Slashdot Mirror
Review:The Sun, The Genome and The Internet
Freeman Dyson is one of the great, much-honored scholars of modern science and technology. Although he admits in his new book, "The Sun, The Genome and The Internet," (Oxford University Press, $US 22) that he didn't foresee the growth of the Internet (then again, neither did Bill Gates), he hasn't been slow to grasp its implications for the world.
Teaching and studying at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (where Einstein was), Dyson has written a book that advocates using the tools of scientific revolution - especially the Internet -- to create a better world, and a more equitable distribution of the world's wealth.
Dyson's central premise is this: solar energy, advances in genetic engineering and the worldwide communications potential of the Net can have enormous social consequences, if they are seen as tools for social change, and not just for recreation and profit.
The Net and the Web draws all sorts of different people who use it for all sorts of reasons. Some collect music, others program, millions stay in touch with their kids or grandchildren, many make money or look for sex, many are looking for community. A growing number of people coming online, especially younger ones, are almost continuously rooting around ways to put the Net into some positive political or social context. Dyson has a movement for them. A good name for it would be Ethical Technology.
Solar power, he argues, could bring electricity to even the poorest and most remote communities in the world, ending the cultural isolation of the most impoverished countries. Breakthroughs in synthetic and genetic engineering could give humans healthier lives.
"?during the last fourteen years," writes Dyson, "the Internet and World Wide Web have exploded. They have become the dominating technology in modern life."
The new century, he argues, is as good as time as any, to make ethical technology a political movement. "Technology guided by ethics has the power to help the billions of poor people all over the earth. Too much of technology today is making toys for the rich. Ethics can push technology in a new direction, away from toys for the rich and towards necessities for the poor. The time is ripe for this to happen. The sun, the genome (the genetic material of an organism), and the internet are three revolutionary forces arriving with the new century. These forces are strong enough to reduce some of the worst evils in our time."
Dyson advances a radical, new and very powerful notion of the Net as a political force. It is, he argues, essential to enable business and farms in remote places to function as part of the modern global economy. It could permit people in distant places to make business deals, to buy and sell, to keep in touch with their friends, to continue their education, to follow their hobbies, with knowledge of what's happening in the rest of the world.
Dyson's vision of the Internet would be truly global and universal. It would use a network of satellites in space for communication with places that fiber optics can't reach, and would connect to local networks in even the smallest villages. The new Internet, he argues, could end the cultural isolation of poor countries and poor people.
For this to happen, writes Dyson, two technical problems would have to be solved, that of large-scale Net architecture and what he calls "the last mile." Large-scale architecture means choosing the most efficient combination of land-lines and satellite links to cover every inch of the planet. The problem of the "last mile," connecting individual homes and families, wherever they happen to be, is much more difficult, says Dyson. It would have to be solved piecemeal.
Dyson is no fuzzy-head Utopian. He doesn't claim that any of his technological advances would create a perfect or problem free world.
Still, the ideas outlined in "The Sun, The Genome and The Internet" are logical and convincing. And they are very big ideas in a tiny book just over a hundred pages.
The Internet continues to terrify much of the rest of civilization. The handful of perverts, pornographers and virus-makers who dwell online continue to generate almost insanely disproportionate attention and concern.
This distortion - with sex, hackers, crackers, cyber-vandals, online militias -- overwhelms the social and political possibilities of the vast and diverse new world taking shape here, hardly any of which are discussed in the journalistic or political culture outside of the Net. For that matter, they aren't discussed all that much online.
For many, the biggest question about the Net (increasingly being equated by scholars as the equivalent of the discovery of fire, language or the printing press), for those online or off, is whether or not this revolutionary and transformative new technology can have sweeping social or political implications beyond the machinery itself.
Dyson says yes. His credentials are astounding.
To purchase this book, head over to Amazon and help Slashdot out.
(Question: I'd be curious to know from those of you more techno-savvy than me whether the universal, global Net that Dyson proposes - the architecture and delivery, especially -- is really possible, or if's a pipe dream?) jonkatz@slashdot.org">
Freeman Dyson is like a lot of futurists in that most of his ideas are never gonna happen. Still, they're awful fun to think about and open up new doors for the rest of us; allow us to go in direction that we'd never consider otherwise.
The last thing I saw from him was an article called " Warm-Blooded Fish and Freeze-Dried Fish", where he talks about using custom-built plants to facilitate human exploration of the Universe.
I think the best thing about him, though, is that he looks far enough ahead that he's escaping talking about the impact of e-commerce or harping on the internet (unlike Ester Dyson, whose book felt like serious review).
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
The issue is precisely what you use your resources (both mental and physical) for. Do you try to build a better CD player ? or a clockwork radio ? Do you try to find an expensive cure for AIDS ? or a cheap one for malaria ? Whether you like it or not, these are ethical choices which face all of us. You can evade it using variants of the same 'its all their own fault' argument that the rich have used for years, but it does not make the choice any less real. The fact remains that the vast majority of poor people have no choice, and you and I do. What are you going to do about it ?
The exact causes of poverty, both of states and or individuals, are an unknown. You are probably right that a lack of what might be called 'civil society' or the 'rule of law' has a lot to do with it, but the risks of nationalisation and war are exaggerated in places, and much less prevalent in others. Colonial history (of which the US is certainly much less blameless than you probably think), excessive lending, and ignorant attempts by the west to reform the poor countries all also play their part.
If you want to get an idea of how ignorant most of the West's dealings with africa really are try Graham Hancock's "Lords of Poverty". He raises a number of good points - although some of what he says should be treated with suspicion.
I agree about the correlation, but that does not demonstrate a causal relation, or give a recipe for changing the situation. Where do you get new technology from ? How do you lower the birth rate ?
I also agree about give aways - giving away things that were not yours in the first place helps even less. I doubt that was what the book's author was suggesting.
Dyson advances a radical, new and very powerful notion of the Net as a political force
Huh? This idea isn't new at all.
While this book sounds amusing, it doesn't appear that Dyson is revelaing much. We all understand the power of the Internet - most users here probably understand it much better than Dyson. As for genetics, I also see this as relatively old news. We've known for at least a decade that genetics will lead us into new and dangerous territory.
Save yourself the $15. You can download real hard data about genetics for free. As for learning about the web, I would think that it is a moot point for most readers here.
The subject line may be harsh, but is basically spot on. We could feed everyone on the planet right now, easily. The fact that we don't, and that we in North America waste so much food, must tell us something.
We give resources to those who will pay for them. Its as simple as that. New technologies will only result in more options for those who can pay.
While ecological conditions have continuously plagued African regions, it should be mentioned that much of the poverty in Central America and Africa itself is due to good old fashioned American meddling.
Haiti has been manipualted, invaded, and controlled by the United States for nearly a century.
Several Central American "client states" are now violent rural cesspools thanks to American meddling during the cold war.
I'm not talking about nasty leaflets or McDonald's, but direct, violent involvement in vote tampering, fruad, assassination, etc.
I think if most Americans knew what they were responsible for in places like Nicaragua and Chile, it would make them sick.
All of the plaititudes the US government applies to its foreign policies are designed simply to pacify and molify the unwashed masses who pay the bills for all this hypocrisy.
It was different before we came along?
Yes, quite a bit so. People weren't butchering each other to uphold US policies, for starts.
I think this presents a false choice between using technology for "profit and recreation" or for helping poor people. The history of technology tends to show that the two go hand in hand: what often stimulates new inventions is precisely the desire of the rich for new toys. They pay a high premius for having something new, and then as the technology is refined, the benefits are spread to everyone.
This "ethical technology" thing is a crock. The problem with third world countries is not that the big bad United States won't share their technology, it is that third world countries have economic and social systems that make a modern free-market economy unworkable. It is hard for businessmen to build factories or office buildings or internet connections when it is about to get nationalised by the government or destroyed in the next Civil War.
If a third-world country chose to implement an actual free-market economy, with low taxes, secure private property, and a stable currency, they would experience a great deal of economic growth. US investors could invest there without fear of the government taking their investment or making it worthless by devaluing the currency. Such a country could in 50 years be as rich as any nation is today.
I am all for helping the poor, but I think we should keep things in perspective. It is not the fault of the West that the third-world poor are poor. And simply building them internet connection, while a noble goal, is not going to solve the problem.
Is it probable that this vision will be realized? Well, let's refine the question a wee bit. Is it probable that there will be an Internet link to the remote homes and villages of the world? Yes, I think so. Why? Profit, of course. The drive of the entities that could afford the expense of setting up such a system (read that: corporations) is predicated entirely on profit. If we put keyboards into the hands of more people, then we have a larger potential market. That's always a good thing to entities whose sole reason for existing is to provide profit to their stockholders. So yes, I think that such a linked system will occur.
Now the question becomes: Is it desirable? Maybe. Let's flip the question from hand to hand, like the hot potato it is.
Yes it's desirable. After all, many of the world's poor are kept that way because they lack education and access to the information and networking ability currently enjoyed by the affluent societies. Place the 'Net in their hands, and give them just the education necessary to be able to use a browser and presto! Instant netizens.
Yeah, right. Of course, since English has become the lingua franca of the Internet, those people will have to have more than just a little training to be able to effectively use the browser. On top of that, it takes more than a little education to teach someone to think in wider terms than that of their own clan or village.
But you see, that's what the Net's about. It provides a conduit through which people can begin to mentally encompass the global scale of what society is becoming. With the Net-connected global citizenry, the ability of economic-, military-, and social-oppression to completely crush a people becomes diminished. If the people were able to communicate with others, across the wire, they'd be able to ask for help directly of the people most likely (and able) to give it. The fact that they can't immediately use the resources of the Net (Library of Congress, the Louvre, and other sites), doesn't justify not giving them access.
True, but what will happen to them as a people, once they get a glimpse of the brave new world? We're talking about societies that have evolved over centuries and millenia, with their own customs and taboos. And some of them have more common sense than we do: many of them would scoff at the idea of utilizing a technology without thoroughly examining what its costs and effects would be. Not like us, where the reason, "Because we can!" has justified the acceptance of many damaging technologies, and the failure to forsee the environmental costs of certain technologies have landed us in deep trouble. Do we really want to see the entire diversity of the planet's people consumed by Melrose Place?
Yuck. But the reverse can happen, too. The technological societies can be enriched by the diversity brought to us by currently unconnected cultures. Their wisdom can greatly enhance our own.
Gee, doesn't that sound like, "Your biological and technological diversity will be assimilated into our own"? And we have plenty of evidence of what that approach usually means. Just ask an Aztec, or any Indian, in fact.
Possible, yes. Probable, yes. Desirable? Perhaps. There are many good reasons to extend the Net to the remote corners of our world. But there are many reasons not to, as well. It behooves us to question what we'll gain, what we'll lose.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
I'm a little disappointed. Based on the book title, I figured I'd get to hear about some nifty thinking about the coming bio revolution.
*BUZT* Thanks for playing.
Look people, genome sequences aren't the answer. Yes, they're necessary; yes, they're useful. However, they no more give you the answers to Life, the Universe and Everything than having a kernel binary gives you the power of a working Linux distro, with all the GNU utilities.
We've still got a long way to go towards figuring out how all that genome information works together to make a critter.
Yes, there have been some applications as far as stiching new genes into existing (usually crop) organisms. However, we haven't yet seen a killer app for biotech. What's it going to be? If I knew, would I be posting to /.?
john.,
sorry that he couldn't get this up sooner
knowing that few will read it now...
GeneHack {--(bioinfo*linux*opinion)
it's a moot point.
.... ....
... it aint technology, we have long had all the technology necessary to solve the world's problems.
Imagine a world where machines exist that could transport masses of food to all extremes of the world within 48 hours.
Imagine a world where two people can commmunicate with each other irrespective of their geographical location. Different cultures could interact, share their cultural resources and begin to bridge the gap between their technological competences, hence increasing everyone's standard of living.
Imagine a world where technology was so advanced that we could understand how plants grow! then we could recreate ideal conditions and cultivate food anywhere in the world.
Imagine a world where all countries could trade
bla bla bla
wank wank wank.
there is a line of thought which says that to solve a problem, all you got to do is understand the problem (99.99999%), then you go about solving it (0.000001%)
so what's the problem?
its human nature.
Anything which attempts to solve a problem without understanding it is then UTOPIC. It is hence based on "hope" which is an irrational act of thought in that it seeks satisfaction in the present about the "thought" of something in the future. this book must be that.
i firmly believe that a "capitalist society" can as easily exist in a "gift society" (/. etc. etc.) as in a monetary society. All you have to do is go about performing an act which has as its goal to achieve the currency of that society. If the currency of a society is "respect", then all you have to do is perform an act to try and gain that "respect" and you are reproducing the same thing but in a different context. Has anyone posted to slashdot just to try and see how high a score their comment would achieve?
human nature. This is the problem. I hereby officially declare that I am not so sure that it is or is not a solvable problem.
It was different before we came along?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
A free-market economy is a result of freedom, not the cause of it. And freedom only comes through centuries of negotiation between peasants and elites. If the elites don't feel like they have to talk to the peasants, then the country has no hope of escaping the mire of poverty, Internet or no.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
If power has been growing for 1000 years, what happened to the serfs? What happened to peasants in America? How has the middle class arisen? Your premise is countered by the facts.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist