Re: Well, so long, "California Ideology"

[José María Mateos]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2022 at 05:44:23PM +0100, Bruce Sterling wrote:
Do you believe that? Or are you one of those people who think the 
blockchain and crypto boom is just a massive, decade-long fraud—the 
bastard child of the Dutch tulip bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, 
and the wackier reaches of the libertarian internet? More likely, 
you—like me—are at neither of these extremes. Rather, you’re longing 
for someone to just show you how to think about the issue intelligently 
and with nuance instead of always falling into the binary trap.


I'm amazed to find there're people who find the right nuance in a scam.

--
José María (Chema) Mateos || https://rinzewind.org
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Re: Well, so long, "California Ideology"

[Brian Holmes]

On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 9:21 PM Prem Chandavarkar  wrote:

> The problem, as Edward O. Wilson said, is that we have a combination of
> “Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and god-like technology.”
>

For the perfect expression of where the Californian Ideology landed, check
out the film "Don't Look Up" with its Silicon Valley figure Peter
Isherwell. A really weird combination of Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos and Elon
Musk, he's effete, self-assured, domineering, and dead wrong on a planetary
scale when he puts his god-like technology into action. As for the medieval
institutions and Palaeolithic emotions, he outsources that to the US
president and her followers

Maybe 2022 is the year when we finally put the nail in the coffin of
neoliberal populism? Go ahead and hold your breath!



>
>
> On 07-Jan-2022, at 1:02 AM, Jon Lebkowsky  wrote:
>
> I did a lot of web consulting and project management for years, and that
> definitely became boring work. But I suppose when things become truly
> useful they also become boring - Bruce once gave a talk where he said that
> we'd know solar tech had arrived when it became really boring to consider.
>
> On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 12:30 PM carl guderian 
> wrote:
>
>> And speaking of flashbacks, doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, a catalog of
>> online activities imagined long ago by others but now to be mediated by
>> not-Facebook, sound awfully like Bill Gates’ vision of the Internet as a
>> collection of 1970s- and 1980s-era electronic services channeled through
>> Microsoft, in “The Road Ahead”?
>>
>> But I can live with boring. I’ve had a 25-year run (probably wrapping up)
>> in “the cyber” working as the equivalant of an industrial plumber. The pay
>> was very good, the hours agreeable, and the hype minimal. In good times and
>> bad, toilets gotta flush.
>>
>> Carl
>>
>>
>> On 6 jan. 2022, at 18:46, Jon Lebkowsky  wrote:
>>
>> What does it say about me that I find that boring?
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 10:45 AM Bruce Sterling  wrote:
>>
>>> *It's a recent screed from the current editor of WIRED magazine.
>>>
>>> *If you're enough of a greybeard nettime OG to remember nettime's vague
>>> feud with WIRED and its techno-libertarian principles, this is likely to be
>>> one of the funniest things you've read in quite a while.
>>>
>>> *If you've never heard of the "California Ideology," that prescient work
>>> of distant 1995, well, I happened to archive it, because, as the guy who
>>> was on the cover of the first issue of WIRED, why wouldn't I.
>>>
>>>
>>> https://bruces.medium.com/the-californian-ideology-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron-1995-c50014fcdbce
>>>
>>> Bruce S
>>>
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>> In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and
>>> governmental institution in the world is going to be radically upended by
>>> one small but enormously powerful invention: the blockchain.
>>>
>>> Do you believe that? Or are you one of those people who think the
>>> blockchain and crypto boom is just a massive, decade-long fraud—the bastard
>>> child of the Dutch tulip bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and the
>>> wackier reaches of the libertarian internet? More likely, you—like me—are
>>> at neither of these extremes. Rather, you’re longing for someone to just
>>> show you how to think about the issue intelligently and with nuance instead
>>> of always falling into the binary trap.
>>>
>>> Binaries have been on my mind a lot since I took over the editor’s chair
>>> at WIRED last March. That’s because we’re at what feels like an inflection
>>> point in the recent history of technology, when various binaries that have
>>> long been taken for granted are being called into question.
>>>
>>> When WIRED was founded in 1993, it was the bible of techno-utopianism.
>>> We chronicled and championed inventions that we thought would remake the
>>> world; all they needed was to be unleashed. Our covers featured the
>>> brilliant, renegade, visionary—and mostly wealthy, white, and male—geeks
>>> who were shaping the future, reshaping human nature, and making everyone’s
>>> life more efficient and fun. They were more daring, more creative, richer
>>> and cooler than you; in fact, they already lived in the future. By reading
>>> WIRED, we hinted, you could join them there!
>>>
>>> If that optimism was binary 0, since then the mood has switched to
>>> binary 1. Today, a great deal of media coverage focuses on the damage
>>> wrought by a tech industry run amok. It’s given us Tahrir Square, but also
>>> Xinjiang; the blogosphere, but also the manosphere; the boundless
>>> opportunities of the Long Tail, but also the unremitting precariousness of
>>> the gig economy; mRNA vaccines, but also Crispr babies. WIRED hasn’t shied
>>> away from covering these problems. But they’ve forced us—and me in
>>> particular, as an incoming editor—to ponder the question: What does it mean
>>> to be WIRED, a publication born to celebrate technology, in an age when
>>> tech is often demo

Re: Well, so long, "California Ideology"

[Prem Chandavarkar]

The problem, as Edward O. Wilson said, is that we have a combination of 
“Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and god-like technology.”


> On 07-Jan-2022, at 1:02 AM, Jon Lebkowsky  wrote:
> 
> I did a lot of web consulting and project management for years, and that 
> definitely became boring work. But I suppose when things become truly useful 
> they also become boring - Bruce once gave a talk where he said that we'd know 
> solar tech had arrived when it became really boring to consider.
> 
> On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 12:30 PM carl guderian  > wrote:
> And speaking of flashbacks, doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, a catalog of 
> online activities imagined long ago by others but now to be mediated by 
> not-Facebook, sound awfully like Bill Gates’ vision of the Internet as a 
> collection of 1970s- and 1980s-era electronic services channeled through 
> Microsoft, in “The Road Ahead”?
> 
> But I can live with boring. I’ve had a 25-year run (probably wrapping up) in 
> “the cyber” working as the equivalant of an industrial plumber. The pay was 
> very good, the hours agreeable, and the hype minimal. In good times and bad, 
> toilets gotta flush.
> 
> Carl
> 
> 
>> On 6 jan. 2022, at 18:46, Jon Lebkowsky > > wrote:
>> 
>> What does it say about me that I find that boring?
>> 
>> On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 10:45 AM Bruce Sterling > > wrote:
>> *It's a recent screed from the current editor of WIRED magazine.
>> 
>> *If you're enough of a greybeard nettime OG to remember nettime's vague feud 
>> with WIRED and its techno-libertarian principles, this is likely to be one 
>> of the funniest things you've read in quite a while.
>> 
>> *If you've never heard of the "California Ideology," that prescient work of 
>> distant 1995, well, I happened to archive it, because, as the guy who was on 
>> the cover of the first issue of WIRED, why wouldn't I.
>> 
>> https://bruces.medium.com/the-californian-ideology-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron-1995-c50014fcdbce
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> Bruce S
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and governmental 
>> institution in the world is going to be radically upended by one small but 
>> enormously powerful invention: the blockchain.
>> 
>> Do you believe that? Or are you one of those people who think the blockchain 
>> and crypto boom is just a massive, decade-long fraud—the bastard child of 
>> the Dutch tulip bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and the wackier 
>> reaches of the libertarian internet? More likely, you—like me—are at neither 
>> of these extremes. Rather, you’re longing for someone to just show you how 
>> to think about the issue intelligently and with nuance instead of always 
>> falling into the binary trap.
>> 
>> Binaries have been on my mind a lot since I took over the editor’s chair at 
>> WIRED last March. That’s because we’re at what feels like an inflection 
>> point in the recent history of technology, when various binaries that have 
>> long been taken for granted are being called into question.
>> 
>> When WIRED was founded in 1993, it was the bible of techno-utopianism. We 
>> chronicled and championed inventions that we thought would remake the world; 
>> all they needed was to be unleashed. Our covers featured the brilliant, 
>> renegade, visionary—and mostly wealthy, white, and male—geeks who were 
>> shaping the future, reshaping human nature, and making everyone’s life more 
>> efficient and fun. They were more daring, more creative, richer and cooler 
>> than you; in fact, they already lived in the future. By reading WIRED, we 
>> hinted, you could join them there!
>> 
>> If that optimism was binary 0, since then the mood has switched to binary 1. 
>> Today, a great deal of media coverage focuses on the damage wrought by a 
>> tech industry run amok. It’s given us Tahrir Square, but also Xinjiang; the 
>> blogosphere, but also the manosphere; the boundless opportunities of the 
>> Long Tail, but also the unremitting precariousness of the gig economy; mRNA 
>> vaccines, but also Crispr babies. WIRED hasn’t shied away from covering 
>> these problems. But they’ve forced us—and me in particular, as an incoming 
>> editor—to ponder the question: What does it mean to be WIRED, a publication 
>> born to celebrate technology, in an age when tech is often demonized?
>> 
>> To me, the answer begins with rejecting the binary. Both the optimist and 
>> pessimist views of tech miss the point. The lesson of the last 30-odd years 
>> is not that we were wrong to think tech could make the world a better place. 
>> Rather, it’s that we were wrong to think tech itself was the solution—and 
>> that we’d now be equally wrong to treat tech as the problem. It’s not only 
>> possible, but normal, for a technology to do both good and 

Re: Well, so long, "California Ideology"

[Jon Lebkowsky]

I did a lot of web consulting and project management for years, and that
definitely became boring work. But I suppose when things become truly
useful they also become boring - Bruce once gave a talk where he said that
we'd know solar tech had arrived when it became really boring to consider.

On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 12:30 PM carl guderian 
wrote:

> And speaking of flashbacks, doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, a catalog of
> online activities imagined long ago by others but now to be mediated by
> not-Facebook, sound awfully like Bill Gates’ vision of the Internet as a
> collection of 1970s- and 1980s-era electronic services channeled through
> Microsoft, in “The Road Ahead”?
>
> But I can live with boring. I’ve had a 25-year run (probably wrapping up)
> in “the cyber” working as the equivalant of an industrial plumber. The pay
> was very good, the hours agreeable, and the hype minimal. In good times and
> bad, toilets gotta flush.
>
> Carl
>
>
> On 6 jan. 2022, at 18:46, Jon Lebkowsky  wrote:
>
> What does it say about me that I find that boring?
>
> On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 10:45 AM Bruce Sterling  wrote:
>
>> *It's a recent screed from the current editor of WIRED magazine.
>>
>> *If you're enough of a greybeard nettime OG to remember nettime's vague
>> feud with WIRED and its techno-libertarian principles, this is likely to be
>> one of the funniest things you've read in quite a while.
>>
>> *If you've never heard of the "California Ideology," that prescient work
>> of distant 1995, well, I happened to archive it, because, as the guy who
>> was on the cover of the first issue of WIRED, why wouldn't I.
>>
>>
>> https://bruces.medium.com/the-californian-ideology-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron-1995-c50014fcdbce
>>
>> Bruce S
>>
>>
>> 
>>
>> In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and
>> governmental institution in the world is going to be radically upended by
>> one small but enormously powerful invention: the blockchain.
>>
>> Do you believe that? Or are you one of those people who think the
>> blockchain and crypto boom is just a massive, decade-long fraud—the bastard
>> child of the Dutch tulip bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and the
>> wackier reaches of the libertarian internet? More likely, you—like me—are
>> at neither of these extremes. Rather, you’re longing for someone to just
>> show you how to think about the issue intelligently and with nuance instead
>> of always falling into the binary trap.
>>
>> Binaries have been on my mind a lot since I took over the editor’s chair
>> at WIRED last March. That’s because we’re at what feels like an inflection
>> point in the recent history of technology, when various binaries that have
>> long been taken for granted are being called into question.
>>
>> When WIRED was founded in 1993, it was the bible of techno-utopianism. We
>> chronicled and championed inventions that we thought would remake the
>> world; all they needed was to be unleashed. Our covers featured the
>> brilliant, renegade, visionary—and mostly wealthy, white, and male—geeks
>> who were shaping the future, reshaping human nature, and making everyone’s
>> life more efficient and fun. They were more daring, more creative, richer
>> and cooler than you; in fact, they already lived in the future. By reading
>> WIRED, we hinted, you could join them there!
>>
>> If that optimism was binary 0, since then the mood has switched to binary
>> 1. Today, a great deal of media coverage focuses on the damage wrought by a
>> tech industry run amok. It’s given us Tahrir Square, but also Xinjiang; the
>> blogosphere, but also the manosphere; the boundless opportunities of the
>> Long Tail, but also the unremitting precariousness of the gig economy; mRNA
>> vaccines, but also Crispr babies. WIRED hasn’t shied away from covering
>> these problems. But they’ve forced us—and me in particular, as an incoming
>> editor—to ponder the question: What does it mean to be WIRED, a publication
>> born to celebrate technology, in an age when tech is often demonized?
>>
>> To me, the answer begins with rejecting the binary. Both the optimist and
>> pessimist views of tech miss the point. The lesson of the last 30-odd years
>> is not that we were wrong to think tech could make the world a better
>> place. Rather, it’s that we were wrong to think tech itself was the
>> solution—and that we’d now be equally wrong to treat tech as the problem.
>> It’s not only possible, but normal, for a technology to do both good and
>> harm at the same time. A hype cycle that makes quick billionaires and
>> leaves a trail of failed companies in its wake may also lay the groundwork
>> for a lasting structural shift (exhibit A: the first dotcom bust). An
>> online platform that creates community and has helped citizens oust
>> dictators (Facebook) can also trap people in conformism and groupthink and
>> become a tool for oppression. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, an
>> intelligent person should be able t

Re: Well, so long, "California Ideology"

[carl guderian]

And speaking of flashbacks, doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, a catalog of online 
activities imagined long ago by others but now to be mediated by not-Facebook, 
sound awfully like Bill Gates’ vision of the Internet as a collection of 1970s- 
and 1980s-era electronic services channeled through Microsoft, in “The Road 
Ahead”?

But I can live with boring. I’ve had a 25-year run (probably wrapping up) in 
“the cyber” working as the equivalant of an industrial plumber. The pay was 
very good, the hours agreeable, and the hype minimal. In good times and bad, 
toilets gotta flush.

Carl


> On 6 jan. 2022, at 18:46, Jon Lebkowsky  wrote:
> 
> What does it say about me that I find that boring?
> 
> On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 10:45 AM Bruce Sterling  > wrote:
> *It's a recent screed from the current editor of WIRED magazine.
> 
> *If you're enough of a greybeard nettime OG to remember nettime's vague feud 
> with WIRED and its techno-libertarian principles, this is likely to be one of 
> the funniest things you've read in quite a while.
> 
> *If you've never heard of the "California Ideology," that prescient work of 
> distant 1995, well, I happened to archive it, because, as the guy who was on 
> the cover of the first issue of WIRED, why wouldn't I.
> 
> https://bruces.medium.com/the-californian-ideology-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron-1995-c50014fcdbce
>  
> 
> 
> Bruce S
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and governmental 
> institution in the world is going to be radically upended by one small but 
> enormously powerful invention: the blockchain.
> 
> Do you believe that? Or are you one of those people who think the blockchain 
> and crypto boom is just a massive, decade-long fraud—the bastard child of the 
> Dutch tulip bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and the wackier reaches of 
> the libertarian internet? More likely, you—like me—are at neither of these 
> extremes. Rather, you’re longing for someone to just show you how to think 
> about the issue intelligently and with nuance instead of always falling into 
> the binary trap.
> 
> Binaries have been on my mind a lot since I took over the editor’s chair at 
> WIRED last March. That’s because we’re at what feels like an inflection point 
> in the recent history of technology, when various binaries that have long 
> been taken for granted are being called into question.
> 
> When WIRED was founded in 1993, it was the bible of techno-utopianism. We 
> chronicled and championed inventions that we thought would remake the world; 
> all they needed was to be unleashed. Our covers featured the brilliant, 
> renegade, visionary—and mostly wealthy, white, and male—geeks who were 
> shaping the future, reshaping human nature, and making everyone’s life more 
> efficient and fun. They were more daring, more creative, richer and cooler 
> than you; in fact, they already lived in the future. By reading WIRED, we 
> hinted, you could join them there!
> 
> If that optimism was binary 0, since then the mood has switched to binary 1. 
> Today, a great deal of media coverage focuses on the damage wrought by a tech 
> industry run amok. It’s given us Tahrir Square, but also Xinjiang; the 
> blogosphere, but also the manosphere; the boundless opportunities of the Long 
> Tail, but also the unremitting precariousness of the gig economy; mRNA 
> vaccines, but also Crispr babies. WIRED hasn’t shied away from covering these 
> problems. But they’ve forced us—and me in particular, as an incoming 
> editor—to ponder the question: What does it mean to be WIRED, a publication 
> born to celebrate technology, in an age when tech is often demonized?
> 
> To me, the answer begins with rejecting the binary. Both the optimist and 
> pessimist views of tech miss the point. The lesson of the last 30-odd years 
> is not that we were wrong to think tech could make the world a better place. 
> Rather, it’s that we were wrong to think tech itself was the solution—and 
> that we’d now be equally wrong to treat tech as the problem. It’s not only 
> possible, but normal, for a technology to do both good and harm at the same 
> time. A hype cycle that makes quick billionaires and leaves a trail of failed 
> companies in its wake may also lay the groundwork for a lasting structural 
> shift (exhibit A: the first dotcom bust). An online platform that creates 
> community and has helped citizens oust dictators (Facebook) can also trap 
> people in conformism and groupthink and become a tool for oppression. As F. 
> Scott Fitzgerald famously said, an intelligent person should be able to hold 
> opposed ideas in their mind simultaneously and still function.
> 
> Yet debates about tech, like those about politics or social issues, still 
> seem to always collapse into either/or. Blockchain is either the most radical 
> inventio

Re: Well, so long, "California Ideology"

[Jon Lebkowsky]

What does it say about me that I find that boring?

On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 10:45 AM Bruce Sterling  wrote:

> *It's a recent screed from the current editor of WIRED magazine.
>
> *If you're enough of a greybeard nettime OG to remember nettime's vague
> feud with WIRED and its techno-libertarian principles, this is likely to be
> one of the funniest things you've read in quite a while.
>
> *If you've never heard of the "California Ideology," that prescient work
> of distant 1995, well, I happened to archive it, because, as the guy who
> was on the cover of the first issue of WIRED, why wouldn't I.
>
>
> https://bruces.medium.com/the-californian-ideology-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron-1995-c50014fcdbce
>
> Bruce S
>
>
> 
>
> In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and
> governmental institution in the world is going to be radically upended by
> one small but enormously powerful invention: the blockchain.
>
> Do you believe that? Or are you one of those people who think the
> blockchain and crypto boom is just a massive, decade-long fraud—the bastard
> child of the Dutch tulip bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and the
> wackier reaches of the libertarian internet? More likely, you—like me—are
> at neither of these extremes. Rather, you’re longing for someone to just
> show you how to think about the issue intelligently and with nuance instead
> of always falling into the binary trap.
>
> Binaries have been on my mind a lot since I took over the editor’s chair
> at WIRED last March. That’s because we’re at what feels like an inflection
> point in the recent history of technology, when various binaries that have
> long been taken for granted are being called into question.
>
> When WIRED was founded in 1993, it was the bible of techno-utopianism. We
> chronicled and championed inventions that we thought would remake the
> world; all they needed was to be unleashed. Our covers featured the
> brilliant, renegade, visionary—and mostly wealthy, white, and male—geeks
> who were shaping the future, reshaping human nature, and making everyone’s
> life more efficient and fun. They were more daring, more creative, richer
> and cooler than you; in fact, they already lived in the future. By reading
> WIRED, we hinted, you could join them there!
>
> If that optimism was binary 0, since then the mood has switched to binary
> 1. Today, a great deal of media coverage focuses on the damage wrought by a
> tech industry run amok. It’s given us Tahrir Square, but also Xinjiang; the
> blogosphere, but also the manosphere; the boundless opportunities of the
> Long Tail, but also the unremitting precariousness of the gig economy; mRNA
> vaccines, but also Crispr babies. WIRED hasn’t shied away from covering
> these problems. But they’ve forced us—and me in particular, as an incoming
> editor—to ponder the question: What does it mean to be WIRED, a publication
> born to celebrate technology, in an age when tech is often demonized?
>
> To me, the answer begins with rejecting the binary. Both the optimist and
> pessimist views of tech miss the point. The lesson of the last 30-odd years
> is not that we were wrong to think tech could make the world a better
> place. Rather, it’s that we were wrong to think tech itself was the
> solution—and that we’d now be equally wrong to treat tech as the problem.
> It’s not only possible, but normal, for a technology to do both good and
> harm at the same time. A hype cycle that makes quick billionaires and
> leaves a trail of failed companies in its wake may also lay the groundwork
> for a lasting structural shift (exhibit A: the first dotcom bust). An
> online platform that creates community and has helped citizens oust
> dictators (Facebook) can also trap people in conformism and groupthink and
> become a tool for oppression. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, an
> intelligent person should be able to hold opposed ideas in their mind
> simultaneously and still function.
>
> Yet debates about tech, like those about politics or social issues, still
> seem to always collapse into either/or. Blockchain is either the most
> radical invention of the century or a worthless shell game. The metaverse
> is either the next incarnation of the internet or just an ingeniously vague
> label for a bunch of overhyped things that will mostly fail. Personalized
> medicine will revolutionize health care or just widen its inequalities.
> Facebook has either destroyed democracy or revolutionized society. Every
> issue is divisive and tribal. And it’s generally framed as a judgment on
> the tech itself—“this tech is bad” vs. “this tech is good”—instead of
> looking at the underlying economic, social, and personal forces that
> actually determine what that tech will do.
>
> There’s been even more of this kind of binary, tech-centered thinking as
> we claw our way out of the pandemic. Some optimists claim we’re on the cusp
> of a “Roaring 2020s” in which mRNA and Crispr will revolutio

Well, so long, "California Ideology"

[Bruce Sterling]

*It's a recent screed from the current editor of WIRED magazine.

*If you're enough of a greybeard nettime OG to remember nettime's vague feud 
with WIRED and its techno-libertarian principles, this is likely to be one of 
the funniest things you've read in quite a while.

*If you've never heard of the "California Ideology," that prescient work of 
distant 1995, well, I happened to archive it, because, as the guy who was on 
the cover of the first issue of WIRED, why wouldn't I.

https://bruces.medium.com/the-californian-ideology-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron-1995-c50014fcdbce

Bruce S




In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and governmental 
institution in the world is going to be radically upended by one small but 
enormously powerful invention: the blockchain.

Do you believe that? Or are you one of those people who think the blockchain 
and crypto boom is just a massive, decade-long fraud—the bastard child of the 
Dutch tulip bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and the wackier reaches of 
the libertarian internet? More likely, you—like me—are at neither of these 
extremes. Rather, you’re longing for someone to just show you how to think 
about the issue intelligently and with nuance instead of always falling into 
the binary trap.

Binaries have been on my mind a lot since I took over the editor’s chair at 
WIRED last March. That’s because we’re at what feels like an inflection point 
in the recent history of technology, when various binaries that have long been 
taken for granted are being called into question.

When WIRED was founded in 1993, it was the bible of techno-utopianism. We 
chronicled and championed inventions that we thought would remake the world; 
all they needed was to be unleashed. Our covers featured the brilliant, 
renegade, visionary—and mostly wealthy, white, and male—geeks who were shaping 
the future, reshaping human nature, and making everyone’s life more efficient 
and fun. They were more daring, more creative, richer and cooler than you; in 
fact, they already lived in the future. By reading WIRED, we hinted, you could 
join them there!

If that optimism was binary 0, since then the mood has switched to binary 1. 
Today, a great deal of media coverage focuses on the damage wrought by a tech 
industry run amok. It’s given us Tahrir Square, but also Xinjiang; the 
blogosphere, but also the manosphere; the boundless opportunities of the Long 
Tail, but also the unremitting precariousness of the gig economy; mRNA 
vaccines, but also Crispr babies. WIRED hasn’t shied away from covering these 
problems. But they’ve forced us—and me in particular, as an incoming editor—to 
ponder the question: What does it mean to be WIRED, a publication born to 
celebrate technology, in an age when tech is often demonized?

To me, the answer begins with rejecting the binary. Both the optimist and 
pessimist views of tech miss the point. The lesson of the last 30-odd years is 
not that we were wrong to think tech could make the world a better place. 
Rather, it’s that we were wrong to think tech itself was the solution—and that 
we’d now be equally wrong to treat tech as the problem. It’s not only possible, 
but normal, for a technology to do both good and harm at the same time. A hype 
cycle that makes quick billionaires and leaves a trail of failed companies in 
its wake may also lay the groundwork for a lasting structural shift (exhibit A: 
the first dotcom bust). An online platform that creates community and has 
helped citizens oust dictators (Facebook) can also trap people in conformism 
and groupthink and become a tool for oppression. As F. Scott Fitzgerald 
famously said, an intelligent person should be able to hold opposed ideas in 
their mind simultaneously and still function.

Yet debates about tech, like those about politics or social issues, still seem 
to always collapse into either/or. Blockchain is either the most radical 
invention of the century or a worthless shell game. The metaverse is either the 
next incarnation of the internet or just an ingeniously vague label for a bunch 
of overhyped things that will mostly fail. Personalized medicine will 
revolutionize health care or just widen its inequalities. Facebook has either 
destroyed democracy or revolutionized society. Every issue is divisive and 
tribal. And it’s generally framed as a judgment on the tech itself—“this tech 
is bad” vs. “this tech is good”—instead of looking at the underlying economic, 
social, and personal forces that actually determine what that tech will do.

There’s been even more of this kind of binary, tech-centered thinking as we 
claw our way out of the pandemic. Some optimists claim we’re on the cusp of a 
“Roaring 2020s” in which mRNA and Crispr will revolutionize disease treatment, 
AI and quantum computers will exponentially speed up materials science and drug 
discovery, and advances in battery chemistry will make electric vehicles and 
large-scale energy storag