theinforager

The Infor-aging begins….… with an exploration of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. Written in 1995, the book envisions a world that was probably two horizons into the future. Seen through the lens of 2007 with daily advances in micro-technology, wireless and streaming media it’s a future that is much closer.

If you haven’t read Neal, the first few pages of his books can be nearly overwhelming—a cold water plunge into something entirely new, unexpected and well, thrilling.
His novel Snow Crash takes you to an entirely original take on post modern, post techno culture; The Baroque Cycle is about 3,000 pages of history, technology and progress re-imagined, rearranged and retold with a bold new spin.

The Diamond Age is an exploration of the technology, society and culture of the next millennium that is chock full of amazing characters, ideas and images. Why, it’s downright Dicken-sonian. And I think that’s purely intentional. Stephenson channels Dickens in his ability to illustrate a new era by showing us everyday life at street level as well as in the ranks of nobility. His take on the double-edged promise of the age—on how the neo-industrial revolution and new technology make life both easier and infinitely more complex– is straight out of David Copperfield or Great Expectations.

The early pages of the story sketch parallels between this and the Victorian Age and the first Industrial Revolution. There are many points of contrast to explore, but one of the most obvious is the name: Diamond Age. This suggests a time of ascension and progress….an era of great invention and change. Of course, it harkens to Dickens’ own time: the Victorian Age. The age of glass and crystal.

The Victorian era was marked by the use of new materials like iron and glass (instead of diamond), by works of architecture and exhibitions of new technology; by a stream of inventions; by growing urban populations and social change.

One of the real symbols of the age was “Crystal Palace” built for the “Great Exhibition” of 1851. It combined the ideal of the age: reaching simultaneously back to influences from the past (Gothic) and forward (the use of glass). The Diamond Age equivalent is the great hall in Shanghai.

What’s most interesting to me though, is how the book confounds what I supposed the next era would be like. I really believed that the real challenge of the next age would be the great “digital divide” –that haves and have nots would be, as they are today, separated by the availability of technology and thus information, knowledge and wealth. I thought that trend would accelerate and widen the gap.

Not so here. Neal turns things on their head and, of course, that’s what makes for a compelling read. He has a very different take: it’s not a question of what we can do with technology, but how we use it.

That’s a point of view that drives everyday life as well as philosophy and ethics.
Consider the environmentally friendly design of the extraction plant—the engineers built it that way not so much to benefit the environment but because they could! Not for benefit but for sport.

In Diamond Age technology is ubiquitous. Even little Nell, who lives in the Diamond Age equivalent of a trailer park, has a matter compiler to make clothing and furnishings. Here we see tech being “wasted” on foolish consumerism.

Technology usage, not availability, illuminates social stratification and class distinctions as central to everyday life: literacy, nationality/ethnic/tribal associations and tech use are just a few of the ways to tell who’s who and what station they occupy.

In fact, tech is so pervasive that upper classes actually acquire objects of status that are low tech (real paper). Breathtaking architecture and new ideas are wrought in diamond and other new materials but real dirt on a manmade island, that’s something to admire!

Of course the rich and powerful are the rich and powerful. Moguls abound. Suffering workers are everywhere. Immigration is an issue (as it was at the turn of the 20th century).
Crime is still there. So this is no Utopia.

And because it isn’t—doesn’t that pose questions for us today. If this is the future we face—do we want it? Are we really going to do things this way? With the miraculous ability to manufacture and grow things out of thin air—to extract them from the essential molecules around us, will we really use it to make faster ways to travel to work!

What does all this mean for us today—here in our own little corner of the digital revolution. What social, ethical and cultural considerations does technology raise for us? Is it about what we do with tech or how we choose to use it?

You could argue that we are still in a time when we are exploring what we can do—with the net (1.0 and 2.0) with medical break throughs; with more climate friendly fuels and automotive applications; with alternative power sources; with better ways to kill with ever more efficient military apparatus; with renewable materials and resources; with better ways to record and distribute entertainment on demand, etc.

On many fronts, we are in an age of INVESTIGATION and INVENTION rather that widespread APPLICATION. We’re not concerned (much) with the ethics, consequences or social good or ill of our technological prowess. Economics are driving decisions and choices—entertainment distribution is worth more than education access. We can secure banks but not voting machines. With today’s technology our schools should all be wired, our hospitals should all be tech rich and connected. People in the bush should get the same medical care as people in New York City. And so on.

Certainly the leaders in Dubai et al recognize the “glided architecture” of the Victorian age and the use of tech to alter the environment from the Diamond Age…..in their own shimmering crystal skyscrapers and planet altering man-made islands.

So maybe the best take on the early pages of Diamond Age is: we are here and not yet there—but we are closer than we think.

For more about Dubai: National Geographic, January 2007

For more parallels to Victorian England:

http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Victorian_index.htm