Random Ramblings

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 that 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. Read more...

I live in Silicon Valley and it is hard not to get swept up by all the technological hooplas. Engineers love technology and try to preach that it is the answer to everything, when in reality, technology can provide answers and also create just as much problems. Everything has its limitations and when human element is thrown into that equation, most of the time nothing is predictable, sometimes the behavior is not even what it is intended.

At my workplace, I use three computers to accomplish various tasks. I do tried to be low-tech as much as I want to in my personal life. This Mac G5 was purchase for the purpose of taking freelance design jobs, not for internet or blogging. Although I'm taking pleasure from internet information gathering and blogging, I do realize it takes away time to enjoy other activities. I do believe the less my life is slaved to gadgets, the more time I have to spend doing things I enjoy, such as the great outdoors. So for someone to convince me that I need certain gadgets, they would need to make me believe that my life will be truely enriched by the experience of what that technology can provide, not merely just owning it.

This article also makes me realize that I'm reading less and the information I do gather through the internet are more like sound bites. Although television can also do that to people, which is technology. (via rebeccablood)

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