Kevin Kelly Quotes
Our society lacks a feedback loop for controlling technology: a way to gauge intended effects from actual effects later on
Kelly, Kevin. What Technology Wants. Viking, 2010.
Most scientists do not have the skill or the totality of knowledge to accurately predict the effect of scientific research and learning on society. Many are not interested. Those who try to communicate with politicians and the public are usually met with indifference or suspicion. Above all, the scientific and mathematical literacy of the public is so weak, that it is impossible in much of science to even explain the science to the lay public much less explain its implications. Soddy was a bit of an idealist from a class society and he felt the upper classes should be better informed by scientists.
There is an opposite school of thought which argues that because technology develops so fast, by the time you legislate about it of you understand it, it is too late to prevent major problems and abuses which can become institutionalized. Instead it is argued, legislate rapidly BEFORE you understand all the consequences and then repeal and revise very frequently as the technology develops. This school argues that Schmidt’s view is tantamount to not legislating at all as it will ALWAYS be too late if you wait till you understand the consequences.
One fascinating thing about this quotation is the date. It would be the next 150 years where the great scientific leaps would take place. There was no inkling of computers or nuclear weapons.
See {626813} for another quotation on this point.
He made this quotation in a discussion about nuclear weapons, but the principle is valid for many areas from the Internet to pharmaceuticals. In the nuclear weapons case there have been a number of accidents – including fatal ones – over the years and on several occasions a nuclear weapon came close to detonating near populated areas. In one case, radiation damage from a crash of a nuclear weapons equipped bomber have made an area in Spain unusable for years into the future.
Kevin Kelly (born 1952) is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Review. He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture.
