Open Source
Technology has a shelf life only slightly longer than fresh vegetables, with today’s revolutionary products arriving almost instantly outmoded, soon to be swept aside for tomorrow’s something better, something inevitably slimmer or bigger, with more processing power or computational power or horsepower, more advanced design and more features, and a killer app you can’t live without for one more day. But of course that’s not technology, that’s sex appeal, marketing spin, snake oil, a spiel from a shady used car salesman. That’s technology in the hands of commerce.
What is technology then? Perhaps the most oft-quoted aphorism about technology is Arthur C. Clarke’s famous Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” A lyrical and profound statement, to be sure, spoken by one of the great sages of the 20th century, but an idea easily exploited by business to justify the relentless pace of the product cycle, or by government to justify the ever-increasing militarization of modern society.
So we say this: “Any sufficiently advanced use of technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And when we say “technology,” we mean from the most rudimentary to the most dazzlingly complex, from oldies-but-goodies like the wheel and the guitar to virtuosic newcomers like the solar cell and the electron microscope. And when we say “use,” we mean applications that further the cause of collective human progress by promoting peace, health, communication, learning, and laughter, rather than stall it by allowing people with power to grab more. No matter how advanced the tools become, they will only be as good as the people using them. Use them wisely, use them well.
RES Vol. 9, No. 4
“Open Source: The Technology Issue”
July/August 2006
