Week 2 Synchronous Session Questions
Question One:
I’m interested in the dynamics by which superseded technologies still co-exist with the new technologies which (never quite) replace them. For example, vinyl records never truly went away with the advent of the cassette, cassettes never fully went away with CDs, and even through streaming, vinyl continues to see a resurgence in sales. Similarly, Roman concrete didn’t stop being used, even if we may offer a historiography which suggests that it did. But vinyl doesn’t hold nearly the same cultural and politicized weight as Roman concrete. As a symbol of deep Roman-ness, why didn’t the imperial hegemony of Roman concrete spread more effectively throughout the empire? Might we think of it as a Roman symbol which could only exist for other Romans?
Question Two:
We may think of the telegram as a Victorian technology, but the last telegram was sent in 2013. Long after we may think of it having been replaced by subsequent waves of communication progress. Over 375,000 people in the US still use dial-up to get online. How might we think more effectively about the other side of new technology, and think of the continued existence of old technology? How might the social, economic, and cultural delineations which come from continued us of the old help us better understand the life cycle of a technology we see as new?
Fun Fact:
This week I showed my 13-year-old daughter a floppy disk. She thought it was so cool that I’d 3D printed the Save icon.
Follow-Up:
When we draw threads of connection between old and new technologies, either in the context of progress, economic development or societal change, we often lean on how those technologies co-exist. How innovation builds upon invention to cumulatively, iteratively construct a sense of new, and how superseded technologies never really go away. But a variable throughout that evolution is also us. And that however much we may think of technology changing between old and new, it is also us that is changing. In our use of technology, the form and delivery may change, but the underlying needs often remain the same. These might be needs of efficiency, of economics, even of faith. So the questions become how are we changing over time through our increasing use of technology, and what are the underlying human motivations being met by these shifts?
I think of this in terms of shifts of norms. Twenty years ago, it would have been unthinkable to willingly get into a car with a stranger, and pay for the privilege to do so. Now such behavior is normalized at massive scale through ride sharing. Through metaphor, our language is changing as we now stream, prompt, doomscroll, binge and emoji our way through the day. Attention is shrinking inversely with attempts to monetize it. Mobile connectivity is everywhere, but loneliness and isolation are as strong as ever, and the lasting psychological impact upon the young still remains to play out.
Yet within it, we are often still spellbound by possibility. Wi-fi still feels like science fiction. As Arthur C. Clarke famously describes “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But where are we resistant, and where are we willing? We love the stranger’s efficiency in getting us home faster, but still draw the line on using capital letters in a group chat. For as much change as we are currently living through, what changes us, and what doesn’t? What shouldn’t?
