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Sent from: shalizi@phys-next9.physics.wisc.edu (Cosma Shalizi) Copy of a letter to ``Sasha'' Chislenko <sasha1@netcom.com>, forwarded to FringeWare at his suggestion: Dear Sasha (if I may), I've just seen this on Fringeware, and with respect, you're confused. It is precisely _because_ people in industrial societies are more educated, affluent, secure and well-informed that there is such a great degree of vocal opposition to many changes. Think about industrialization. This has _never_ been accomplished pleasantly; for most of the population it has always meant _increased_ suffering and hardship. Ultimately, given a fairly large degree of democracy, their descendants are better off, but it's never been a popular cause. In all cases --- western Europe, North America, Japan, Russia, etc. --- it's been imposed from above, on populations which were poor, uneducated, insecure and ill-organized. (This is _not_ a bit of leftist agit-prop, but exceedingly orthodox economic and social history; references available upon request.) Where the society was liberal enough for popular opposition, it existed, and was very vocal, and sometimes was crushed by military force (as in Britain, this country, and Japan); sometimes the entire society was ground down by terror before industrialization began (as in the Soviet Union). Asking for psychological counseling is new, but demands for better pay and working conditions, and economic support generally, are not. The case is similar, incidentally, with nomadism. There's strong evidence that modern nomadism (at least of the pastoral type you seem to be thinking of) actually developed with or after settled agriculture (see e.g. Khazanov, _Nomads and the Outside World_), and is symbiotic or parasitic upon it. In any case, such nomads (almost?) never settle down to _farming_ voluntarily (although they have little objection to conquering agricultural populations, when they can). They only make that transition when forced to by an already-settled state, and they resent it bitterly, and revolt as the opportunity allows (e.g., the Plains Indians, or the _basmachi_ in Central Asia). A state which is sufficiently indifferent or hostile to forcibly settle nomads is not one to which they can sensibly appeal for aid. Now the question is, why do people object to these changes? Let us grant that they are, on a large scale, progressive (though, between you and me, I don't see how subsistence agriculture is a great advance over nomadism). The answer is that it is perfectly possible for something to be positive on the large scale, and completely negative on the small scale --- where ``small'' means individual human lives. The industrial revolution, we agree, was progressive: but how long did it take before it started to benefit most of the people in England? Something like a hundred years passed between the invention of the steam engine and the arrival of popular votes and nearly tolerable factory conditions in the 1870s. Between then the industrialization was kept up because those who did benefit had enough power to force it on those who emphatically did not. The changes in the advanced economies since about 1970* haven't by any means returned us to the horrors of the industrial revolution, but the benefits to most of us have been slight or non-existent: real incomes for most households (at least in the US) have been stagnant or shrinking, inequality has grown, employment (and with it, quality of life) is much less secure, there's been a vast growth in jobs which can only be described as shitty, along with involuntary part-time and contingent employment, etc., etc. (Again, this is all accepted by all economists with their head plugged in: vide Paul Krugman, _Peddling Prosperity_, or Bennett Harrison, _Lean and Mean_, etc. I suppose George Gilder might dissent, but, frankly, who cares?) These changes have benefited some people, but why on Earth should the rest of us encourage them, when we have no guarantee that these benefits ultimately _will_ be shared equitably? Given that they have a great deal to loose (affluence, education, security, etc., if not for themselves then for their spawn), and some means to resist, it would be surprising if people did not object; indeed, what needs to be explained is why there isn't _more_ resistance. (To avoid misunderstanding: I'm a technophile; I love computers; I'm a flaming net.geek; but that's very different from loving Bill Gates and his shareholders, and I think what we need to do is look for effective ways of sharing the very real benefits of new technologies, instead of trusting that things will take care of themselves, because they never do.) I won't even touch the bit about how it's beneficial to have the government run by visionaries able to sniff out trends; two futurists cannot pass each other in the street without smiling. Regards, Cosma *: I use this awkward label, rather than ``the information revolution,'' because the latter is simply not accurate. The best history of ``the technical and economic origins of the information society'', James Beniger's _The Control Revolution_, argues pretty conclusively that you cannot have an industrial economy without also having an information economy to control it, and that, at least in the USA, this was accomplished by the 1930s, if not earlier. The size of the information sector has been essentially stagnant since 1960. (It's best to see Beniger's book, which is really excellent, but I am immodest enough to mention two of my web pages: http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/reviews/beniger and ~shalizi/notebooks/machlup.html) --- http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/ This message banned for you by the Telecommunications Reform Act: For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. (Proverbs 23:27)