Preface
We are as gods and might as well get good at it.
—STEWART BRAND, opening sentence of the Whole Earth Catalog (1968)
Most people feel certain that the pace of technological change increases exponentially. They think that the Internet and personal computers are only the most prominent of the many innovations that surge around us and that new ones arrive ever faster. They’re certain that never before has the social impact of technological change been as profound or as pervasive as it is today.
But they are wrong.
The Internet isn’t that big a deal. Neither is the PC. Abandon all technology and live in the woods for a week and see if it’s your laptop you miss most. In fact, the technologies most important to us are the older ones—the car and telephone, electricity and concrete, textiles and agriculture, to name just a few. The popular perception of modern technology is inflated and out of step with reality. We overestimate the importance of new and exciting inventions, and we underestimate those we’ve grown up with. Change is not increasing exponentially. In fact, technology has disoriented and delighted for centuries. This book will attempt to recalibrate your thinking by looking at how technological change really happens.
Please don’t misunderstand—I’m excited about the future possibilities of technology. And, of course, it is changing, and this change is often stressful: its impact and potential are so great that an accurate view is impressive enough—we needn’t exaggerate. Let’s overhaul our perception of technology change. We’ll tear it down and build a stronger, more accurate model in its place.
This book is divided into two parts. In part I, I look at how and why we see technology incorrectly. I explore its downsides, how it bites back, its surprising fragility, and its unpredictability; I also review some tools and insights that will ease our sometimes tense relationship to it. I analyze and debunk nine “High-Tech Myths,” fashionable but deceptive explanations for how technology works today. Once we begin to chisel away at the errors, a new and more accurate way of seeing technological change begins to emerge from the debris.
In part II, I look at the constancy of change in a broad range of areas—popular culture, health and safety, fear and anxiety, personal technologies, business; in all of these, history gives us repeated examples that make our experiences today seem unexceptional. This survey, illustrated with stories from thousands of years of human innovation, should lay to rest the notion that technology change is unique to our day. I draw most of my examples from the United States, not to ignore the importance of innovation in the rest of the world, but to focus the book. Nevertheless, the lessons here should be applicable to understanding technology change in other countries.
Just as a doctor who misdiagnoses a disease will provide the wrong treatment, our response to technology will be ineffective if we incorrectly perceive how it impacts society. Swept along by overexcitement with the new, we don’t accurately see its promises or its weaknesses. My hope is that Future Hype will lead you to the clear vision needed to understand its true impact.
What could a clearer view provide? Knowing that technology doesn’t always deliver on promises, government and schools could be more rational and even skeptical before adopting it. Businesses might be sharper judges of technology and avoid the bandwagon effect. Worldwide, almost three trillion dollars are spent each year on information technology alone. A large fraction of that is wasted, but which fraction?
The view I offer is ultimately empowering—technology should answer to us. Readers who may not be encouraged by the cheery “and if you think it’s changing fast now, just wait a few years!” will find here a breath of optimism. Learn how technology is really changing—and discover that it’s much less scary than you’ve been told.
If people see technology more clearly, we would have a shrewder citizenry that would demand practical and constructive, rather than expedient or convenient, decisions from their politicians. They would be more able to analyze and discuss the relevant technology issues of the day—from the digital divide, to government support for space and other science programs, to national defense, to the value of computers in schools—and weigh more knowledgeably the pros and cons of what is being offered.
It’s clear that many people care a lot about these issues. A recent National Science Foundation poll shows 92 percent of us moderately or very interested in new inventions and technologies. In one survey of the top news stories of the twentieth century—stories that included such fundamental events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the start of World War II, and women’s suffrage—fully 16 percent were about technology. Better-educated consumers would feel more confident about judging the value of a new product for themselves rather than relying on hype and would demand that it prove its value. They would know when the emperor had no clothes.
Over three decades ago, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler created a sensation by portraying technology spinning out of society’s control. Future Hype approaches the same topic but reaches a very different conclusion: that the popular view of technological change is wrong and the future won’t be so shocking.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
—CARL SAGAN