--------- Begin forwarded message ---------- From: NALOGAN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: 'Technorealists' Hope to Enrich Debate Over Policy Issues in Cyberspace Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 18:35:55 EST Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://chronicle.com/data/internet.dir/itdata/1998/03/t98032301.htm INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monday, March 23, 1998 'Technorealists' Hope to Enrich Debate Over Policy Issues in Cyberspace By JEFFREY R. YOUNG CAMBRIDGE, MASS. When some people debate the role of technology in society, they can become downright unreasonable. Too often, observers say, the discussions become a war between the two most vocal camps: On one side are techno-utopians who see cyberspace as a new, idyllic frontier where government is unnecessary and prejudices can be overcome. On the other side are the neo-Luddites, who fear that technology threatens to break apart communities and unravel the fabric of our values. Now a group of 12 technology-savvy writers and commentators wants to end the war -- or at least negotiate a truce -- by recasting the public debate about technology policy. They call themselves "technorealists," and they've released a set of principles that describe technology as bringing both novel benefits and unexpected hazards. Technology should be embraced, they say, but with care and skepticism. Their principles are so simple that some have called them common sense and others have dismissed them as naïve. On Thursday, the technorealists presented and defended their ideas at Harvard Law School here. Three law professors probed and prodded the founders of the new movement in front of an audience of students, researchers, and others. The stakes are high for making better decisions about technology, said David S. Bennahum, who is editor of an on-line newsletter called MEME and a contributor to a number of technology magazines. He said technorealists hope to help society maintain control of technology by fostering careful policy decisions. "Believe me," he said, "there are a lot of people out there who believe that we should get the hell out of the way, and that there are forces out there -- nature or the market or whatever -- that are a damn lot better than human beings as far as making these choices." "We're just trying to inject a more-critical perspective into the debate about how new technologies are affecting our lives," said Andrew Shapiro, a technorealist who is a fellow at the law school's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "If there is one word that summarizes all of this, it's 'balance.'" The technorealist statement of principles http://www.technorealism.org/ covers a range of issues, including copyright ("Information wants to be protected"), education ("Wiring the schools will not save them"), and control of the airwaves ("We should demand more for private use of public property"). Perhaps the technorealists' most controversial point is that the government has a legitimate interest in setting rules for computer networks. That idea angers some activists -- including a number of influential and veteran users of the Internet -- who have argued that cyberspace should be used as an experiment in laissez-faire social policy. "Cyberspace is not formally a place or jurisdiction separate from earth," say the technorealists. "It is foolish to say that the public has no sovereignty over what an errant citizen or fraudulent corporation does on line." But most of the manifesto seeks to enrich the debate, rather than to take sides on specific policies. Because the Internet and other computerized innovations are so new and complex, the technorealists say, it is easy for discussion about them to become clouded by fear and misinformation. For instance, widespread characterizations of cyberspace as an electronic red-light district led to the passage of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that sponsors said was meant to protect children from stumbling onto porn _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ography in cyberspace. The law made it a crime to post "indecent" material on line where minors might see it. The Supreme Court struck down the measure last year as an unconstitutional restriction of speech, ruling that its provisions covered too broad a range of materials, including literature and art dealing with sexual topics. At the other extreme, the technorealists say, the Clinton Administration has touted wiring the nation's public schools as a panacea for problems in education. But spending money on computers without making other reforms is misguided, the technorealists argue. Larry Lessig, a visiting law professor at Harvard who served as one of the moderators at the event, said that some of technorealism's goals recalled legal realism, an American political movement in the early 1900s that encouraged more critical thinking about regulating economic markets. But he said that other points in the technorealists' manifesto sounded more like "hype." Mr. Lessig has become an Internet celebrity for having been appointed and then dismissed as a "special master" to review material for the federal judge who is hearing the Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft. The idea of technorealism grew informally during the last few months -- over lunchtime conversations and e-mail messages -- among a group of friends who decided that they needed to coin a new term to describe their beliefs. "Language matters," said David Shenk, a technology writer who is a commentator for National Public Radio. "There isn't a word for someone who is very enthusiastic about technology but is also very concerned about aspects of technology." Mr. Shenk's latest book, Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut, talks about both the wonders of the information highway and the dangers of information overload. The technorealists represent a "silent majority" of people whose beliefs align them with neither the techno-utopians nor the neo-Luddites, said Brooke Shelby Biggs, a technology columnist based in San Francisco. "We're saying, 'You're not alone out there if you don't belong in either camp.'" But John Perry Barlow, a well-known proponent of technology who was in the audience, took issue with how the technorealists "cartooned" his beliefs as techno-utopian -- in order, he said, to make their point. Discussion of technorealism continues on an on-line forum http://www.feedmag.com/html/dialog/98.03dialog/98.03dialog_master.html sponsored by Feed magazine, and the manifesto's creators invite anyone on the Internet to sign their statement of principles. ============================== http://www.technorealism.org/ Technorealism AN OVERVIEW ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this heady age of rapid technological change, we all struggle to maintain our bearings. The developments that unfold each day in communications and computing can be thrilling and disorienting. One understandable reaction is to wonder: Are these changes good or bad? Should we welcome or fear them? The answer is both. Technology is making life more convenient and enjoyable, and many of us healthier, wealthier, and wiser. But it is also affecting work, family, and the economy in unpredictable ways, introducing new forms of tension and distraction, and posing new threats to the cohesion of our physical communities. Despite the complicated and often contradictory implications of technology, the conventional wisdom is woefully simplistic. Pundits, politicians, and self-appointed visionaries do us a disservice when they try to reduce these complexities to breathless tales of either high-tech doom or cyber-elation. Such polarized thinking leads to dashed hopes and unnecessary anxiety, and prevents us from understanding our own culture. Over the past few years, even as the debate over technology has been dominated by the louder voices at the extremes, a new, more balanced consensus has quietly taken shape. This document seeks to articulate some of the shared beliefs behind t _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] hat consensus, which we have come to call technorealism. Technorealism demands that we think critically about the role that tools and interfaces play in human evolution and everyday life. Integral to this perspective is our understanding that the current tide of technological transformation, while important and powerful, is actually a continuation of waves of change that have taken place throughout history. Looking, for example, at the history of the automobile, television, or the telephone -- not just the devices but the institutions they became -- we see profound benefits as well as substantial costs. Similarly, we anticipate mixed blessings from today's emerging technologies, and expect to forever be on guard for unexpected consequences -- which must be addressed by thoughtful design and appropriate use. As technorealists, we seek to expand the fertile middle ground between techno- utopianism and neo-Luddism. We are technology "critics" in the same way, and for the same reasons, that others are food critics, art critics, or literary critics. We can be passionately optimistic about some technologies, skeptical and disdainful of others. Still, our goal is neither to champion nor dismiss technology, but rather to understand it and apply it in a manner more consistent with basic human values. Below are some evolving basic principles that help explain technorealism. *** PRINCIPLES OF TECHNOREALISM 1. Technologies are not neutral. A great misconception of our time is the idea that technologies are completely free of bias -- that because they are inanimate artifacts, they don't promote certain kinds of behaviors over others. In truth, technologies come loaded with both intended and unintended social, political, and economic leanings. Every tool provides its users with a particular manner of seeing the world and specific ways of interacting with others. It is important for each of us to consider the biases of various technologies and to seek out those that reflect our values and aspirations. 2. The Internet is revolutionary, but not Utopian. The Net is an extraordinary communications tool that provides a range of new opportunities for people, communities, businesses, and government. Yet as cyberspace becomes more populated, it increasingly resembles society at large, in all its complexity. For every empowering or enlightening aspect of the wired life, there will also be dimensions that are malicious, perverse, or rather ordinary. 3. Government has an important role to play on the electronic frontier. Contrary to some claims, cyberspace is not formally a place or jurisdiction separate from Earth. While governments should respect the rules and customs that have arisen in cyberspace, and should not stifle this new world with inefficient regulation or censorship, it is foolish to say that the public has no sovereignty over what an errant citizen or fraudulent corporation does online. As the representative of the people and the guardian of democratic values, the state has the right and responsibility to help integrate cyberspace and conventional society. Technology standards and privacy issues, for example, are too important to be entrusted to the marketplace alone. Competing software firms have little interest in preserving the open standards that are essential to a fully functioning interactive network. Markets encourage innovation, but they do not necessarily insure the public interest. 4. Information is not knowledge. All around us, information is moving faster and becoming cheaper to acquire, and the benefits are manifest. That said, the proliferation of data is also a serious challenge, requiring new measures of human discipline and skepticism. We must not confuse the thrill of acquiring or distributing information quickly with the more daunting task of converting it into knowledge and wisdom. Regardless of how advanced our computers become, we should never use them as a substitute for our own basic cognitive skills of awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment. 5. Wiring the schools will not save th _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] em. The problems with America's public schools -- disparate funding, social promotion, bloated class size, crumbling infrastructure, lack of standards -- have almost nothing to do with technology. Consequently, no amount of technology will lead to the educational revolution prophesied by President Clinton and others. The art of teaching cannot be replicated by computers, the Net, or by "distance learning." These tools can, of course, augment an already high-quality educational experience. But to rely on them as any sort of panacea would be a costly mistake. 6. Information wants to be protected. It's true that cyberspace and other recent developments are challenging our copyright laws and frameworks for protecting intellectual property. The answer, though, is not to scrap existing statutes and principles. Instead, we must update old laws and interpretations so that information receives roughly the same protection it did in the context of old media. The goal is the same: to give authors sufficient control over their work so that they have an incentive to create, while maintaining the right of the public to make fair use of that information. In neither context does information want "to be free." Rather, it needs to be protected. 7. The public owns the airwaves; the public should benefit from their use. The recent digital spectrum giveaway to broadcasters underscores the corrupt and inefficient misuse of public resources in the arena of technology. The citizenry should benefit and profit from the use of public frequencies, and should retain a portion of the spectrum for educational, cultural, and public access uses. We should demand more for private use of public property. 8. Understanding technology should be an essential component of global citizenship. In a world driven by the flow of information, the interfaces -- and the underlying code -- that make information visible are becoming enormously powerful social forces. Understanding their strengths and limitations, and even participating in the creation of better tools, should be an important part of being an involved citizen. These tools affect our lives as much as laws do, and we should subject them to a similar democratic scrutiny. SIGN YOUR NAME If most or all of the ideas in this document resonate with you and you'd like to attach your name to it, you can by filling out this simple form. VISIT the list of people http://technorealism.org/list.html who have already accepted this invitation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BROWSE an index of like-minded books, articles and essays. http://technorealism.org/Readings.html PARTICIPATE in the FEED discussion of technorealism. --------- End forwarded message ---------- _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
