O brave new world, that has such people in’t!

Is the refusal to accept progress a sudden decision, or a gradual one? Will you wake up one day, and over a bowl of soggy corn flakes (or, later in life, bran flakes) say to yourself, “no longer will I learn new things about the world, no further will I expand my mind, no more improvement?” What in the human mind prevents us from remaining as flexible as our successors? Baby boomers and older throw up their hands in bewilderment as we kids deftly navigate the ever-expanding and ever-interconnecting web of technologies — obviously these advances came after their tolerance for gadgetry disappeared. But for those of us at the leading edge of Generation Y, the ubiquity of the Internet was not always a facet of our existence. Will our adaptability thus far prepare us for future change? Or will we too succumb to nostalgia and complacency?

Of course it is by casting the question as one of simple progress that the Luddites seem so foolish. Remember also that the Luddites, the world’s most famous technophobes, protested the Industrial Revolution not necessarily for moral reasons, but for economic ones. Technology has a displacing effect, and what is most often displaced is someone’s job or societal role. When the ambiguous nature of progress is revealed, previous generations’ hesitancy seems less inappropriate.

Then here is the heart of the matter: are we progressing or regressing? Social conservative rhetoric warns us of eroding moral fabric (to mix a metaphor) and critics bemoan the dearth of quality art and literature. The unprecedented access (among the relatively wealthy) to information has perhaps increased mental laziness (why memorize multiplication tables when you have a calculator handy?) Even so, you complain, I have provided yet another false dichotomy: isn’t the world ultimately static, with every leap forward balanced by a setback elsewhere? But if we truly believed this, why the irrepressible drive to accomplish?

True, progress for progress’ sake is pointless, if not harmful. But rather than fearful caution or mindless enthusiasm, we need thorough dialogue among legislators, investors, inventors and users. The field of converging technology borrows Peter Galison’s trading zone concept to describe synergetic relationships between stakeholders with seemingly disparate goals. For example, Iqbal Quadir engendered such a trading zone in Bangladesh, bringing microcreditors, low-cost mobile telephone providers and remote villages together. This has triggered economic growth that would have been difficult, if not impossible, without Quadir’s precise understanding of the dynamics of impoverished Bangladeshi villages, the lowering costs of wireless technology and the willingness of creditors to loan uncharacteristically small sums. Naturally, such arrangements may provide interesting lessons for other problems, but will rarely scale up painlessly; one size doesn’t fit all when seeking technological solutions to social problems.

To bring the social aspect of technology back home again, let’s revisit the computer-avoiding elderly. As we might know by example, this is an unjustified stereotype, for it turns out that many Americans into their 60s are using the Internet. It is those on the fringes of the bell-shaped curve, those living on the demographic edge that most need to involve themselves in the dialogue of progress. Then there is no longer a boolean choice between progress and regress, but a gradient between intelligent and coöperative progress on one end, exemplified by efforts such as the creative commons, or corporate inertia on the other. As the generation solely responsible for our future, it behooves us to inherit the useful wisdom and culture of our predecessors while discarding obsolete modes of thought and traditions unsuited to the challenges of the present.

Ways to promote thoughtful progress:

• Stop the RIAA
• Save the Internet
• Don’t Spy on Me
• Defend Fair Use
• Consider sharing your textual or audiovisual works under a Creative Commons license
• Stay informed and open-minded