A Letter to Our Readers — “Technology is neutral, but we are not.”
Wonk Bridge’s Letter to Our Readers for 2019
As the year comes to a close, it is time for the Wonk Bridge editorial to string our community’s work together. This ambitious (or desperate) task, to place it all into context, is a hapless yet crucial one.
I write this letter to you the old fashioned way, with felt tip on paper (until it gets digitised because 21st century writing — am I right?). My handwriting has gotten worse, perhaps due to lack of practice. Or it’s the missing preacher — I mean the teacher — glaring over my shoulder during lunch breaks.
I write this letter to you the modern way, my hand shakes as I find just enough shoulder space in a jam-packed train bound for Gatwick airport, which is currently under occupation by drone.
We at Wonk Bridge often find ourselves on the optimistic side of the tech debate. We will paint you pictures of a brave new world that awaits the rest of your lifetimes. But 2018 forces us to reframe this optimism in a more constructive way.
My foray into Eastern science-fiction and my Co-Founder’s adventure deep into the corpus of Western philosophy have caused us to rediscover what technological change really means in the bigger picture; the way humanity thinks, feels, acts… exists. Trains and planes may run late, and often. Taxes and bills may come too early. Starbucks may run out of business, but you’ll always have access to your favourite coffee, a homogeneous blend of beans that are unsuited bedfellows, roasted until all their native character yields no flavour and so fails to obstruct the utility of the coffee itself (isn’t that an apt metaphor). We know the answer to What technologies do. We do not know the answer to what technologies will do.
Rather than focus on what technology does now in order to figure out what it will do, Wonk Bridge has attempted to explore why technology is used for what it does.
Once set on this path, we discovered a huge community of individuals using technology in creative ways to improve the world around them. Disparate individuals fighting for various causes: for truth, for culture, for the scientific-method, for “equality”, for family, for identity. Human is an enterprising creature which seeks to find new ways to improve its place in the world. Our puny “fights” may not change much in the broader scheme of things, but they define who we are. These fights are all droplets that water the tree of our humanity.
Wonk Bridge is a technology think tank. So, we think about something neutral, technology, in an environment that is far from neutral. We join as a fellow droplet to lubricate discourse on technology’s potential, its uses, its future. Oftentimes, this calls for an introspective exercise of exploring the annals of history, the halls of philosophical enquiry, and the tiny file-cabinet of human psychological understanding.
Looking back at our year, we began with the military’s nuclear deterrence strategy for cyberspace. Clément Briens explained how this could only partially protect us from nation-state cyber-attacks; a 20th century answer to a 21st century problem. This article also highlighted an eternal paradox. Those least acquainted with novel technologies often find themselves at the helm of the most advanced technological apparatuses.
Jackson Webster, a cyber policy-analyst and good friend, eloquently painted Mark Zuckerberg’s Congressional hearing. A jaw-dropping collision of two worlds. The supernova of awkwardness that ensued in the hearing only helped to highlight two more lessons. One, the gap of technology know-how between senior public servants and Silicon Valley engineers. Two, the gap between the people you and I see on TV, and the People — you don’t see on telly.
Wonk Bridge chooses to feature those found in the second camp. They say unknown and disenfranchised, we say driven and enterprising. I am honoured to have met some of you, who find ways of exploiting technologies to better you and other peoples’ lives.
Max explored how cryptocurrency has been and could yet be used to usher new life into the art industry. Crypto already offers artists new ways of financing their self-expression, sometimes constrained by the highly controlled environment of art financing.
Edward Zhang wrote of the People of Shenzhen, trailblazers which cleared the path for web giants Tencent and Alibaba in China. Take HAXCR8R, a grassroots manufacturing ecosystem which helped grow 118 start-ups and the city to global prominence.
Then those individuals gleefully pursuing what would appear to be highly specified cultural interests like Aaron Suduiko, Founder of a videogaming narrative lab, only to discover that his passion is shared by millions; a passion he was, delightfully, more than willing to share with us in a wonderful integration of visions.
But technology is neutral. Yes, it is. So, we also keep our eyes peeled to the perversions of technology. Max spent long hours this year compiling what will become a major series in 2019, Homo Digitalis or how technology has re-wired our bodies and minds. How pornography has diminished libido in adolescents. Or how gene-editing, already being used to inhibit certain conditions, can be used to discriminate against entire population subsets. Cyberattacks can yet again celebrate another record-breaking year. Much to the despair of countless companies, lost with little guidance on how to prepare for and react when disaster strikes. “Killer robots” (robots used for the explicit purpose of killing as primary or secondary objective), as Jessica “Zhanna” Malekos Smith investigated are only a hop and skip away.
Technology is neutral, but we are not. How can we respond to the impact other people (augmented by technology) have on us? Humans are a surprising resilient species. We fall for the tallest tales yet can flow once again from the deepest ebbs. Wonk Bridge’s New Year’s oath lies in continuing its mission. To improve the conversation about society through the lens of technology (of change, really). If 2018 exposed the potential of technologies to come, 2019 will dive deep into how we humans will deal with change.
Our year is packed with more questions than answers. But that’s how we like it here. What a tragedy it would be, to one day run out of questions and have all of the answers…
