. Swift, through the Lilliputians, predicted that Mars had two moons and was almost exactly correct in predicting the orbit and periodicity of both. Is it Science Fiction or Political Satire? Both? Neither? You decide.
Voltaire published "Micromegas" in 1750, describing the visit to Earth of a giant from Sirius.
The point is that, while credited with the genre, Poe was not the first to engage in speculation. As a brilliant technical (in the literary sense) writer, he created a style and structure that influenced almost all who followed.
Where does the break between Fantasy incorporating scientific basis and references and Science Fiction occur? That is left as an exercise for the student.
BTW, it is exactly this kind of nit-picking religiosity that caused me to never work in any job that involved literature.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
Re:Detective story (Score:1)
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
1984 (Score:1)
There exists several lengthy analysis of "1984" which covers more horrors than what most people can grasp by reading the book alone. I think Orwell wrote "1985" (an analysis mostly) himself, or perhaps that was some other guy.
If you liked "1984" I would recommend Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". Personally, I think that one is closer to a conceivable future here in the West. "1984" is more like future Communistic (*) regimes. In a way, many dictatorian regimes has already had 194-like tendencies. But not to that extent as in the book.
(*) NB! Not communistic, look up in Webster's for the differences between Communism and communism *sigh, do I ever get tired of that stupid discussion*)
- Steeltoe
Science fiction has more than one father.. (Score:1)
how does that work out? must have been adopted.
Re:No Fate (Score:1)
Dee Hock, the founder and CEO emeritus of what is probably the world's largest commercial enterprise (1.25 Trillion/yr) organized Visa around a completely different paradigm, the chaord. You can read about his efforts here. [cascadepolicy.org]
Chaordic organizations like the Linux effort illustrate how correct Hock was (and is).
Highly recommended.
The Time Machine as social commentary (Score:1)
vs. the rest. The technicians knew how to make things and operate things - but they lacked philosophy and refined tastes. The rest - the politicians, executives, bankers...the chattering classes - had opinion and art and religion, but didn't know how to run a train or a power plant or anything else. In Well's future, this difference is taken to the extreme.
Re:Is there a way... (Score:1)
I have to admit, while his writing is often mechanically workmanlike, I have yet to see anything:
...insightful from a social science perspective. (Read any modern neo-socialist, such as Marcuse, if you want something with this general slant, backed up by facts and intelligent analysis. Or better yet, look at all the countries run by neo-socialists as they desperately try to catch up with us.)
...that demonstrates more than a passing familiarity with technology. All he seems to know is that he sure don't like corporatism.
...that shows a good journalist's skill at bringing up new ideas or at least better organizing old ones.
...that doesn't amount to wannabe-ism and self-promotion.
None of this really matters, except that Slashdot is paying him instead of someone better, and a slight waste of bandwidth. Really, I'm only worried that real writers might try to use Katz as a source. What if he became our spokesman?
BTW, I read a Niven article asserting (convincingly, too!) that Dante's Inferno was science fiction, using the only science of the time, theology. I think there has been science fiction as long as there has been science.
Re:corporations and individuals (Score:1)
[...] any attempt to change the nature of the corporate beast internally lands one either in endless mission statement and vision definition meetings [...], or labels the company as a hippie granola farm or religious cult.
One problem with people today is that we've allowed ourselves to become more and more polarized. We're always at an extreme, and never taking a compromizing middle ground. Unfortunately, we sometimes perpetuate this activity by trying to make news more interesting.
Also I have a correction for Katz's story:
How very Disney. Verne even exclaims at one point of his trip, "So it's true. If it can be conceived, it can be built!"
Actually it's (from memory) "So it's true. If it can be conceived, it can be achieved!". Can you tell I've been to Disney World too many times? :)
Disney...The Man (Score:1)
Creeping Corporatism (Score:1)
The other day I watched a basketball game in the National Car Rental Center. I don't wish to piss off the citizens of that area (Alas, my sieve-like brain can no longer recall the name of the city where this arena is located.)
Increasingly we live in a world of brands, logos, and advertisements -- on teevee, on the web, on signs, walls and t-shirts. Does this bother anyone besides me? Is there anything we can do about it?
Katz needs an editor (Score:1)
What exactly do either of these have to do with technology? Can anyone ever predict political shiftings or mass genocide? Sure, we probably could have seen Hitler's rise to power, or the collapse of the brittish empire, but could anyone have predicted the full extent of the horrors acted out during world war 2? I somehow doubt it.
But that's just an opinion. This just pisses me off:
individual humans versus greed and bigness
Bigness is not a word! Or at least it hasn't been for a few hundred years. Does anyone proofread these articles?
-m@
Re:Some timekeeper :) (Score:1)
If I were Jon Katz I would... (Score:1)
= )
Re:I have seen the enemy, and it is us. (Score:1)
This is an incredibly insulting assumption that I have seen too many times. Why don't you find someone who actually went to Seattle and ask them where they buy their shoes? I couldn't go, I live on the other coast and don't make a lot of money. But you know what? When I talk about human rights abuses for profit, I'm not standing in "made in china" shoes. I have bought maybe five objects in the last year that were made in China or vietnam. Some were by accident, others were after I searched through several inventories of an item I needed and found that there were no products of the type I needed that weren't made there. In some of those cases, I will simply not get the item.
And I'm a pretty casual follower of the anti-slave labor philosophy as such things go. So don't go around calling people hypocrits on assumption. Some of us go to a lot of trouble to live by our own standards and I get sick and tired of people assuming we are hypocrits because they assume that we couldn't possibly be putting in effort that they aren't.
Verne's predictions (Score:1)
For a better look at Verne's vision of the future (and how accurate it could be), read his Paris in the Twentieth Century [fatbrain.com].
Originally written in 1863, it wasn't published until 1995. In it, Verne "predicts" fax machines, bank computers, and - more importantly - the overwhelming role of technology and business in defining culture. The foreword from 1995 explains how his technical predictions were quite plain based on the technology that was being developed at the time, but I find his portrayal of a culture that forgot its purpose to be much more amazing.
This book is definitely not a cheery glance at a time of spaceships, but rather a depressing look at what happens when we forget what all this technology is for.
Tech Ubiquity (Score:1)
And it is good.
Without technology, mankind would be stagnanted to the form of society from pre-industrial Europe. Whether or not one sees the present as better or worse than the past, the present is a Tech-laced one based on not the human spirit, but the human wallet. Where once the fittest survived, the richest survive. Those with power get the money. With the money, they gain more power. Ask the average person who the most powerful man in the world is. Do they say Bill Clinton? No, on average, they will give that "other" Bill.
As we look to the future for a path and a guide, we are met with the ever increasing role of technology in our daily lives. One day, the average person WILL have microchips implanted in his upper arms so the building can work around him. One day, the average person probably WILL have biotechnical devices coursing through his veins to faster repair his ailing body. It wouldn't be too wild and wooly to theorize that one day large portions of the human brain will be replaced by silicon as it can transfer information MUCH faster than simple organic neurons.
I'd be the first on the waiting list for it.
Then there are the things we have now that don't look like they will go away any time soon. Cars, the Internet, and other various pieces of Tech have been here for a while now and look to stay that way. Think about it, if the internal combustion engine had never been invented, we'd all still be on horses. If the Internet had never been invented and evolved to at least its present state, just think how much the life of you, the Slashdot reader would be changed.
Just a thought.
some guy once said.... (Score:1)
Re:some guy once said.... (Score:1)
Re:Detective story (Score:1)
Katz and Social Justice... (Score:2)
His emphasis is a little off, in seeing the world as divided between the technology haves and technology have-nots. Actually the distinction is much older --- the difference between the haves and the have-nots themselves. Technology merely reinforces the old divides, it doesn't create anything new.
But can technology be used to break that divide? Sure it can. Like most other things, technology itself is morally neutral. It can be used as it currently is and perpetuate injustice or it can be used to break those lines. But who will implement this change? Will Big Business do this for us? Will this spreading of prosperity be a natural consequence of the market economy?
Katz hits this one right on the head --- NO. Corporations are interested in profit and share price, and will do nothing but work towards those goals. Perhaps back in the days of Disney, one man could wield his company as a tool of his own ideology. Today this is no longer, if it ever were the case. The Board of Directors wants to see profits. This is the bottom line for corporations.
The ONLY answer to the problem of a just dirtribution of wealth and technology can come from the government. Sorry to offend the libertarians in the audience, but face facts. Corporations and "the market" will do nothing but increase the disparity of wealth unless they have the incentive to do otherwise. Only the government can give this incentive. You might not like big government, but without it nothing can stop big business.
Re:Verne's predictions (Score:1)
Disney? Wells? Orwell? Huxley? (Score:1)
Wells and Orwell... the conspiracy (Score:1)
Orwell on the other hand, saw human nature for what it was. HG Wells sought to turn humans into something they weren't. Orwell merely pointed out the consequences of allowing yourself to lose your humanity. I believe Orwell and Wells visions of the future were but two faces of the same coin; Orwell warned us, Wells actively wanted to bring such a future about.
I would give up all technology anyday, if it meant I could have true liberty. In the meantime, since thats not possible, technology is the greatest means by which the individual can empower himself against the forces that try to oppress him from all sides
Who makes the future? (Score:1)
You ask, "Who gets to define the future"?
However, the question you seem to be answering is, "who wants to influence your definition of the future, and how are they doing"?
You use Disney's "Timekeeper" exhibit as a metaphor for the ability of large (in this case, commercial) power blocks in society to influence our attitudes toward those powers and their place in our society. You then express concern that the messages they promote is inaccurate at best (while acknowledging that individual visions have done no better), but more often hypocritical and self serving.
As I read it, you fear that this message is overwhelming any more organic visions of the future that we, as individuals might hold in the absence of these pervasive messages.
What you fail to acknowledge is that our time is unique in history for being the age where these massive power blocks are deploying their last desperate efforts to retain the hold they've had on the discourse, and from that, society's vision, of the future.
What corporatist entity has the power to say something won't be printed, anywhere, ever? Which corporation has the power to place dissenters under house arrest, for decades? How many people have been marked as sub-human and killed en-masse for the corporate vision? Historically, both nation-states and various religions have used such powers to enforce their world-views and particularly, their visions of the past and future. The most obvious example these days is the tale of the last 50 years or so of mainland China. Even there, current communications technology and competing visions of the future are eroding the power elite's ownership of the discourse.
All that is left these days is persuasion -- and admittedly, commercial enterprises have become very good at it. The classical power blocks have even acknowledged this, largely abandoning traditional methods of influence to hire specialty companies that push their message like any other product.
And persuasion too has its limits, at least to those who live in cultures saturated by it; "Social Darwinisim" encourages cultral traits that resist the blind acceptance of any statement coming via the media -- you can see it in the trends in advertizing, and the attitudes of the people who view them. Let's face it, if we all believed Ron Popeil when he tells us we "need" a pocket fishing rod, our society would rapidly be destroyed by the first foriegn power that got their hands on a TV station. We also see the unfortunate results of such an ecosystem -- some individuals are unable to cope, with unfortunate results. Advertizers are always looking for more suseptable targets (markets); those too young to have learned caution, those who have psychological weaknesses that can be exploited, those from cultures that do not have the innate distrust and cynicism of media as most western cultures have.
And finally, the powers themselves, the Corporations. For "Corporatism" to be the overwhelming power you describe, it would have to be far more organized, and malicious, than any power heretofore seen. The symptoms that you see are far more the incidental consequences of decisionmaking with *poor* communications than the design of a powerful few with excellent communications. A classic example is the decisionmaking and communications surrounding the decision to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger on the that cold January day in 1986; no one intended for there to be a disaster, but the needs of many individuals, *and the communication channels avilable to them*, made it almost inevitable.
We live in interesting times. When we make visons of the future, we make futures. Today, more of us make more futures for ourselves and our children than ever before; that's why I'm optimistic that "the future", whatever it is, is brighter, and a lot more interesting than anything the folks at Disney can Imagineer....