In a thought-provoking (and slightly tongue-in-cheek) twenty-minute lecture, Kevin Kelly dares to ask: what is technology? What does technology want? And in terms of human society and culture, what is technology’s view of the world?
Thinking of technology as having a life of its own has sparked many a scary work of science fiction. But Kelly carefully takes us through the five major trends in the evolution of life on earthubiquity, diversity, specialization, complexity, and socializationand proceeds to demonstrate how the development of technology has followed these same trends. He concludes that technology is the seventh kingdom of life.
Technology is like a singularity, says Kelly. Before the Big Bang all matter was compressed into a single point, leaving no room for difference. When all of this expanded, so began diversity, freedom, possibility, choice. This, he says, is what technology brings us. Freedoms, possibilities, choices. Perhaps we have a moral responsibility to invent new technologies so that the children of the world can express their own particular talentsafter all, he points out, what would have become of Mozart if the piano hadn’t yet been invented?
There are bad sides to technology. How could deforestation happen without it? But, taking the example of DDT, Kelly suggests that technologies are always in search of their proper home. DDT is a horrible chemical to use as a pesticide, but when it is used to kill mosquitoes and lower rates of malaria, it turns out that it’s not the embodiment of evil after all.
Life, according to Kelly, is an infinite game. Your assignment is to spend the rest of your life figuring out what your assignment is. Technology is what helps us to play the infinite game.
