In a very well written and engaging paper, Freeman Dyson dives into familiar and easy to understand examples of how technology and social justice intermingle. Writing first about how a movement in the technology of home appliances displaced an entire workforce. Although, it was more than a workforce, really, an entire class of people. These new-age appliances may not have filled the entire role of the servant class, however they bridged the gap enough to make the provider(s) of a home be able to also handle the maintenance and operation of the home. This sounds great at first, but as I said before, the gap was only bridged, not closed. There is still much that needs to be done, and just because the stove is electric doesn't mean the food cooks itself. This leads to the women of the these homes becoming constrained, as Dyson describes. The women of the 1920's were more free than those of the 1950's. Though we have since changed how things are done in most cases, this shift is still a great observation and a lot can be learned from it. Going back farther, we explore that the invention of the printing press stripped many of nuns of their freedom, though it did give others access to education in many ways. These examples of how technology drives ethics and shifts in social climate help give proof of concept for a much grander (and more positive) shift that is currently still held only in Dyson's dreams; a shift where technology provides for humanity, rather equally.
Dyson describes his hopes and even a means to achieve them. His means, unfortunately, are exactly what are to be expected from the aspirations of the 1990's and early 2000's. Technology, now, is not all it was promised to be back then (even if I have become more than I was promised to be). It has fallen short of Dyson's expectations so far and his dreams are no where in sight from our current perspective; that is, his dreams as a whole. However, there are some aspects of technology that have come to fruition with resemblance of Dyson's thoughts. The easiest to point out is the Internet. We have achieved an extremely widespread mesh of devices through the primitive means of copper, fiber, and radio which Dyson insinuated were not quite up to the task of connecting the world. It is true that the connection today is still not up to snuff with our friend Freeman's vision, but on a positive and hopeful note, his dreams are directly being researched at this moment by the capitalist powers-that-be. We see balloon and satellite internet as the solution to connecting those with the poorest chances of fitting eligibility for connection to the current networking scheme, which is still generally driven as a payment-dependent distribution of service though the tyrannical Internet Service Providers (ISPs) we know in our decade. On a negative view, these same providers of connection actively work against an open and free Internet every day by throwing money at politicians to allow them to cap speeds and provide more bandwidth to the highest bidder and near-none to the lowest; something that does not fit into Dyson's vision or any definition of social justice. Aside from the fight against ISPs the idea of a mesh network above the clouds connecting the world is absolutely a possibility and a goal for many.
Unfortunately, we fall short of the other technological expectations, with no real breakthroughs in sight for "energy trees," although his proposed effects of these trees appear to be sound. So why have these ideas not been realized? Why, besides perhaps a naturally slower pace for technological progress, have we not achieved similar world to Dyson's proposed solar-driven Earth? I would say it is less the pace of technological development in itself, but rather a lack of driving force for these developments. Until now, nearly 20 years later, these kinds of ideas of liquid fuels from solar energy have been unheard of. Never have I heard of these ideas under any sort of development. Although some would argue they seem Utopian and far-fetched, it is more likely that the ideas derive less profit than others for the cost of their development. How do you sell energy trees? Even if you could, there is simply no straight forward way to develop them. They cannot take the same development paths as products we see receiving the coveted R&D work-hours today; smartphones, cloud services, etc. They take the shadowy route similar to that of curing diseases. We all hear cries for help and funding for cures to cancers of all kinds, diabetes, and many other conditions, but if they were receiving any sort of real donations, the commercials would be unnecessary. This, coupled with a Google search, proves to be true. The amount of money raised for researching and curing diseases pales in comparison to the for-sale product research and for-death military research being conducted.
It is things like this that Dyson fails to address. How do we achieve these things, in very specific detail? Many times it is who, not how, that is relevant. Who will be overseeing these balloon/satellite networks if they are ever to be deployed? Who does this genome research and by whom is it funded? Dyson understands to some extent the ends, but his ends do not exactly match up very well with current means to developing technology. His yearning of social progress and a desire for equality, equity, and basic human rights is simply not shared whatsoever by those funding development; rich, old, white, male investors. As these desired technologies develop at a more relaxed pace, starving for funding, we will see just how close to his mark Dyson's perception of social justice via technology is. We have seen social justice be affected by technology in the past, but not in such a positive way as he hopes for, and not to the benefit of women and/or the poor; two severely underrepresented groups of people affected by technology. The benefits experienced by the servant class of England were certainly not intended consequences, I can assure you. In order to progress your desired technology faster, you must monetize it with reasonable payoff for required investment. At the moment, we are just not close enough to see rapid work done towards this by way of Capitalism. Perhaps clean energy will come as water levels truly begin to rise and eschew the wealthy from their waterfront estates. Until then, Dyson will be let down by our money-driven system of "progress."
No comments:
Post a Comment