07.01.09
Contact .. and the future
There is this scene in Contact where Jodie Foster’s character is making a final presentation to the board members of Haddon Enterprises, asking for money to continue the CETI project. One of the members comments that the search is more “science fiction” than science, and the good doctor responds something like this:
“Science fiction.. right.. well, have you heard of this guy who thinks man can fly? He is building this thing called an aeroplane. Crazy right? And how about trips to the moon? Science fiction right?”
Whatever the future holds, there are few who possess the vision to imagine it.
In an article in the latest issue of UTNE reader Clay Shirky writes that “The Revolution will not be Published.” About halfway through the article Clay reviews Elizabeth Eisenstein’s research into Gutenberg’s revolutionary printing press. Her interest was not so much in the press itself or its impact, but in how the press was a catalyst for change and in the cultural process that made up the revolution.
It turns out that the process was immensely chaotic.. or perhaps chaordic. He writes, “Only in retrospect were experiments undertaken during the wrenching transition to print revealed to be turning points.” He points out that key innovations didn’t seem like keys at the time. They had unintended consequences. Small perturbations were magnified in unexpected ways. He comments,
“That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent in the moment; big changes stall, small changes spread. Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can be neither mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify…
“And so it is today. When people demand to know how we are going to replace [all kinds of things- add your favorite institution here] .. they are demanding to be told that the old systems will not break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.
“There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.”
