Let’s have a conversation about how to shape technology.
We live in a secular age; societal agreement about final purpose is exceedingly rare.
In its absence, man has increasingly turned to brilliant pursuit of technological means while downplaying the pressing necessity for wisdom about ends, leaving a dangerous situation: ever increasing power with ever decreasing purpose.
To make matters worse, the headlong pursuit of this undirected power has gotten so far ahead of what the uninitiated are capable of comprehending in any detail that many of those who could otherwise contribute to fruitful conversation about human purpose are prevented by lack of knowledge of the details of this new and extremely technical world which we have created and spend a great deal of our time inhabiting.
Conversely, those at the forefront of technological building, while generally exceedingly clever people, have often had little time to pursue more than a very superficial knowledge of the massive ocean of extant human and religious wisdom.
The result is a situation perhaps not unlike any historical frontier: tremendous opportunity and adventure, coupled with terrible mistakes, misjudgments, failures, waste, abuse, injustice, and outright stupidity. Those who can initially survive and thrive at the frontier, while heroic and critical in their own role, are rarely those most fit to finally govern and civilize it, nor do they have time to do so. For the new world to come fully into being, the best of the wisdom of the old world must ultimately be brought to bear, the worst of the old world having been left far behind.
What is needed to civilize the digital frontier of our age is an intense conversation between those at the bleeding edge of innovation and those with the deepest roots in traditional wisdom, facilitated by people with a foot in both camps. Furthermore, the digital frontier is unlike past frontiers in needing not only to be explored and civilized but also in being able to be brought into existence out of whole cloth with few predetermined limits. Guiding and shaping this development is ultimately at least as important as overcoming the vast technical challenges involved in bringing it about. And the directions technology ought to grow and develop are not, in the final analysis, self evident. Such a conversation is therefore critical.
This, then, is the purpose of the Journal of Human Centered Tech: let's have a conversation about not only how to build things, but about what exactly we ought to build, in this world of brilliantly shining modern technology.
