1/15 Every tech policy debate - every single one - boils down to what @AdamThierer describes in this excellent new essay. At the risk of being excessively parochial, however, I'd go even further.
medium.com/@AdamThierer/i…
medium.com/@AdamThierer/i…
2/15 You either believe in technology and progress as fundamentally-positive forces that improve the human condition, or vacuous outgrowths of a dehumanizing drive to exchange the essential qualities of our "true" humanity for the comforts and benefits of ... well, civilization.
3/15 Of course, few would admit to being members of the "Boo Progress!" tribe. Instead, they'll adopt language that obfuscates the essence of their policy advocacy – language that prioritizes the need for "control," "democratic accountability," "societal consent," etc.
4/15 Call them techno-progressives, techno-populists (h/t @RobAtkinsonITIF) , or just plain techno-pessimists. And whether they realize it or not, the core feature that defines their "solutions" is an innate skepticism – not just of the future, or new technology, but humans.
5/15 That's why their solutions revolve around demands for some all-knowing authority to steer the direction of progress towards their conception of "the good." It's also why their skepticism-export strategy is one that traffics in fear and hysterical hypotheticals ...
6/15 After all, the more we fear other people's goals and intentions, the less likely we are to trust them to do good. And the less we trust, the more we defer to authorities that promise to safely guide us along the one true "Golden Path."
7/15 In contrast, the techno-optimist perspective is willing to bet on the best in people. Progress is all about change and disruption, and change can be frightening. Techno-optimism requires accepting – indeed, *embracing* – that dynamism (h/t @vpostrel) as essentially good.
8/15 Of course, suck-it-up-because-disruption-is-good doesn't have the same emotional impact as pessimistic fear-mongering, and doesn't speak to many people's desire for stability and certainty. That's why the techno-pessimists tend to have an unfortunately-wide appeal ...
9/15 It's also why it's so important for techno-optimists to constantly paint a positive, inspiring vision of the future – one that sharply contrasts the dystopia of skepticism offered by the techno-pessimists and the advocates of control. We need to do A LOT more of that.
10/15 Luckily, the techno-optimists have one major advantage that the techno-pessimists don't: evidence of the very real, very tangible, very widespread benefits of progress and technology. Case in point ...
11/15 the Internet, air conditioning, penicillin, airplanes, electricity, personal computers and smartphones, automobiles, telephones, concrete, transistor radios, iPod, cameras, video games, the printing press, eReaders, cloud-based hosting services – on and on the list goes.
12/15 The point being that technology improves our lives – from the way we consume and enjoy entertainment to the drugs that increase our quality-life years. That observation may seem excessively mundane, but it needs to be consistently reiterated.
13/15 @sapinker is right: there are limits to the Arcadia that our tools can deliver us. Tech evangelism can be guilty of the same sin as socialist acolytes: idealistic promises of intangible future benefits that discount the value of stability provided by existing institutions.
14/15 But the difference is that technological progress - unlike the abstract promises offered by ideological revolutions - has to constantly prove its merits via acceptance and adoption. In that sense, I think the balance on the scale should always tip in favor the optimists.
15/15 And that means never giving up an opportunity to call out techno-pessimists. B/c ever since that first unicellular skeptic refused to climb out of the primordial pool for fear of what lay beyond, they've been wrong. They've always been wrong ... and they'll always be wrong.
