What does it say about me that I find that boring? On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 10:45 AM Bruce Sterling <[email protected]> wrote:
> *It's a recent screed from the current editor of WIRED magazine. > > *If you're enough of a greybeard nettime OG to remember nettime's vague > feud with WIRED and its techno-libertarian principles, this is likely to be > one of the funniest things you've read in quite a while. > > *If you've never heard of the "California Ideology," that prescient work > of distant 1995, well, I happened to archive it, because, as the guy who > was on the cover of the first issue of WIRED, why wouldn't I. > > > https://bruces.medium.com/the-californian-ideology-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron-1995-c50014fcdbce > > Bruce S > > > **** > > In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and > governmental institution in the world is going to be radically upended by > one small but enormously powerful invention: the blockchain. > > Do you believe that? Or are you one of those people who think the > blockchain and crypto boom is just a massive, decade-long fraud—the bastard > child of the Dutch tulip bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and the > wackier reaches of the libertarian internet? More likely, you—like me—are > at neither of these extremes. Rather, you’re longing for someone to just > show you how to think about the issue intelligently and with nuance instead > of always falling into the binary trap. > > Binaries have been on my mind a lot since I took over the editor’s chair > at WIRED last March. That’s because we’re at what feels like an inflection > point in the recent history of technology, when various binaries that have > long been taken for granted are being called into question. > > When WIRED was founded in 1993, it was the bible of techno-utopianism. We > chronicled and championed inventions that we thought would remake the > world; all they needed was to be unleashed. Our covers featured the > brilliant, renegade, visionary—and mostly wealthy, white, and male—geeks > who were shaping the future, reshaping human nature, and making everyone’s > life more efficient and fun. They were more daring, more creative, richer > and cooler than you; in fact, they already lived in the future. By reading > WIRED, we hinted, you could join them there! > > If that optimism was binary 0, since then the mood has switched to binary > 1. Today, a great deal of media coverage focuses on the damage wrought by a > tech industry run amok. It’s given us Tahrir Square, but also Xinjiang; the > blogosphere, but also the manosphere; the boundless opportunities of the > Long Tail, but also the unremitting precariousness of the gig economy; mRNA > vaccines, but also Crispr babies. WIRED hasn’t shied away from covering > these problems. But they’ve forced us—and me in particular, as an incoming > editor—to ponder the question: What does it mean to be WIRED, a publication > born to celebrate technology, in an age when tech is often demonized? > > To me, the answer begins with rejecting the binary. Both the optimist and > pessimist views of tech miss the point. The lesson of the last 30-odd years > is not that we were wrong to think tech could make the world a better > place. Rather, it’s that we were wrong to think tech itself was the > solution—and that we’d now be equally wrong to treat tech as the problem. > It’s not only possible, but normal, for a technology to do both good and > harm at the same time. A hype cycle that makes quick billionaires and > leaves a trail of failed companies in its wake may also lay the groundwork > for a lasting structural shift (exhibit A: the first dotcom bust). An > online platform that creates community and has helped citizens oust > dictators (Facebook) can also trap people in conformism and groupthink and > become a tool for oppression. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, an > intelligent person should be able to hold opposed ideas in their mind > simultaneously and still function. > > Yet debates about tech, like those about politics or social issues, still > seem to always collapse into either/or. Blockchain is either the most > radical invention of the century or a worthless shell game. The metaverse > is either the next incarnation of the internet or just an ingeniously vague > label for a bunch of overhyped things that will mostly fail. Personalized > medicine will revolutionize health care or just widen its inequalities. > Facebook has either destroyed democracy or revolutionized society. Every > issue is divisive and tribal. And it’s generally framed as a judgment on > the tech itself—“this tech is bad” vs. “this tech is good”—instead of > looking at the underlying economic, social, and personal forces that > actually determine what that tech will do. > > There’s been even more of this kind of binary, tech-centered thinking as > we claw our way out of the pandemic. Some optimists claim we’re on the cusp > of a “Roaring 2020s” in which mRNA and Crispr will revolutionize disease > treatment, AI and quantum computers will exponentially speed up materials > science and drug discovery, and advances in battery chemistry will make > electric vehicles and large-scale energy storage (and maybe even flying > taxis) go mainstream. If you want to see a gloomy future, on the other > hand, there’s no shortage of causes: Digital surveillance is out of > control, the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency mining and large AI models > is expanding, the US–China tech arms race is accelerating, the gig-work > precariat is swelling, and the internet itself is balkanizing. > > This tug-of-war between optimism and pessimism is the reason why I said > this feels like an inflection point in the history of tech. But even that > term, “inflection point,” falls into the binary trap, because it presumes > that things will get either worse or better from here. It is, yet again, a > false dichotomy. This kind of thinking helps nobody make sense of the > future that’s coming. To do that—and to then push that future in the right > direction—we need to reject this 0-or-1 logic. > > Which brings me to the question of what WIRED is for. > > Fundamentally, WIRED has always been about a question: What would it take > to build a better future?* We exist to inspire people who want to build > that future. We do it not by going into Pollyannaish raptures about how > great the future is going to be, nor dire jeremiads about how bad things > could get, but by taking an evenhanded, clear-eyed look at what it would > take to tackle the severe challenges the world faces. Our subject matter > isn’t technology, per se: It’s those challenges—like climate change, health > care, global security, the future of democracy, the future of the economy, > and the dizzying speed of cultural change as our offline and online worlds > mingle and remix. Technology plays a starring role in all of these issues, > but what’s clearer today than ever is that it’s people who create change, > both good and bad. You cannot explain the impacts of technology on the > world without deeply understanding the motives, incentives, and limitations > of the people who build and use it. And you cannot hope to change the world > for the better unless you can learn from the achievements and the mistakes > other people have made. > > So I think WIRED’s job is to tell stories about the world’s biggest > problems, the role tech plays in them—whether for good or bad—and the > people who are trying to solve them. These aren’t all feel-good stories by > any means: there are villains as well as heroes, failures as well as > successes. Our stance is neither optimism nor pessimism, but rather the > belief that it's worth persisting even when things seem hopeless. (I call > it “Greta Thunberg optimism.”) But whatever the story, you should find > something to learn from it—and, ideally, the inspiration to make a positive > difference yourself. > > Of course, that’s not all we exist to do. WIRED has also always been a > home for ambitious, farsighted ideas—sometimes prescient, sometimes wild, > sometimes both at the same time. (Fitzgerald again!) We shouldn’t get > carried away by hype; too many of our covers in the past promised that this > or that invention would “change everything.” But we shouldn’t shy away from > pushing the envelope either, stretching people’s minds and showing them > possible futures that they might not otherwise dare to imagine. We’ll be > critical but not cynical; skeptical but not defeatist. We won’t tell you > what to think about the future, but how to think about it. > > Finally, we exist to do the basic hard work of journalism—following the > important news, explaining how to think about it, and holding power, > particularly tech power, accountable. > > Over the next few months, you should see our coverage starting to coalesce > more clearly around those core global challenges—climate, health, and so > on. Because these issues are indeed global, you should also start to see a > more international range of stories: One of the less obvious but very big > changes is that we are merging the US and UK editions of WIRED, previously > two entirely separate publications, into a single site at WIRED.com. (If > you’re a regular visitor to the site, you may have noticed that we recently > launched a new homepage, designed to make it easier for us to showcase the > work we’re most proud of and for you to find stories that interest you.) > We’ll still publish two separate print editions, though they’ll share many > stories. Our US and UK newsrooms are already working as one, and you’ll see > all their journalism here on this site. With more writers making up a > single team, we’ll be able to go deeper into some of these key areas. > > Above all, we’ll continue to do what WIRED is best at—bringing you > delightful, fascinating, weird, brilliantly told stories from all around > the world of people taking on extraordinary problems. Our founder Louis > Rossetto wrote that WIRED was where you would discover “the soul of our new > society in wild metamorphosis.” The wild metamorphosis continues, and while > its mechanisms may be technological, the soul behind them is deeply and > unavoidably human. Where the human and the technological meet: That’s where > WIRED lives, and it’s where we aim to take you, every day. > > Gideon Lichfield | Global Director, WIRED > > Note: I owe a big debt of gratitude to Tom Coates, who was pivotal in > helping me think about the history of WIRED and see the opportunity for the > role it can play today. > > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: -- Jon Lebkowsky (@jonl) Cofounder and Cohost, Plutopia News Network <https://plutopia.io> Website <https://weblogsky.com> | Twitter <http://twitter.com/jonl> | LinkedIn <http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonlebkowsky> | Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/jonlebkowsky> | Tumblr <http://weblogsky.tumblr.com/> | Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lebkowsky>
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
