Techno-Optimism Archive @technooptarch

@PeterDiamandis A tale as old as time Wright Brothers in 1917: "The aeroplane will have a tendency to make war impossible." Thomas Edison in 1913: "Books will soon be obsolete." Henry Ford in 1924: "The automobile will make people too prosperous to fight."

A tale as old as time Wright Brothers in 1917: "The aeroplane will have a tendency to make war impossible." Thomas Edison in 1913: "Books will soon be obsolete." Henry Ford in 1924: "The automobile will make people too prosperous to fight."

Peter H. Diamandis, MD @PeterDiamandis

3 days ago

ELON MUSK: “We’re going to have universal high income. We’ll basically just issue money to people." "AI and robots are going to make so much stuff and provide so many services that they’ll run out of things to do for humans." "Money will stop being relevant at some point in the

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technooptimism.org/archive/aeropl…

1917 Title: The Safe and Useful Aeroplane. An Interview With Orville Wright Publication: Harper’s Magazine "I really believe,” he said, "that the aeroplane will help peace in more ways than one—in particular I think it will have a tendency to make war impossible.”

1946 How Will Television Handle the News? "...television will be the supreme unchallenged news reporting medium. It will bring the world to the world in a fashion that promises fulfillment of the hopes for international understanding, tolerance and peace." technooptimism.org/archive/televi…

1997 "Internet would do no less than bring world peace by breaking down national borders" Title: Negroponte: Internet is way to world peace Publication: Reuters Source: technooptimism.org/archive/intern…

I’d definitely be happy to build something around biotech too. If you already have good examples, feel free to send them to the email listed on the site. That said, we have a cutoff around the year 2000. The goal is to document the history of hype around new technologies, so we can put current excitement into perspective. But it would also be really interesting to see separate projects documenting newer waves of optimism around things like blockchain, 3D printing, AI, etc.

@NikoMcCarty Thanks for the endorsement! We will definitely be adding more technologies over time.

@htaler @tomscott Amazing! Thanks for letting me know :)

Sources (1915): technooptimism.org/archive/teleph… (1940): technooptimism.org/archive/teleph… (1913): technooptimism.org/archive/teleph… (1906): technooptimism.org/archive/teleph…

In the early 20th century, the telephone was advertised as a cure for loneliness - especially for rural women. Bit ironic today, given the links we now draw between phones and loneliness.

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@PessimistsArc Evil Pessimists Archive be like:

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I appreciate it, though I don’t agree with most points. On world peace: communication technologies have promised international understanding and the end of prejudice since the telegraph. But since then we had two world wars, and there are several wars ongoing today. War is not a technical problem, so it cannot be solved by technology alone. On poverty: yes, poverty has fallen. But around 700 million people still live in extreme poverty, and recent progress has been much weaker. So I would be careful with presenting this as a straightforward success story. On work: I read your text, but I don’t agree with your point. The eight-hour day was won by workers over a century ago. Since then we have had huge productivity growth due to technological development: electrification, computers, the internet, and so on. Yet in most countries the legal working day has not shortened at all. And when it did, as with the 35-hour workweek in France, it was not because workers collectively decided they preferred to work less for the same income. It was a change in labor law. Again, this shows that working time is not a technical issue, but a political choice. I understand the “crisis of optimism” argument, and I partially agree. People in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had good reasons to imagine a utopian technological future: electrification, cars, washing machines, modern medicine, etc. really did transform life for the better within a single lifetime. And I agree that there has been a change in our collective imagination and dystopian imaginaries seem more prevalent now than before. Why that happened is complex, but Graeber had an interesting take on it, that since the 1970s, we have moved away from investing in technologies that opened up alternative futures, and toward technologies of work discipline and control. However, I would argue that the dominant discourse around innovation is still hyper-optimistic, and that it comes largely from tech companies. Of course, in recent years there has been more criticism directed at tech companies, but they have mostly brought it on themselves. True that I miss predictions that did come true. But I miss them on purpose. Every archive, gallery, or museum does this. Archival records do not only objectively retrieve the past - they also make claims about the past. This is my curatorial choice. For example, electricity is absent because the predictions I found were fulfilled or even exceeded. I also agree that technology has supported social progress in some cases. I am not anti-tech, even if the archive may give that impression. However, my goal is not to prove that optimism or pessimism is right or wrong, but to show that technologies do not have fixed effects on their own. I am still thinking about how best to make this clear. I understand why you are not fully on board with the project, and I appreciate the detailed response and the discussion.

New technologies have long been expected to solve social problems. The telegraph was sold as a way to end war by reducing misunderstanding between nations. Today we are launching Techno-Optimism Archive, which collects historical press materials documenting old tech promises.

Link: technooptimism.org/archive/comput…

(1965) “Many scientists hope that in time the computer will allow man to return to the Hellenic concept of leisure, in which the Greeks had time to cultivate their minds and improve their environment while slaves did all the labor. The slaves, in modern Hellenism, would be the computers.” Title: Technology: The Cybernated Generation Publication: TIME

Fair. I’m not going to insist that horse transport in cities was better than car transport. The Archive is not anti-technology; we like technology. What we want to point out is that new technologies repeatedly promise to solve social problems that they are not actually capable of solving on their own. No invention brought world peace, eliminated poverty, gave us a 20-hour workweek, or even ended urban traffic. And sure, technologies often solve some problems while producing new ones. But that is exactly why old promises are worth archiving: they show not that progress is impossible, but that progress is usually more partial, political, and uneven than the advertisement suggests.

@jasoncrawford @PessimistsArc @jathansadowski @bigblackjacobin @xriskology @bengrosser @jasonhickel 100% agree. The thing is, replacing one form of pollution with another is hardly a solution.

@jasoncrawford @PessimistsArc @jathansadowski @bigblackjacobin @xriskology @bengrosser @jasonhickel True - although it’s a bit ironic. The automobile promised quiet streets, fresh air, and no traffic jams; today, you only need to walk into any major city center to see how well that prediction held up. And many fears failed precisely because we did something about them.

@jsbrzezinski The question is whether this was due to the effects of the telegraph ;)

@jasoncrawford @PessimistsArc @jathansadowski @bigblackjacobin @xriskology @bengrosser @jasonhickel Hahah finally a full-spectrum archive of people being confidently wrong about technology