Here lies a new and major risk for humanity stemming from multimedia and computers. Albert Einstein, in fact, had already prophesized as much in the 1950s, when talking about “the second bomb.” The electronic bomb, after the atomic one. A bomb whereby real-time interaction would be to information what radioactivity is to energy. The disintegration then will not merely affect the particles of matter, but also the very people of which our societies consist … One may surmise that, just as the emergence of the atomic bomb made very quickly the elaboration of a policy of military dissuasion imperative in order to avoid a nuclear catastrophe, the information bomb will also need a new form of dissuasion adapted to the 21st century. This shall be a societal form of dissuasion to counter the damage caused by the explosion of unlimited information.
Predictor: Virilio, Paul
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article in Le Monde Diplomatique, Paul Virilio, the emblematic French theorist of technology and author of “Pure War, Speed and Politics,” and “War and Cinema: the Logistics of Perception,” writes: ”No information exists without dis-information. And now a new type of dis-information is raising its head, and it is totally different than voluntary censorship. It has to do with some kind of choking of the senses, a loss of control over reason of sorts. Here lies a new and major risk for humanity stemming from multimedia and computers. Albert Einstein, in fact, had already prophesized as much in the 1950s, when talking about ‘the second bomb.’ The electronic bomb, after the atomic one. A bomb whereby real-time interaction would be to information what radioactivity is to energy. The disintegration then will not merely affect the particles of matter, but also the very people of which our societies consist. This is precisely what can be seen at work with mass unemployment, wired jobs, and the rash of delocalizations of enterprises. One may surmise that, just as the emergence of the atomic bomb made very quickly the elaboration of a policy of military dissuasion imperative in order to avoid a nuclear catastrophe, the information bomb will also need a new form of dissuasion adapted to the 21st century. This shall be a societal form of dissuasion to counter the damage caused by the explosion of unlimited information. This will be the great accident of the future, the one that comes after the succession of accidents that was specific to the industrial age (as ships, trains, planes or nuclear power plants were invented, shipwrecks, derailments, plane crashes and the meltdown at Chernobyl were invented at the same time too…) After the globalization of telecommunications, one should expect a generalized kind of accident, a never-seen-before accident … A generalized accident would be something like what Epicurus called ‘the accident of accidents’… Nobody has seen this generalized accident yet. But then watch out as you hear talk about the ‘financial bubble’ in the economy: a very significant metaphor, and it conjures up visions of some kind of cloud, reminding us of other clouds just as frightening as those of Chernobyl.”
Biography:Paul Virilio was a French technology theorist and author of “Pure War, Speed and Politics” and “War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception.” (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: August 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Le Monde Diplomatique
Title, headline, chapter name: Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=72
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney