个人计算机与反文化篇（二）：专訪斯坦福传播学教授 Fred Turner
I don’t know where we’re headed, but I think the answer is in politics, not in technology, and especially not in using technology in lieu of politics.
2023年夏末，我们拜访了斯坦福大学与伯克利的校园，在互联网档案馆的大教堂内见到了Fred Turner教授。他高个热情，非常习惯于这样的学术对话，并带了最后一期《全球概览》以及他自己的新作《看见硅谷》来到访问现场。他的著作多半与技术与文化有关，特别是《从反文化到赛伯文化》一书，为我们勾勒了一条反文化与军工复合体、乌托邦理想共构的技术乐观主义的发展路径，此书简繁体中文版都早有，影响甚巨。
随后，我们本来约在斯坦福大学里的咖啡店，后来转至Palo Alto的酒吧，也就是他文中提及的一间酒吧，与Lee Felsenstein一起，又聊了几个小时。他的善谈开启了愉快的探访，使得历史与现在无比亲密。于是我们可以稍稍理解坐在酒吧坐在我们身旁人群，老嬉皮、科技新贵、金融黑帮的人们，如何在一个七万人的小镇上，成为今天控制世界最重要力量的一群人。
＊＊＊
访谈全文：
采访 / 黄孙权 崔雨 蔡泽锐
翻译编辑 / 黄孙权 刘怿斯
INS：第一个问题是关于你书中的文化框架。就像你书里写的《民主的环境》以及《从反文化到赛博文化》，你阐述了科技作为一种媒体形式的概念。我们喜欢文化如何重塑媒体的想法，这是特定历史背景下的特定情景。你能更多地谈谈你研究中文化框架的根源吗？为什么它们变得如此重要？
Fred Turner：让我稍微谈谈，关于两本书中《民主的环境》和《从反文化到赛博文化》中的文化框架。我们常常对自己讲述这样一个故事：媒体技术的出现就会改变一切。特别是在硅谷，这是一个非常普遍的故事。但是当你真正接触并观察这些技术时，你会发现不同的社区——艺术家、思想家、政治人物、活动家——他们发现这些新技术，开始与之互动，然后开始用新技术重新想象自己现有的计划。你可以最清楚地看到这一点，我认为这一点在反文化方面最为明显。
你知道，当反文化在60年代出现时，他们延续了40年代军事研究圈学到的一系列关于世界组织方式的想法。在这些观点中，控制论和计算机描绘了一个没有等级制度、没有政治的世界。一个我们只需要互相发出信号，机器就能相互通信的世界。如果我们也是机器，那么我们也能相互通信。所以，1960年代有一种源自科技界的社会愿景流行起来，但这是一种不再需要政治的社会愿景，我们所需要做的只是共享我们的思想，只要通信即可。
在我使用的框架里，技术并不是真的被用作其原本的用途——即通信工具，而是成为了一个我称之为“社会原型”的模型。这是一种关于我们如何组织社会的原型。而像反主流文化这样的社群会采用它，并用它来推广他们希望在世界上看到的生活方式。
INS：在这个框架内，文化和技术似乎是相互交织的。你如何看待更广泛的国际文化影响？
Fred Turner：这是一个非常有挑战性的问题。我认为很多美国人，尤其是二战后，认为技术是一种独特的美国产品。我们会将技术和消费文化输出到世界各地，世界将吸收它，并改变他们的政治体制。这代表了美国对中国的真实看法。在1960年代和1970年代，如你们所知，尼克松在此后去了中国。我们认为，如果我们帮助中国开放市场，中国将成为一个民主国家。因为不是每个人都想成为民主国家吗？这是一种深深的民族主义幻想。我认为它仍然与技术紧密相连，但实际情况却大不相同，实际情况更加国际化。
目前，硅谷超过50%的居民出生在美国以外的国家，硅谷一半的居民今天在家里所说的语言不是英语。硅谷是一个完全国际化的地方。自1970年代以来，随着航空旅行的兴起和新媒体技术的兴起，首先是电视和有线电视，现在是互联网，我们生活在一个美国人接触国际思想大为增加的世界中。
在1970年代，我的家庭接待了一位来访的中国研究生。我从来没有见过一个中国人，一个真正的中国人。那是在1970年代，那时我想，哦，天哪！我和我的姐妹们整天都在问她问题，这让她很疲惫。她人很好。今天甚至不需要问问题，社交世界的融合要深远得多，而且更加多样化。这创造了各种新的机会，我们可以看到和借鉴其他地方的文化设计。当然，我们也可以向其他地方输出美国的文化设计。
你知道，我认为这是这个时代最伟大的事情之一，我也认为这也是让人们紧张的事情。当我告诉我的学生们，我们生活在一个文化挪用（cultural appropriation）的时代时，他们对我非常生气。嗯，弗雷德，文化挪用是不好的，我们应该让每个群体拥有自己的独特文化。但我要说的是，生活不是那样运作的。印度音乐可以传到美国，深圳制造也可以传到美国。同样地，硅谷高度个体化、非常个体化的制造风格也可以传到其他国家。
说了这么多，这就是文化的力量。从这个意义上来说，我是反马克思主义者。我认为马克思总是说有一个基础和一个上层建筑，而在互联网时代，文化和文化上层建筑构成了一种新型的基础。
也就是说，技术确实有影响力。全球范围内正在发生一个我们称之为“大规模个体化”的过程，这是一个非常强大的过程。在1940和1950年代，人们担心电影院会让所有美国人和欧洲人都产生同样的想法，我们非常担心大众社会的趋同性。然而，如今我们正在经历完全不同的情况：全球正在推动个体化的进程。我们口袋里都有手机，可以随时连接到互联网。我在网上说一句话，30秒后就可能在中国传播开来，这简直不可思议！
过去，拥有广播的能力意味着必须有一个电视台，而如今，只需要一部iPhone。这种传播方式上的差异令人惊叹。同时，我们的媒体信息也变得截然不同。我敢打赌我们都有TikTok，或者类似的应用。我打赌你的TikTok和我的TikTok内容完全不同，这很有趣，对吧？所以，我们拥有这些高度个体化的媒体系统。
这种个体化又与其他两个现象紧密相连：消费品和交通运输。我们生活在一个消费品日益多样化、全球制造和流通更加广泛的世界中。现在很难判断某一件商品到底是在中国、美国还是孟加拉国制造的。在时尚界，这一点尤为显著，因为人们不断追求新的分类和设计，这也加强了个体化的过程。
除此之外，我们还有日益便捷的交通工具，比如飞机。我无法向你描述如今的旅行世界与我成长时有多大的不同。当我小时候，坐飞机是一件非常正式和罕见的事情，我大约十岁时全家坐了一次飞机。我们都穿着西装和裙装，我的父母穿着礼服，在机场下车时，妈妈还会帮我整理头发，因为那时旅行是一种极其奢华、非常特别的体验。现在，搭飞机就像是从一个大陆乘坐公共汽车到另一个大陆，极大地增加了文化交流的频率和文化差异的价值。
所以，我认为我们生活在一个文化差异、大规模个体化、以及支持这一切的技术正在推动社会和经济变革的时代。同时，每个社会根据自己的历史背景，以不同的方式应对这一变革，但我认为这些力量在各个社会中是相当相似的。
INS：你觉得现在的文化越来越趋同了？
Fred Turner：是的，也不是。我并不是说社会越来越相似，不，压力或许非常相似，但不同的社会对它们的反应却各不相同。我认为，你可以反驳说，消费文化正在全球化且变得相当相似。我去过上海，即使是20年前的上海，人们的穿衣风格也部分源于欧洲的影响。
你知道，我确信你也知道，我们正在关注中国的汽车制造商，很快我很可能会开一辆中国生产的电动汽车，这真是太棒了！所以，在消费文化的某些方面，确实有趋同的趋势。然而，仅仅因为你穿了一件法国衬衫，或者在美国听非洲音乐，并不意味着你改变了你的文化。
我们可以看到，不同国家在努力保护其传统文化，并试图通过使文化保持相对稳定的方式来应对正在发生的变化。我总是感到惊讶，尤其是在欧洲工作时，彼此相邻两千年的国家之间，文化竟然仍然如此不同。他们是如何做到的呢？即使在中国，我对中国的了解有限，但也知道中国南方和北方的文化差异极大。
INS：第三个问题实际上是关于斯图尔特·布兰德的。斯图尔特·布兰德是世界上非常重要的人物之一，人们对他有着截然不同的看法。有人认为他是一个预见未来的先知，另一些人则认为他是极端个人主义和新自由主义的象征。那么，你对布兰德的传奇怎么看？
Fred Turner：让我们首先来了解一下斯图尔特·布兰德是谁。斯图尔特·布兰德出生于二战后不久，在1960年代初他就读于斯坦福大学。那时他认为冷战和核毁灭随时可能发生。和他那一代的许多人一样，他渴望长大后不再以等级制、工业化和军事化的方式生活，因为这种生活方式似乎正是导致核毁灭的元凶。
然而，在成长过程中，他并不想放弃那些带给他快乐的技术，比如电视、收音机、音响，甚至后来的LSD。他成为了反主流文化的核心成员，加入了肯·基西的“欢乐捣蛋”团队。但是他最为人知的是创办了《全球概览》（Whole Earth Catalog）。现在可能看起来有些古怪，我很乐意随时给你一个近距离的观看。
这本《全球概览》首次出版于1968年，当时斯图尔特·布兰德和他的妻子洛伊斯拜访了一系列的公社，去看看人们需要什么样的工具。这是布兰德当时一个重要的举动。他还是一个社会学者称为“网络企业家”的人，在不同的社交网络之间创造了交汇点，通过一个事件或出版物将这些网络联系在一起。一旦人们聚集在一起并开始使用相同的语言，布兰德也能用这种语言去描绘愿景，于是他被认为是一个具有远见的人。
我认为他有些像P.T.巴纳姆（ P.T. Barnum）之于马戏团的角色。他不是马戏团演员，但没有他，马戏团就不成其为马戏团。这就是我对他的看法。《全球概览》是一本非常有趣的书，大约在1966至1973年期间，美国经历了有史以来最大规模的公社建设浪潮，几乎有一百万的美国人离开家园，搬到公社生活，他们开始与非亲属的人共同生活，搬到乡村。
布兰德看到了这一历史时刻的发生，他说，我要为这些人提供工具。然而，他并没有直接销售任何东西，而是列出一系列可能需要的工具，并告诉你如何找到这些工具。你无法通过这本目录买到任何东西，而是能够看到你可能需要的物品，找到获取它们的方式。史蒂夫·乔布斯后来认为，《全球概览》是谷歌的先驱，这个说法确实有一定道理，对吧？ 事实上，亚马逊的第一个程序员也是《全球概览》的成员，所以这本书对科技界的影响是深远的。
我感兴趣的是他对“工具”的理解。如果你要回到农田，你需要什么样的工具？比如拖拉机、吉普车、锄头、铲子等。然而，《全球概览》里80%的内容其实是书籍。这是最后一期全球概览的第322页，里面有一个巨大的计算器——为什么要用巨大的计算器呢？你还会看到一本书，比如《控制论的意外发现》或《数据研究》。为什么公社农场需要进行数据研究？这很不可思议吧？我的意思是 这个时候，毛泽东正在派人去农场，他们不会这样使用电脑，对吧？
答案是，对布兰德和他的社区而言，他们试图实现一种来自军事工业世界的梦想——这个梦想是消除政治，消除等级制度，成为如计算机的存在。我们可以分享信息、分享数据，看到一个通过看不见的系统相互连接的世界，他们称其为“意识”。在这种“意识”中，我们可以在我们专属场所建立一种新型社会。那个想法是科技世界和和反文化事物的融合，而布兰德的角色在于，他主持了这场对话。
你知道的，有时候我会开玩笑说，我们把美国革命的英雄搞错了。我们常谈论乔治·华盛顿，但其实我们应该谈论的是他的妻子玛莎·华盛顿，因为她在家中举办晚宴，把革命者们聚集在一起商讨大计。斯图尔特·布兰德就是科技界和反主流文化界的“玛莎·华盛顿”——他把这些人召集到一起，提供了讨论的平台。
因此，我认为追问布兰德到底是“远见”还是“问题”的根源，并不是最合适的。他是一个聚集者，一个如巴纳姆般的角色，一个为他周围正在发生的马戏团发声的人，他擅长找到适合马戏团的演出，重要的演出，他擅长发现辩论的前沿。
而且他也是一个迷人的家伙 你知道我遇见他的时候，你知道吗？当我遇见他时，他对我非常开放。他让我读他的日记，这是一件令人难以置信的事情 那些日记非常的私密。他让我接触到一切，他是一个我认为，深信于开放性的人。这种开放性既是反主流文化的，也是控制论的，你可以在如今的硅谷人们的生活和工作方式中，听到那种开放的回声。我非常钦佩这一点。我在许多政治问题上与斯图尔特·布兰德持不同意见，但撇开这些不谈，我非常钦佩他开放的心态，和能够团结不同社群，推动事物发展的能力。
INS：接下来的问题是关于性别批评和科技批评。从性别角度出发的批评指出《全球概览》这样的平台被白人男性主导强化了保守的文化规范和阶级权利动态，您如何看待科技在延续或挑战这些这些文化和权力动态方面的角色？
Fred Turner：太好了。我非常同意女性主义批评家的观点，她们认为科技世界在起源时是一个男性主义的地方，并且男性主义的互动模式被融入到了系统中。仇视女性主义在当今互联网社区中是一种组织力量。但我想要做的是区分”社区”和”机器”。如果回顾反文化，特别是斯图尔特·布兰德所参与的部分，那是一个非常男性化的世界。一个非常男性化，非常顺性别的世界。我研究反文化的一个原因是，我刚完成了一本关于越南战争的书，那个故事是如此悲伤和令人心碎，我必须得找点开心的事来做。我知道了，我来研究嬉皮士和公社，他们应该是快乐的。于是我开始进行这项工作，我开始和那些住在公社里的人交谈。他们却非常不开心。事实证明，公社是规则被抛到一边的地方，取而代之的是我称为“酷炫统治”。你会看到占主导地位的有魅力的男性运作一切，而女性则被压制。当我们去斯图尔特公社的时候，你知道嗎？斯图尔特·布兰德的妻子洛伊斯对我说，她说：「看，弗德，斯图尔特会去大房间，他们会和男人们一起做重要的决定，我和其他女人，我们去后面的房屋里，往水里加漂白剂，这样人们就不会生病。」
这是一个非常分隔的世界。公社的另一件事是，它们非常的白人化。虽然没有正式的种族歧视，但有很多非正式的排斥。我的意思是，你知道，人们只想和像他们一样的人在一起，这通常意味着接受过大学教育的白人，或有能力接受大学教育的人。我看过的大多数公社都没有有色人种，所以考虑到这种共同的起源，也许不足为奇的是随着这一代人进入加利福尼亚的科技世界，他们带着一些这个世界的无声假设。在科技界，我经常看到一些在公社中也曾见过的东西。在公社里，当你取消规章制度，当你去除官僚主义，消除了机构，然后你就说，啊 ！这里只有我和我的朋友。你会看到美国文化中最糟糕的规范，你得到了被放大（强化）的郊区，你让男人支配女人，这是非常传统，非常白人至上的，非常男性主义的。在科技界，當人们呼唤像Facebook或Instagram这样的与朋友分享的系统时，他们也在呼吁建立这种反制度，反官僚主义，我甚至认为是反民主的逻辑。他们呼唤一个魅力的世界，一个与属于和他们自己相似的人的世界，一个甚至歧视也不需要正式地发生的世界，因为它在非正式的情况下一直存在。我认为这种驱动力有助于新右派在美国的崛起，并且这是一个真正的问题。我认为这是由于科技界仍然存在高度性别歧视和种族歧视的现状，取决于你所处的科技领域。我的意思是，情况非常复杂。
我曾经在Facebook待了很长时间，当它还叫Facebook的时候，有一天早上我看着所有的工人走进总部，我就坐在门口观察着，许多不同的族裔，非常的多元，绝非大多数都是白人，而且也非常国际化，但在职业上并不一定非常多元化，所以事情变得复杂了。
我和摄影师Mary Beth Meehan合作了一本名为《看见硅谷》的书。我们试图展示硅谷的工人阶级长什么样子。这是一位在那里经营塔可莉亚店的女性，我对这本书感到非常自豪。有趣的是，当我们试图在美国出版这本书时，没有一个美国出版商愿意碰它他们说，这不是硅谷，理工男在哪里？马克·扎克伯格在哪里？埃隆·马斯克在哪里？
这正是我们要表达的，作为美国人，我们学会了看那些推动这个行业的精英白人男性。我们已经忘记了所有在这里工作且生活截然不同的有色人种。这是一位美洲原住民女性，她是一位非常重要的程序设计师，但鲜有人认识她。你可能知道，在硅谷我们有一个严重的无家可归者的问题。我所在的斯坦福大学，周围都是拖车，人们就像这样住在拖车里，因为住房太贵了。所以我想提出的问题是，反主流文化的动态是否已经成为硅谷精英企业家的动态？如果是的话它们又让我们看不到什么？我认为他们不让我们看到的是，他们是如何制造不平等的。
就像在1960年代，公社创造了一个比我们想象中更加由顺性别，白人男性主导的世界。硅谷正在创造一个比其领导人声称的更加不平等的世界。我们需要对此保持警惕。
INS：与上世纪60年代反主流艺术形式的反抗运动相类比，尽管两者都以共享技术乐观主义为特征。你如何看待现在的硅谷文化？
Fred Turner：要回答你有关今天硅谷抵抗的问题，我们必须要先回顾一下1960年代。我一直以为在1960年代只有一个反主流文化，我以为白天是反对越南战争的游行，晚上则是服用LSD。然后起床重复这个过程。所以我认为文化和政治的抗议是一样的。但事实并非如此，两种截然不同的抗议方式。其中一种是伯克利的新左派在真正寻求参政组织政党来改变政治制度，另一种是旧金山的新公社主义者，他们不想从事政治，他们认为他们应该只是获得技术、LSD、音乐，并且思想交流，拥有新的意识，这就是未来。
硅谷的幻想是，我们将通过不断改进的通信技术来实现变革。这是一种对科技公司经营者非常有利的幻想。如果你想在硅谷抵抗科技，你不能只作为一个使用者抵抗科技，你必须在工会中抵抗科技，你必须抵制机构中的技术，你必须走新左派的道路，而新左派的路线很像伯克利的路线。
我们现在开始看到这一点，我们看到科技工作者现在组成工会，甚至高管们现在也在组成工会，这对我们来说是非常新的。我认为这就是我们应该走的方向，科技行业的人们必须意识到他们是产业工人，而不仅仅是一种令人惊奇的设备和驱动它的反文化的神奇继承者。
INS：如果你能给今天的硅谷取一个新的名字，你会怎么称呼它？
Fred Turner：哦，天哪！这真的是我从来没有遇过这个问题，这真的是一个难题。让我们想一想可能的答案，我们称这里为硅谷，是因为这里生产芯片，我们往往忘记，这个地区是美国污染最严重的地理区域之一。整个谷地都有超级基金污染地点，超级基金污染地点是美国最严重的污染地，被公司遗弃，现在由州政府支付清理费用。我们這個县（郡）是美国所有县里超级基金污染地点最集中的地方。我想上次查的时候，我们有17位亿万富翁，所以我们可以称之其为”极端不平等和普遍污染的美丽山谷”。这有很多的词语，在称为硅谷前它被称为”心之乐谷”，就是这样被称呼的，它被称为心之乐谷，它是一个农业区域。我的房子所在的地方，在1954年之前都是农田，而心之乐谷现在，我不知道，也许制造不平等之谷？我不确定。
INS：下一个问题是关于硅谷的文化和技术。回顾一下硅谷的现代文化，你会如何描述在这个背景下出现的文化和技术之间错综复杂的关系？这种关系如何与我们这个时代的主流文化产生共鸣？
Fred Turner：硅谷的一个错觉是，你只需要考虑到硅谷的技术和文化，但是有一个第三要素，我们必须要整合进来，这对今天的硅谷非常的重要，那就是商业。这是一个高利润的盈利地区，它有意识地和明确地，采用自己的神话和历史来掩盖巨大的财富累积。所以，一方面在硅谷本地，我们有一种互相交流的文化，公司之间的界限非常开放，你可以和任何地方工作的人交谈。我会出去喝啤酒，坐在酒吧里，听到一些来自谷歌的惊人对话。我会想，你不应该在这里谈论这个，所以非常开放。但同时，也非常以利润为导向，而以利润为导向的部分体现在公司面向外部时。你会想到Facebook或者其他人工智能公司，它们本质上是采矿企业，就像我们过去开采煤矿，过去开采化石燃料一样，现在我们进入社交世界，开采我们的互动并将其作为在线产品转售，并附加广告。我们在硅谷告诉自己，我们正在通过让人们互相沟通，成为可能的方式改变世界。这是一种对没有政治只有共享思想的旧反文化梦想的复活，一个分享思想的世界，但这都是胡扯。这只是宣传，这是一种销售新的营销策略的方式被著名学者Shashana Zuboff 称为《监视资本主义》那是我们现在生活的世界，至少在硅谷，这是我们正在输出的文化。
最后要说的是，在关于Facebook或Google等地方的报道中，他们会告诉你所有用户都是平等的。看吧！我们为所有人开发了一项新技术，也许他们是这样做的，但他们开发的是使多数人失去财富的技术。大多数人成为了数据开采的来源，只有少部分人从中获利。这很像20世纪初煤矿工人砍伐山脉的情况。人们在矿井里工作，承受伤病，而矿主则住在完全不同的地方这是一个两面的情况。因为一方面没有什么改变，我认为我们真的是处于另一个掠夺性的工业时期，但我确实认为有些事情发生了变化，同时记住这些变化是很困难的。
我认为我们之前谈到的大规模个体化，是一个令人难以置信的现象。我认为媒体的景象让我们看到了世界上许多不同的生活方式。这是一件了不起的事情，我在一个非常小的乡村长大，在那里，那些个性阴柔的男性在他们小时候会被打。我看着我的女儿从八年级毕业，她当时13岁，她的一个朋友站在舞台上谈论，自己作为一个13岁的同性恋女性的经历。这在一代人之间是一个令人难以置信的变化。这是因为媒体，因为互联网，因为它向我们展示了世界的方式，所以一方面，是的，影响通常是相当负面，但并非完全负面。这是我们面临的挑战之一。
INS: 你对人们谈论历史和艺术感到非常有趣，你如何看待1960和70年代的硅谷？你如何看待那个时期的视觉文化或形象变化？
Fred Turner：硅谷的视觉文化已经发生了很大的变化。在1960年代 机器和文化都是不同的。那时的机器往往非常大，占据整个房间，有些笨重。人们才刚刚开始能够进行可视化绘图之类的事情，那时仍然非常集中于数字和单点应用。相比之下，这里的艺术场景，虽然很小，但却充满了手绘和嬉皮风。所以早期的苹果宣传材料，如果你能回头看看苹果最早的小册子都是手绘的，感觉就像是你的朋友给你的一幅图画。因此美学上的理念是：看呀！这些超级高性能的机器真的属于我们这个低调，回归自然，手写的世界。
这一切都发生了很大的变化，从1980年代开始，火人节便出现了。但我认为火人节是新美学的一个很好的代表。火人节是一个有7万人参加的节日，他们在沙漠中建造了一座城市，你住在不同的营地，不同的社区。你创作艺术，你创作了这些大型的以技术为中心的艺术形式。在硅谷艺术是相当高科技的和难以实现的，在那个沙漠中工作非常困难，非常的炎热，沙漠的沙子本身有点有毒，非常的痛苦，但人们还是做到了。我在那里花了很多时间，问他们为什么，他们说， 好吧，你知道，在这里，我基本上可以实现硅谷的价值观。他们告诉我这是在工作中可以做到的事情，但是我可以和我的朋友一起做，这是我的，我拥有它。所以你在硅谷有些项目团队正在制作高科技艺术，然后这些艺术有时会被送回旧金山成为城市的一部分，这就是我们现在的处境，所以手工制作真的改变了。
INS：你是否将Web3和区块链视为技术乌托邦传统的延续，还是它们带来了新的可能性？
Fred Turner：不，它们是技术乌托邦的一部分，尤其是区块链。它是一种幻想，可以追溯到1940年代。这个幻想是 ，再次强调，一个没有政府的世界的幻想，一个在这个世界中，技术和与技术合作的善良人们，可以取代不言而喻的权力至上的政治世界。我不认为这是有效的。区块链还没有显现出取代其他机构的能力，恰恰相反，你会看到区块链中出现了各种滥用行为，因为它是非机构化的，因为它没有受到监管，就像你曾经在股市中看到的那样。
所以，记住，我在斯坦福大学教书，这所大学培养出了山姆·班克曼-费里德。我不知道你是否熟悉山姆，山姆在比特币中进行了一个价值数十亿美元的骗局。他之所以在比特币中进行这个骗局，部分原因是这个行业基本是不受管制的。所以，不是，也许比特币真的是一种新的货币，很棒，但比特币会为大众创造出更幸福的社会吗？我非常怀疑。
INS：我们都知道当今科技界有很多问题。你认为，是否存在另一个世界或另一种方式去创造更美好的世界呢？
Fred Turner：这是一个非常好的问题。这个问题比我能给出的答案范围要大得多，但我会试试看，因为，你知道，为什么不呢？
近几年，几十年来，在硅谷，我们一直有一个幻想，即如果我们搭建某种技术，我们曾经称之为“意识技术”和“通信技术”，然后将它们建造得足够大，并将它们传播到全世界，一个新的、更民主的世界将会出现。我们看到这并不是真的。埃隆·马斯克目前控制着几乎所有“星链”所需的卫星，这是美国政府为乌克兰提供帮助的技术。我们依赖于单一的私营企业去运作，基本上是国家运作的项目。你可以看到这种私有化的趋势在许多不同的地方都在发生。所以，我觉得我们需要做的是找到一种方法来建立能够利用科技、限制科技，并改善我们生活的机构。我不认为技术增强的通信一定能使我们自由。它使我们个体化，但这于自由不同。
自由取决于拥有确保资源更平等分配的机构，确保在集体需求时，能以某种方式代表这种需求，而不仅仅掌握在一个领导者手中。你可以在科技领域以及其他许多地方看到这种私有化的冲动。在美国，私营公司正试图接管学校系统，他们试图接管医疗保健，他们已经接管了医疗保健。
我们如何拥有代表集体利益的机构？我们如何公正而有效地实现这一点？这是我认为的问题。我认为，你现在世界各地看到的是，不同的政治体系竞相提供这种机制。我认为每个系统都有一些优势，其中许多，包括我们自己的体系，倾向于独裁寡头统治，这是一个问题。
我不知道我们将会走向何方，但我认为答案在于政治，而不是技术，尤其是不要将技术用作政治的替代品。
附英文原问答稿
INS: The first question is about cultural frameworks in your book. Like in your book, The Democratic Surround and From Counterculture to Cyberculture, you articulated the concept of technology as a form of media. I like how culture reshapes media.It’s specific to the specific historical context. Could you tell us more about the roots of the cultural frameworks in your research? Why are they so vital?
Fred Turner: So, let me say a little bit about the cultural frameworks in both books, The Democratic Surround and From Counterculture to Cyberculture. We often tell ourselves a story that media technologies arrive and change things just by arriving. Especially in Silicon Valley, that’s a very common story, but when you actually get up close and look at the technologies, what you find are different communities of artists, thinkers, political people, activists who discover these new technologies, start interacting with them, and then begin to reimagine their own existing projects in terms of the new technologies. And you can see this most clearly, I think, with, oh, let’s see, I suppose with counterculture.
You know, when the counterculture comes along in the 1960s, they’re carrying forward a series of ideas about the way the world is organized that they have learned from the military research world of the 1940s.And in these ideas, cybernetics computing depicts a world without hierarchy, without politics, a world in which all we need to do is signal one another, and the machines will communicate with each other, and we can communicate with each other, as if we, too, were machines.
There’s a kind of social vision that comes to the 1960s from the tech world, but it’s a social vision in which we no longer need politics. All we need to do is share our minds.All we need to do is communicate.In the framework that I’m using there, the technology isn’t really a tool for communication yet; it will be. Rather, it’s a model, something I actually call a social prototype. It’s a prototype of a way we can organize society, and communities like the counterculture take that up and use it to promote a way of living that they otherwise want to see in the world.
INS: Within this framework, culture and technology appear to be intertwined. How do you view the broader international cultural impacts?
Fred Turner: This is a really challenging question. So, I think a lot of Americans, especially right after World War II, thought that technology was kind ofa uniquely American product, and that we would export technology and consumer culture to the world. The world would absorb it, and would change their political systems.Certainly, that was true in America’s view of China in the 1960s and 1970s. You know, finally, when Nixon went to China, after that we thought, “Well, if we just help China open up markets, China will become a democracy, because doesn’t everyone want to be a democracy?” And this is a kind of deeply nationalistic fantasy. That still clings, I think, to technologies. But the facts on the ground are quite different. The facts on the ground are much more international. Silicon Valley, more than 50% of the people who live in Silicon Valley today were born in a country other than the United States. More than half of the people who live in Silicon Valley today speak a language other than English at home. Silicon Valley is a fully international place. And since the 1970s, with the rise of air travel, the rise of new media technologies, first television and cable, and now the internet, we live in a world where our access, Americans’ access, to international ideas, is greatly enhanced.
So in my family in the 1970s, we had a visiting Chinese graduate student, and I had never met a Chinese person, like a real Chinese person. It was in the 1970s. It was like, “Oh my gosh!” My sisters and I just asked her questions all day long. She was so tired of it. She was very nice. Today, it’s not even a question.The integration of the social world is much more serious and much more diverse. That creates all kinds of new opportunities. We can see and borrow cultural designs from other places, and of course, we can offer cultural designs from the States to other places too.You know, I think, that’s that’s one of the greatest things about this time. I think it’s also something that makes people very nervous. When I say to my students, that we live in an age of cultural appropriation, They get really angry with it. They say, “Well, Fred, cultural appropriation is bad. We need to allow each group to have their own authentic culture.” And I say, “Life doesn’t work like that, you know.Indian music can come to the States, you know, Shenzhen manufacturing can come to the States.” And by the same token, the highly personalized, highly individualized style of manufacturing, that we have in Silicon Valley, can and does travel to other countries.
Having said that, that was all about the power of culture.In that sense, I’m an anti-Marxist. I think thatMarx always said that there was a base in the superstructure. I think today in the Internet era, culture and cultural superstructure is a new kind of base. That said, technologies do have impact, and one of the things that we can see, I think, happening around the worldis a process that we can call mass individualization. And it’s a really powerful process. In the 1940s and 50s, we were worried that cinema would make all Americans and Europeans just think the same thing. We were very worried about mass society. Today we have something very different going on. We have a kind of global push toward individuation. We have cell phones in our pockets. We have instant internet contact. I can say something online and it can be in China in 30 seconds. That’s incredible. It used to be to have broadcasting power, you had to have a television station.
Today, all you have to have is an iPhone. That’s an amazing difference.Likewise, of course, our media feeds are very different. I bet we both have TikTok, or something like that. And I bet your TikTok and my TikTok are very different. And that’s fascinating, right? So we have these highly individualized media systems. That in turn couples up with two other phenomena. I think one is consumer goods and the other is transportation. We live in a world where consumer goods are becoming ever more differentiated and ever more globally manufactured and circulated. It’s very hard now to tell whether something was made in China, the United States, Bangladesh, and you can see it in fashion. The kind of constant seeking for new, new, new divisions that enhances this process of individuation. Along with that, we have transportation. We have airplanes. I cannot tell you how different the travel world is now than when I grew up. When I grew up, to go on an airplane, it was like, my family went on an airplane when I was about 10. We were dressed in suits. My sisters wore beautiful dresses. My mother and father dressed in a suit and a dress. We were very formal. We were very careful in how we presented ourselves. My mother combed my hair when we got out of the car at the airport. Because travel was so rare, so luxurious, so special. Now it’s like we all ride buses from continent to continent. That in turn increases both the frequency of cultural exchange and the value of cultural difference. So I think we live in a time when cultural difference, mass individuation, and technologies that support that are driving social and economic change in many societies. And each society is dealing with it a little bit differently depending on their history, but the forces, I think, are quite similar across societies.
INS: Do you think that today’s cultural differences become more and more the same?
Fred Turner: No, I don’t. I don’t mean that societies are ever more the same. No, I think the pressures are very similar, but societies react to them in very different ways.I think that, you know, you could argue that consumer culture is becoming globalized and quite similar. You know, I’ve been to Shanghai, and even Shanghai 20 years ago, people were dressing with styles borrowed from Europe. And you know, I’m sure that, you know, I know that we’re looking at Chinese auto manufacturers, and sometimes quite soon, I’m quite likely to be driving an electric Chinese car. Okay, great. So consumer culture might be leveling in that way, but just because you are wearing a French shirt, or here in the States, maybe listening to African music, does not mean that you’ve changed your culture. I think we can see strenuous efforts in different nations to preserve traditional cultures, and to try to manage the changes that are underway in ways that keep the culture somewhat similar. I’m always amazed.
I work in Europe a lot, and I’m always amazed when I’m there how different the cultures are in countries that have been next to each other for 2000 years. How do they do that, right? And, or even with what littleI know about China, within China, the south and the north are very different.
INS: So, the third question is actually about Stewart Brand.Stewart Brand is a very important figure in the world.And people actually have very different opinions. Some people view him as a visionary who anticipates trends, while other people recognize him as an icon presenting extreme individualism and neoliberalism. What’s your perspective on the legacy of Brand’s creations?
Fred Turner: So let’s begin by thinking about who Stewart Brand has been. Stewart Brand was born not long after World War II, went to college at Stanford in the early 1960s, at a time when he thought the Cold War nuclear holocaust was about to happen at any moment. And like other members of his generation, he wanted to grow up to become an adult who did not have a kind of hierarchical, industrial, military way of living, of the kind that seemed to have produced the nuclear holocaust. But he also wanted to grow up in a way where he didn’t have to get rid of the technologies that had given him so much pleasure: television, radios, stereos, and very soon after that, LSD. And, you know, he became a central member of the counterculture. He joined Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, most famously. But what he was best known for was creating this: The Whole Earth Catalog. This might look a little bit funky now, and I’m happy to give you a close-up view at any point.
But so this was published first in 1968, and it came about when Stewart Brand and his wife Lois went to a series of communes to see what kinds of tools people needed. And this is the quintessential Stewart Brand move. Stewart Brand is, what a sociologist would call, a network entrepreneur. He finds the place between different social networks, creates an event or a publication that brings the networks together. And then once they come together, the network starts speaking the same language. And once they do that, he can speak it too, and so suddenly he hears the visions around him and can be credited as a visionary.
I would argue that he’s a little bit like P.T. Barnum was to the circus. He’s not a circus performer, but without him, there’s no circus. That would be my take. So, the Whole Earth Catalog is interesting. From 1966 to 1973, more or less, was the largest wave of commune building in American history. Almost a million Americans leave their homes and move to communes. They start living with other people to whom they weren’t related; they move out to the countryside. Brand sees this moment going on, and says “I’m gonna give them tools.” But what he does is he creates a list of tools, and then shows you how to get them.You can’t actually buy anything through this catalog, All you can do is see things that you might need and figure out how to get them for yourself. Steve Jobs would later argue that this was a forerunner of Google, right? And it makes a certain amount of sense. Amazon’s first programmer was part of the Whole Earth Catalog team. So it feeds directly into the tech world. But what’s interesting to me is what he thought a tool was. If you were going back to the land and working on a farm, what kind of tools would you want? Yeah, like a tractor, a jeep, a hoe, a backhoe, something to dig with, a shovel. Me too. That’s not what’s in here. What’s in here—there’s some of that—but 80% of what’s in the Whole Earth Catalog is actually books. So here’s page 322 from the last Whole Earth Catalog. And look what they’ve got for tools: this is a giant calculator. Why do you need a giant calculator? Right? Why do you need that? Or why do you need a book?I think, where is it? It’s called Cybernetic Serendipity. Here it is: Data Study. Why do you need to do data study on a commune farm? I mean, this is the same time when Mao is sending people to the farms. They’re not using computers like this. Why?
And the answer turns out to be that for Stewart Brand and his community, they were trying to live out a dream that actually came from the middle of the military-industrial world. And the dream was one where we could do away with politics, do away with hierarchy, and instead become literally like computers: we could share information, we could share data, we could see that the world was interconnected through invisible systems, and we could call that whole business “consciousness.” And from that consciousness, we could build a new kind of society in our set-aside places. All right. That idea is a fusion of tech world thingsand countercultural things, and Brand is important because he hosts that conversation.
You know, I like to say a lot, like, you know, that I like to say that we got the heroes of the American Revolution wrong. We always talk about George Washington, but the person we should be talking about is Martha Washington, his wife, because she has the dinners at the house where all the revolutionaries come together and make their plans. Stewart Brand is the Martha the tech world and the counterculture.He brings these folks together and has the dinners, and this is one of them. So, I don’t think it’s quite the right question to ask whether Brand is a visionary or a problem. Brand is a gatherer, a Barnum, a spokesman for a circus that is happening all around him. He is a genius at finding the right acts for the circus, the important acts for the circus. He is a genius at spotting the leading edge of debates, and he is also a fascinating guy. You know, when I met him, he was very, very open with me. He let me read his diaries, which is an incredible thing – very intimate diaries. He gave me access to everything. And he’s somebody who, I think, deeply believes in openness in a way that is both countercultural and cybernetic, and you can hear echoes of that openness in the way that people live and work in Silicon Valley today.
I very much admire that. Now, I disagree with Stewart Brand on many political issues, but setting that aside, I very much admire his openness and his ability to gather different communities together to move something forward.
INS: So this question is about gender critics in the technological movement. The question is critiques have emerged from a gender perspective, asserting that platforms like the Whole Earth Catalog were dominated by white males, reinforcing conservative cultural norms and hierarchical power dynamics. How do you perceive the role of technology in either perpetuating or challenging these aspects of culture and power dynamics?
Fred Turner: Great.So, I very much agree with feminist critics who argue that in its origins, the tech worldw as a masculinist place, a nd masculinist modes of interaction were built into the system. It’s also very clear that misogyny is an organizing force among different internet communities today. But what I want to do is distinguish the communities from the machines. If you go back to the counterculture, especially to the part of it that Stewart Brand is a part of, it is a deeply masculine world, a very male world, a very straight world. One reason I studied the counterculture was that I had just finished a book about the Vietnam War, and the story about the Vietnam War was so sad and heartbreaking.I’m like, “I have to work on something happy. I know, I’ll work on hippies and communes, and they’ll be happy! And so then I go and I do that work, and I start talking to people who lived on communes, and they’re very unhappy. It turns out that communes are places where rules get pushed aside, and instead of rules, what you get is what I call “rule by cool.” You get dominant charismatic men running the place, women being pushed down.And you know, Stewart Brand’s wife, Lois, said to me,” Look, Fred, when we would go to communes, Stewart would go to the big room, and they would make important decisions with the men. Me and the other women, we’d go to the back room and put bleach in the water so people didn’t get sick.”
It is a very segregated sort of world. The other thing about the communes was that they were very white, and it wasn’t that there was official racism, but there was a lot of that kind of unofficial exclusion. Like, I mean, you know, people just wanted to be with people like themselves, and that meant generally white folks with college educations or the ability to get them. And most of the communes I looked at had no people of color at all.So, given that kind of communal origin, it maybe isn’t so surprising that, as that generation moves into the tech world in California, it carries with it some of the sort of unspoken presumptions of that world. Something I see a lot in the tech world is something I saw in the communes.In the communes, when you take away regulation, when you take away bureaucracy, when you take away institutions, and you just say, “Ah, it’s me and my friends,” what you get are the worst norms of American culture. You get the suburbs on steroids. You get men dominating women.It’s very straight.It’s very white. It’s very macho.In the tech world, when people call for systems, like Facebook or Instagram, that are about sharing with my friends, They’re also calling for this kind of anti institutional, anti bureaucratic, and I would argue anti democratic logic. They’re calling for a world of charisma, a world of people like themselves, a world where discrimination doesn’t even have to be done officially, because it’s so present constantly unofficially. I think that drive has has helped give rise to the new right in America and it’s a real problem.
I think it depends on the degree to which the tech world is still highly misogynistic and racist. Depends on what part of the tech world you’re in.I mean, and it gets very complicated.I spent a lot of time at Facebook when it was still Facebook, and I was there one morning when I watched all the workers come into the headquarters building. I just sat by the door and watched them. Very diverse ethnically, very diverse. Not at all mostly white folks, but also very international, and not necessarily very diverse professionally. So it gets complicated. I did a book with a photographer named Mary Beth Meehan called Seeing Silicon Valley, where we tried to surface what the working class in Silicon Valley looked like, and, you know, here’s a woman who runs a taqueria there. I’m very proud of the book.It was interesting to me that when we tried to publish the book in the United States, no American publisher would touch it.They said, “That’s not Silicon Valley. Where are the tech bros? Where’s Mark Zuckerberg? Where’s Elon Musk?” And that’s our point exactly. As Americans, we’ve learned only to look at the elite white menwho drive this part of this industry.We’ve learned to forget all of the people of color who just work here and whose lives are very different.This is a Native American woman. She’s a really important coder, not widely recognized. You may know that we have a huge homeless problem here in Silicon Valley. Stanford University, where I work, is surrounded by trailers, and people living inside their trailers like this because the housing is too expensive.
So, I guess the question I’m trying to raise is: Have the dynamics of the counterculture become the dynamics of elite entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley? And if they are, what are they keeping us from seeing? And I think what they’re keeping us from seeing is how they are producing inequality. In the same way that in the 1960s, communes produced worlds that were much more straight, white, male than we ever think. Silicon Valley is producing a world that is much more unequal than its leaders claim it is. And we need to be alert to that.
INS: Can you tell us about the resistance of the counterculture movement in the 1960s against dominant artistic forms that, how do you perceive the culture of Silicon Valley now, although both were characterized by shared technological optimism?
Fred Turner: So, to answer your question about resistance in Silicon Valley today, we have to go back to the 1960s for a moment. I always thought there was one counterculture in the 1960s.
I thought it was marching against the Vietnam War during the day, and then taking LSD at night, getting up, doing it again. So cultural and political protest, I thought, were the same. Turns out, not to be true.T wo very different ways of doing protest. One, in Berkeley, the New Left, really seeking to do politics, form parties to change a political system. The other, the New Communalists, based in San Francisco and then on the communes. They didn’t want to do politics at all. They thought the y should just get technology, get their LSD, get their music, and get their heads together, have a new consciousness, and that would be the future. The fantasy in Silicon Valley is that we will make change by getting ever better communication technologies. That’s a fantasy that serves the people who run tech companies very well. If you’re going to resist tech here in the Valley, you don’t resist tech as a user. You have to resist tech in a union. You have to resist tech in an institution. You have to take the New Left road, and the New Left road is very much sort of the Berkeley road.
We’re starting to see that now. We see tech workers now forming unions, even executives are forming unions now, which is very new for us. That’s where I think we have to go.People in the tech industry have to realize that they are industrial workers, not just magical inheritors of an incredible device and the counterculture that fuels it.
INS: If you could give a name to Silicon Valley now, what would it be?
Fred Turner: What a great question! If I could name Silicon Valley, what would I name it now? Huh…Oh my…That is really…I’ve never had that question, and that is a tough one.Well, let’s think about what might go into the answer. So we call it Silicon Valley after the chips. We tend to forget that this region is one of the most polluted geographies in America. We have Superfund sites all through the Valley. Superfund sites are the most polluted sites in America; they’ve been abandoned by companies, and the state has to pay for them now. We have the highest concentration of those in one county here of any county in America. We have, I think last time we checked, we had 17 billionaires just in Silicon Valley. So we might call it “The Beautiful Valley of Radical Inequality and Ubiquitous Pollution.” It’s a lot of words. You know, before it was Silicon Valley, it was called the Valley of Heart’s Delight. That’s what it was called. It was called the Valley of Heart’s Delight, and it was a farming area. Where my house is was farmland until they built my house in 1954. And the Valley of Heart’s Delight, now…I don’t know. I mean…The Valley of Inequality Production? I’m not sure.
INS: The next question is about culture and technology nowadays. According to the modern culture of Silicon Valley, how would you describe the intricate relationship between culture and technology that emerges in this context? How does this relationship resonate with the prevailing culture of our time?
Fred Turner: So, one of the illusions of Silicon Valley is that all you need to do to think about the Valley is think about its technologies and its culture. But there’s a third piece that we have to reintegrate, and it’s very central to the Valley today, and that’s business. This is a highly profitable, for-profit region that is deliberately and explicitly taking up its mythology, taking up its history to mask a tremendous effort at making a huge amount of money. So, on the one hand, locally in Silicon Valley, we have a culture where we talk to each other.The boundaries of companies are very open; you can talk to anybody who works anywhere.I’ll go out for beers, and I’ll be sitting in the bar, and I’ll be hearing these amazing conversations from Google.I’m like, “We shouldn’t be talking about that here!” So, very open, but at the same time,very profit-driven.And the profit-driven part comes in as the companies face outward. You think about a Facebook or even different AI companies. They are essentially mining enterprises. As we used to mine coal, as we used to mine fossil fuels, now we take the social world, and we mine our interactions, and we resell them as products online, and we attach advertising to them. We tell ourselves here in the Valley that we’re changing the world by making it possible for people to communicate with one another. That’s a resuscitation of the old countercultural dream of a world without politics, a world of just shared mind. But it’s bullshit. It’s just…it’s propaganda. It’s a way of selling a new marketing strategy that Shoshana Zuboff has famously called “Surveillance Capitalism.” That’s where we live now.
And at least in Silicon Valley, that’s the culture that we’re exporting now. The last thing to say is that in the stories about places like Facebook or Google, they will tell you”all users are equal. “Look, we make a technology for everyone – maybe they do. But they make a technology whose wealth disenfranchises most people. Most people are sources of mining data; a few people profit from that.It’s a lot like the early 20th century, when coal miners chopped up mountains, and people worked in the mines, and they got sick, and the owners lived somewhere else completely. It’s a mixed bag, because on the one hand, nothing changes in the sense that we really are,I think, in another predatory industrial period. But I do think some things change, and it’s hard to remember those at the same time. I think that the mass individuation we talked about earlier is an incredible phenomenon. I think that a mediascape that allows us to see so many different ways of being in the world is an incredible thing. I grew up in a very small town in the countryside where men who were effeminate there, when they were boys, would be beaten up.I watched my daughter go to her graduation from eighth grade. She was 13, and one of her friends stood on the stage and talked about what it was like to be a 13-year-old gay woman. That’s an incredible change in one generation, and it’s because of media, because of the internet, because of the ways that it shows us the world. So on the one hand, yes, the effects are often quite negative, but not exclusively negative. And this is one of our challenges.
INS: You were very delighted to see people talking about history and art. How do you seethe 1960s and 1970s Silicon Valley? How do you see the visual culture or the image changes during that time?
Fred Turner: So, the visual culture of Silicon Valley has changed a lot. In the 1960s, both machines and culture were different: The machines tended to be very large, room-sized, kind of clunky. People were only just beginning to be able to do visual drawing kinds of things.It was still very number-heavy and point-heavy. By contrast, the art scene here, such as it was, was very hand-drawn, hippie-fied. So the early Apple materials, if you can go back and look at early Apples, Apple’s very earliest pamphlets, they were all hand-drawn. They felt like a drawing that your friend had given you, and so the aesthetic was one of “Look, these super high-powered machines really belong in our very low-key, back-to-the-land, hand-written world.” That’s changed a lot.
Starting in the 1980s, the Burning Man Festival came along. But I think Burning Man is a very good representative of the new aesthetic. Burning Man is a festival where, last time, 70,000 people went. And they build a city out in the desert, and you live in different camps, different communities. And you make art. You make these large, technologically-centered art forms. And in Silicon Valley, the art is pretty high-tech and pretty hard to do. It’s very difficult to work out in that desert.It’s very hot. The desert sand itself is sort of toxic. It’s miserable.But people do it. And I asked them why they spent a lot of time there.And they say, “Well, you know, here, I can basically live out the values of Silicon Valley, the things they tell me I can get at work. But I can do it with my friends, and it’s my own. I own it. So you have these project teams working in the Valley, making high-tech art. And then that art will sometimes be sent back to San Francisco to be part of the city. That’s where we are now. And so the hand-making has really changed.
INS: Do you see Web3 and blockchain as an extension of technological utopian tradition, or do they entail new possibilities?
Fred Turner: No, they’re part of techno-utopianism, and blockchain in particular is part of a fantasy that we can trace back to the 1940s. And the fantasy is, again, this fantasy of a world without government. A world in which technologies and good-hearted people working with technologies can replace the self-evidently power-hungry worlds of politics. I don’t think it’s effective. Blockchain has not shown the ability to replace other institutions.On the contrary, you see the kinds of abuses in blockchain because it’s deinstitutionalized, because it’s not regulated, that you used to see in the stock market. So remember, I teach at Stanford, which producedSam Bankman-Fried. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Sam.Sam ran a multi-billion dollar scam in Bitcoin. And he ran that in Bitcoin in part because the industry was basically deregulated. And so, no, Maybe bitcoin is a new kind of money. Great. But will Bitcoin produce a happier society for more folks? I doubt it very much.
INS: We all know there are lots of questions in the tech world today. Do you thinkt here is any alternative world or alternative way to get better world?
Fred Turner: Yeah. It’s a really great question.And it’s a much bigger question than I could probably give a real answer to. But I’ll try, because, you know, why not? For some years now, for some decades, the fantasy in Silicon Valley has been that if we build tech – we used to call technologies of consciousness, technologies of communication -and we build them large enough and we spread them throughout the world,a new, more democratic world will emerge. We’re seeing that that’s not true. Elon Musk, at the moment, controls almost all of the satellites that are required for Starlink, which is the American government technology for providing help to the Ukrainians.We are dependent on a single private enterprise for what is essentially a national project. And you see that kind of privatization move happening in lots of different places.
So my sense is that what we need to do is actually find ways to build institutions that can use tech, constrain tech, and improve our lives. I don’t think that technologically enhanced communication necessarily frees us. It individuates us, but that’s not the same thing as being free. Being free depends on having institutions hat ensure the more equal distribution of resources, that ensure that when there’s a collective need, that need is represented in some way, and it’s not just in the hands of one leader. You see this privatization impulse in tech in many other places.In America, private entities are trying to take over the school system, they’re trying to take over healthcare, they’re taking over healthcare. How do we have a representative of the collective good? How do we have institutions that do that fairly and well? That’s, I think, the question, and I think that one of the things you see around the world right now is different political systems competing to provide that. And I think every system has some things that are strong; many of them, including our own, tend toward authoritarian oligarchy. That’s a problem.
I don’t know where we’re headed, but I think the answer is in politics, not in technology, and especially not in using technology in lieu of politics.