Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, 1995

From Clifford Stoll. Silicon Snake Oil, Second Thoughts on the Information Highway. New York: Doubleday, 1995. 49-50, 147-148.

Today's Internet hustlers invade our communities with computers, not concrete. By pushing the Internet as a universal panacea, they offer a tempting escape from this all-too-mundane world. They tell us that we need not get along without our neighbors--heck, we needn't even interact with them. Won't need to travel to a library either; those books will come right to my desk. Interactive multimedia will solve classroom problems. Fat pay checks and lifelong employment await those who master computers.

They're well-meaning, of course. They truly believe in virtual communities and electronic classrooms. They'll tell you how the computer is a tool to be used, not abused. Because clearly, the computer is the key to the future.

The key ingredient of their silicon snake oil is a technocratic belief that computers and networks will make a better society. Access to information, better communications, and electronic programs can cure social problems.

I don't believe them. There are no simple technological solutions to social problems. There's plenty of distrust and animosity between people who communicate perfectly well. Access to a universe of information cannot solve our problems: we will forever struggle to understand one another. The most important interactions in life is happiness between people, not between computers.

While snaking a plugged bathroom drain, I yearned for a virtual-drainpipe program--a computer that would siphon out the muck and unclog my pipes. Just double-click on the cute icon of a clean pipe, and my problems would disappear.

Watching the snake dredge glop from the drain, I wondered if the Internet might be described as a pipeline rather than a highway. After all, it delivers a stream of data on demand. In this sense, the modem's a faucet, letting information flow into the computer.

Or perhaps a sewer pipe. Don't snicker--good sewers are way more important to public health than highways or communications. On second thought, this is a poor metaphor: I can live quite well without the Internet, but not without operative drains. . . .

Computer networks isolate us from one another, rather than bring us together. We need only deal with one side of an individual over the net. And if we don't like what we see, we just pull the plug. Or flame them. There's no need to tolerate the imperfections of real people. It's the same intolerance found on the highway, where motorists direct intense anger at one another.

By logging on to the networks, we lose the ability to enter into spontaneous interactions with real people. Evening time is now spent watching television or a computer terminal--safe havens in which to hide. Sitting around a porch and talking is becoming extinct, as is reading aloud to children. . . .

Quick--what's the outside temperature?

Do you look at the thermometer in the window? Tune the television to the latest forecast? Dial the time-and-temperature service on the phone? Log onto American Online and view a weather map? Or do you walk outside and see for yourself?

Suppose you got three answers: a stranger tells you that it's thirty degrees outside, the TV weather person reports seventy-five, and your thermometer says ninety. Since it's a hot day, you realize that the stranger is telling you Celsius, your thermometer is in Fahrenheit, and the weather channel is simply wrong. The convincing test, though, is your own experience. You stick your hand out the window and realize it's hot.

Computer networks replace that lust for the physical with a virtual reality.

Want the finest pictures of the sky ever made? Get them over the Internet, using the File Transfer Protocol: just type ftp pubinfo.jpl.nasa.gov and you'll be greeted by a log-in prompt. Log in as anonymous, and you can then change the directory by typing cd images. List the files by typing ls. To get a terrific picture of Orion, just enter get orion.gif, assuming that the file hasn't been moved. There on your office workstation is a close-up photo of M42, the Great Orion Nebula, complete with false-color rendering.

But have you actually seen Orion? Right now, could you point your finger toward that constellation? During what season would you look for it? When you face the nebula, are you looking north or south?

Spend a few nights with a pair of binoculars, a constellation chart, and a compass. You may swat mosquitoes in the summer and shiver in the winter. But you'll get to know the sky. You'll be closer to the wonders of astronomy than any computer display can ever bring you. You'll be on an equal footing with the ancients.

In contrast, much of what comes across the computer screen is a surrogate for experience. It's living through an electronic extension of the nervous system--many sensations are dulled, a few amplified. Impoverished proxies take the place of real events. Which is more fun--playing a video game of basketball or playing a game of basketball?