It was logical that a general audience could not see something as big as pervasive computing, ubicomp or IoT. They saw bits and pieces, fragments of new connectivity like RFID gradually entering the store and clothes, smart thermostats at the NEST, or smart doorbells and cameras in the home.
But maybe one of the reasons there never was a solid debate about what it meant to overlay the world entirely with a digital layer addressable and addressed to commercial and government was that that position was made extremely suspect by Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
A core issue in his thinking is his distinction between small-scale technology as technology ✨“that can be used by small-scale communities without outside assistance” and organization-dependent technology, which depends on large-scale social organization”.✨
According to him, there are no significant cases of regression in small-scale technology, “but organization-dependent technology does regress when the social organization on which it depends breaks down.
His two major assumptions, though, are very true:
“if the use of a new item of technology is initially optional, it does not necessarily remain optional because the new technology tends to change society in such a way that it becomes difficult or impossible for an individual to function without using that technology”.
The second is that he foresees that the system may break down, and if it does break down, “the consequences will still be harrowing. But the bigger the system grows, the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be. So if it is to break down, it had best break down sooner rather than later”. If it breaks down, “there may be a period of chaos, a “time of troubles”. It would be impossible to predict what would emerge from such a time of troubles, but the human race would be given a new chance at any rate.
He foresaw that whoever lives in the interface of technical applications will only be able to innovate within the limitations of that same interface. Progress will be made using the guidelines of the interface, building new applications with the same rules. From this, it follows that whoever is first is the winner that takes it all.
This shows on the application and product level, seeing Apple, Google, and Microsoft, and on the very notion of commercial applications and services taking over critical services from the state on connectivity, energy, and communications. This model - this interface - has become so logical and normal that it is hard even to consider deviating from it.
Yet it is not hard to see that his devastating methods of bringing his message were responsible for the death and destruction with which his analysis did not take root.
This is a pity as it has led to - on the one hand, a state-controlled system where innovation is subject to strategic state planning in China and, on the other hand, a US amalgam of companies with diverse and widely ranging interests, but definitely for profit. What has yet to be seen as viable is a mix of both: commons-led innovation, including infrastructure supported by commercial initiatives.
Picture the Apple model as a commons; the mobile phone is in public hands (it sets hardware and software rules), the App Store is an EU App Store closing which apps run, new open source applications for search, social media, real-time communication can be picked from the work of Next Generation Internet hundreds of projects.
🤔How logical can it be?
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Rob.
robvank