The sharp-edged technology of the NII can cut a number of ways: It can enlarge the domain of the commodifiers and controllers; it can serve the resistance to these forces; it can saturate us all, controlled and controllers alike, in a virtual alternative to the real world. Meanwhile, most of humanity will live and die deprived of the wonders of the NII, or indeed the joys of adequate nutrition, medical care, and housing. We would do well to regulate our enthusiasms accordingly – that is, to remember where love and mercy have their natural homes, in that same material world. Otherwise we will have built yet another pharaonic monument to wealth, avarice, and indifference. We will have proved the technophobes right. More to the point, we will have collaborated to neglect the suffering of the damned of the earth – our other selves – in order to entertain ourselves.
Predictor: Maddox, Tom
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “The Information Revolution,” edited by Donald Altschiller, carries a reprint of the summer 1994, Wilson Quarterly article, “The Cultural Consequences of the Information Superhighway” by Tom Maddox. Maddox raises cultural and social issues involved with the Internet. He writes: ”The virtual can seduce us because it offers the promise of being completely shaped to our wishes, while the material world remains refractory – there we suffer and die and live out fates that cannot be edited or replayed to render them more beautiful, more charming, less disastrous. The virtual worlds we can master, the material world we cannot … As the electronic media make us more aware of the conditions around the world – or, at least, of images of such conditions – we realize how much horror exists and how connected we are to it … The sharp-edged technology of the NII can cut a number of ways: It can enlarge the domain of the commodifiers and controllers; it can serve the resistance to these forces; it can saturate us all, controlled and controllers alike, in a virtual alternative to the real world. Meanwhile, most of humanity will live and die deprived of the wonders of the NII, or indeed the joys of adequate nutrition, medical care, and housing. We would do well to regulate our enthusiasms accordingly – that is, to remember where love and mercy have their natural homes, in that same material world. Otherwise we will have built yet another pharaonic monument to wealth, avarice, and indifference. We will have proved the technophobes right. More to the point, we will have collaborated to neglect the suffering of the damned of the earth – our other selves – in order to entertain ourselves … We can approach the NII in a properly skeptical and suspicious frame of mind and yet remain open to its possibilities. After all, the Internet has shown that even a technology designed to enable the military to fight on after a nuclear holocaust can be made to serve the unfettered human imagination. With this experience to guide us, it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the same can be accomplished the the NII.
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Information Revolution (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: The Cultural Consequences of the Information Superhighway
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 200-202
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne