Rage Against Some Machines

September 30, 2003

Bruce Sterling offers a list of 10 technologies that, he says, "are so blatantly obnoxious that the human race would rejoice if they were summarily executed." Among them: land mines, incandescent light bulbs, implants, and DVDs.

Comments

SickOfItAll|9.30.03 @ 1:36AM|#

Wow, this guy has fallen off his rocker. I mean, DVDs? His only reasoning is that they are easily damaged (I've not had this problem, but...), and that commercials are forced onto them.

Well gee, yeah lets just dump this tech because it isn't perfect now. No no, don't try to make it better, just ditch it alltogether and go outside to play marbles or something.

I can certainly agree to ditching landmines (although even then with new tech it would be possible to make them deactivate when the war is over), but the rest of his so called unneeded technologies are basically things that HE doesn't find useful so he thinks everyone wouldn't care if they just ceased to exist. What an arrogant ass :/

Citizen|9.30.03 @ 1:38AM|#

That's quite possible in the top ten stupidest lists of all time. The internal combustion engine is on this list?! Yeah, that's done a lot more harm than good. How can someone claim that we can advance without taking steps?

His reasons for disliking DVDs include "I'm ham-fisted and sloppy" and "I don't like watching commercials that I'd have to see on TV or at the movies anyway."

|9.30.03 @ 1:48AM|#

He'll never need a colonoscopy.

|9.30.03 @ 2:02AM|#

In fairness to Sterling, he's promoting making these things go away by innovation, or as he says, "A wise society would honor its young technical innovators for services rendered in annihilating obsolete technologies that are the dangerous hangovers of previous, less advanced generations."

But that aside, I have some problems with some (most) of his list. Particularly his view of how to replace prisons. Not only is the prospect of having all the violent offenders walking the streets a bit disconcerting, but then he proposes to make it so they can't buy anything or travel anywhere since the've been punished by having their "internal visa" (ouch! no thanks) turned off. I can just picture some two-time murder hacking off Sterling's arm to get at his internal visa, before buying a slurrpie and hopping a bus out of town.

|9.30.03 @ 2:03AM|#

What an arrogant ass.

I wonder how the SOUTH Koreans feel about landmines?

Does he really not understand that once the technology for nuclear weapons exists, we can only strive for deterrence?

The internal combustion engine? Argh!

Colby Cosh|9.30.03 @ 2:11AM|#

Obnoxious technologies wouldn't come into existence if they weren't very much better than non-obnoxious alternatives. The obnoxiety is proportional to the need... so this is really just a list of "coolest, most essential inventions."

Franklin Harris|9.30.03 @ 2:41AM|#

Anyone tries to take my DVDs from me, and he'll be the one "summarily executed."

|9.30.03 @ 2:44AM|#

Who do I have to know in order to get something so incredibly stupid published?

|9.30.03 @ 2:50AM|#

Not to jump on the wagon now that everyone's beating on Sterling, but I decided to withhold judgment pending the input of something insightful from a dissenter.

It is as I thought -- a really stupid list.

What would be some really BAD technologies and devices?

All I could think of were car alarms, which could easily be replaced by a chip relaying info to a device in your remote lock telling you your car had just been broken into. Bonus if it also sent a message to police.

|9.30.03 @ 2:52AM|#

Ah, DVDs. Can't help but love a format that's used to create artificial trade barriers - the concept of region codes is disgusting - and monopoly - don't even think of creating an unlicensed DVD player in the US because it's a felony. Thank you DMCA!

Here's a clue for the more hotheaded among us - change "executed" to "replaced".

|9.30.03 @ 2:56AM|#

Nomination for the greatest piece of technology in the last 20 years:

Those little disposable flossy things that keep you from having to cut off the circulation in your finger. Absolutely genious.

Jim Walsh|9.30.03 @ 2:57AM|#

Let me add one:

#11: Neo-Luddite asshole blogs...

|9.30.03 @ 2:57AM|#

That is, ingenious.

B.P.|9.30.03 @ 2:58AM|#

This guy is a humorist?

|9.30.03 @ 3:02AM|#

Bruce Sterling is a neo-luddite ? Wow, are there any science fiction fans here at all ?

SM|9.30.03 @ 3:06AM|#

And by the way, as someone mentioned earlier, he is not proposing legislating these things away. He wants them innovated into obsolescence. Which is almost a certainty. So the IC engine lovers here can continue to drive them till 4000 AD if they want to, but the rest of us would like to get on with the jet packs OK. Neo-luddite yourselves !

Citizen|9.30.03 @ 3:21AM|#

I seem to recall that in the 50s that we were told that we'd all be traveling in flying cars by the year 2000. My car needs new tires.

Scatterzoom, SM

|9.30.03 @ 3:23AM|#

Nuclear weapons have been the greatest deterent to invasion known to man. Prior to our nuking Japan, big wars broke out on a regular basis, and no country was immune. But once you've got a nuke, your country is safe from invasion, even from the US! Never get rid of these peace machines. Its what's keeping North Korea and Pakistan sovereign.

Here's a technology nobody wanted: daytime running lights on new cars. I never know when the funeral procession is done.

|9.30.03 @ 3:41AM|#

SM:

My concern is that Sterling says that X is obnoxious, then says that X doesn't work (like nukes for deterrence, or landmines). If something people would pay for worked better, they would use it.

What do you suppose he is thinking of when he suggests that technology obsolete the landmine?
The strategic value of it is:

1) it is inexpensive
2) it allows geographically disadvantaged (i.e. wide open) nations to control avenues of advance and thereby not have to fight 360 degrees.
3) It prevents a large in manpower forces from running over small in manpower forces.

You suppose Sterling would support a mine that can be forcibly detonated with great reliability so as to mitigate the costs after the conflict is over?

|9.30.03 @ 4:05AM|#

It's good to see that Sterling's non-fiction writing is as bad as his fiction writing.

|9.30.03 @ 4:34AM|#

Citizen,

You wrote -
"I seem to recall that in the 50s that we were told that we'd all be traveling in flying cars by the year 2000. My car needs new tires."

I seem to recall that in the fifties we were told that Jesus would show up in 2001. What's your point ? Are you saying that because someone underestimated the effort neccessary towards some new technology or even got it completely wrong, therefore what we currently have on hand is the coolest, forever ?

Jason Ligon,

OK so he was over the top with the "obnoxious" etc. But i suspect that Sterling, who is a science fiction writer and a science/tech writer for Wired was indulging in some lateral thinking. Nuclear weapons are a case in point. What he's saying is that they may be a liability in the kinds of wars it currenly seems we will be called upon to fight in the future. Not that it didn't keep the peace IN THE PAST against the soviets etc. He may be wrong, but it certainly isn't peacenik hopeful thinking or professional environmentalism on his part. As for mines & other hopefully obsolete tech, look here - http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54641,00.html
The US military, it seems, is thinking more along Sterling's lines than most people here.

I know that people on this board were defending the DVD sort of in jest, but the only way it will still be in use in a couple of 100 years is if Osama Bin Laden is Caliph. There are already such a thing as the iPod, right folks ;)

SM|9.30.03 @ 4:35AM|#

Oops that was me. Flame away.

|9.30.03 @ 5:30AM|#

Sterling is boring. Very Boring.

|9.30.03 @ 6:08AM|#

SM,

That link you provided took me to a discussion on high-tech defense against RPGs, not anything about land mines. In any case, the article had a few mistakes. The RPG is based upon the German WW-2 Panzerfaust, the deadliest hand-held antitank weapon of its day. In fact, IIRC the RPG-1 was just a Communist manufactured Panzerfaust. By the '60s, the improved RPG-2 was having trouble knocking out the American M-48 tanks in 'nam, leading to the development of the (yet more) improved RPG-7. Today, in the aftermath of our latest war, US Marines want an American made version of the weapon.

As far as the "lateral thinking" towards nukes: so, how do we go about making them all disapear? Sure, if that happened, we might still be top dog--but how would we ensure that this happened in places like NK and China, so that they don't become top-dog while we are giving up the weapons? The history of international agreements eliminating useful weapons from inventories has been poor, at best. Even problamatic gas & germ weapons have been developed despite international aggrements, and these have yet to prove decisive on the battlefield. Soft point rifle bullets were banned after higher velocity boat tail spitzers proved more devistating than the existing soft points.

Brady|9.30.03 @ 6:54AM|#

What's our fascination with ranking shit anyways? It seems everyone thinks they're David Letterman these days.

SM|9.30.03 @ 6:57AM|#

Don,

I threw in the link to the tank capacitor article as an example of an innovative technological advance that can potentially render prior generations of weapons tech obsolete. And which, thank god, the US military is exploring. I doubt this is the only black op the US has going. I did not mean to use it as a counter to the land mine - i dont know anything specific about land mines or any other military ordnance, for that matter.
As far as i can tell almost none of the technologies in his list has a viable market alternative. YET.
However, the magic quote from Sterling is -
"A wise society would honor its young technical innovators for services rendered in annihilating obsolete technologies that are the dangerous hangovers of previous, less advanced generations. Let me offer some candidates."
Can you show me in here or anywhere else in the article any mention of "international agreements" ? If he knew how to go about "making them all disapear" he wouldnt be a SF writer, would he ?
My point is simply that though Sterling may be wrong about any or all of the technologies he lists, he certainly isn't the luddite here.

SM|9.30.03 @ 7:14AM|#

BTW, might i suggest that the strong reaction people had to his article result was more a result of people free associating from each induvidual item (nukes, IC engine etc) to anti-nuclear activists, greens, environemntalists etc, ie things he makes no mention of.

Russ|9.30.03 @ 7:19AM|#

6. Manned spaceflight... Well, there's no good use for it. I don't see any reason to pursue it.

7. Prisons with bars and guards... hmmm... maybe manned space flight has its uses after all.

Zach|9.30.03 @ 8:18AM|#

Manned spaceflight actually has a very good long term use, if you look at the big picture. The fact that the end of every geological epoch has been marked by mass extinctions (in some cases, up to 90% of living species) does not bode well for the long-term survival of homo sapiens if we choose to live on Earth alone.

Granted, this is the very long-term view, but I would say that the importance of the issue warrants a little advance planning.

Ken|9.30.03 @ 10:06AM|#

Internal combustion engines... what a disaster they turned out to be. They put out of work all those guys who shoveled horseshit out of our city streets.

Yeah, I think I'd rather visit Manhattan in 1903 than in 2003. Almost no cars existed back then.

|9.30.03 @ 11:26AM|#

As a longtime reader of Mr Sterling, I'm hoping this article was a just a joke to launch a flamewar or sabotage by someone else...otherwise, i just don't understand it. anyone familiar with his work knows that he is certainly not a neo-luddite.

SM: "As far as i can tell almost none of the technologies in his list has a viable market alternative. YET."

i hope that was his point. but it was very sloppily executed.

SM|10.1.03 @ 1:18AM|#

Maya Z,

"anyone familiar with his work knows that he is certainly not a neo-luddite."

That was my point too. All he was doing, IMHO, was throwing together a list of future technologies. He is a futurist, after all.
I have to say - from the reaction of people here you would think that the IC engine just magically appeared in the world circa 1900 or so. Nobody ever talked, wrote or thought about it or debated its superiority over/inferiority to the Horse Buggy ever, before the very first pumpkin transformed into a Ford. Sheesh.
That said, i would disagree with him at least on the subject of manned spaceflight.

SM|10.1.03 @ 1:40AM|#

Kevin Carson,
"A "society" doesn't create technologies, and it shouldn't be in a position to approve or disapprove them. People who like them can buy them, and those who don't should leave them alone."

So you think he's calling for a New Deal on behalf of his list ?
He is positing new technologies, not mandating them.

Umbriel|10.1.03 @ 10:22AM|#

Don,

Here's the only lateral thinking so far that I'm aware of for making nukes obsolete:

http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/5/7

I'm not sure what degree of targeting precision would be required. It might therefore be possible to hide nuclear weapons to prevent their neutralization, perhaps in places like nuclear power plants where they would be harder to detect (and one presumably couldn't just casually zap the powerplant as a precaution without knocking it out). Terrorists or rogue states with a handful of bombs might therefore be able to dodge this solution. It could probably greatly restrict the deployment of nuclear-armed missiles or air-delivered bombs, though.
----------
I think Sterling must have written the article with tongue at least halfway in cheek. His statements regarding prisons strike me as more of a commentary on modern reliance on and vulnerability of "electronic identities" than as a serious suggestion on an alternative punishment (in effect, we're all living just a few computer glitches away from "prison"). When it comes to violent crime, I think the sequestration of the offender from the population in the interest of safety ranks ahead of "punishment" as the reason for locking criminals up.

Kevin Carson|10.1.03 @ 12:11PM|#

A "society" doesn't create technologies, and it shouldn't be in a position to approve or disapprove them. People who like them can buy them, and those who don't should leave them alone.

As for land-mines, they're pretty handy if you're a defensive power and you'd like to use your military manpower to defend in depth instead of dispersing it between every possible enemy axis of advance.