It is all too obvious that we need new technologies: new sources of power—new concepts of communication and transportation—new concepts of economics—new concepts of community.
Advanced-industrial societies, however, are confronted with two major obstacles to a massive shift to the new Teletechnology.
1. The colossal problem of dismantling the old industrial technology and replacing it with the new. (I will discuss this a little later.)
2. Psychological and ideological resistances to new technologies. This is a very serious problem. In the big cities of Western Europe and the United States there is growing hostility to technology. Justified anger at the tottering old industrial technology is generalized into a whole philosophical resentment of all technology. Too often this resentment atrophies into a back-to-earth purism—a reactionary resistance to all progress.
In the U.S.A. some of what passes for conservation is nothing more than conservatism. There are strong reactionary tendencies among some conservationists which defeat the drive to clean and beautify the environment.
This anti-technology mania is nothing new. It is in keeping with an age-old pattern. Those who cringe from progress have always resisted new technologies because new technologies invariably usher in radical changes.
In the nineteenth century traditionalists ferociously resisted the railway system.
Later they resisted the radio—intrusion into privacy they protested.
The automobile? Why do you want to go faster?
The airplane? If the good lord wanted us to fly he would have given us wings. This has now been updated—if the good lord wanted us to fly jets he would not have given us propellers.
Every emerging technology—every breakthrough precipitates resistances and exaggerated fears. People invariably fixate on the very worst possibilities completely ignoring the potential benefits.
We must be vigilant to make sure that new technologies work only for our betterment. Concern about our environment can be positive vigilance. But we must never allow this vigilance to atrophy into a resistance to progress.
* * * *
Early-industrial countries face a different kind of problem. They are going berserk importing technology. But what technology are they importing?
The old industrial technology. Cars—more and more cars. Buses—trains—subways—steamships—fossil-fuel plants—urban sprawls...
They think they are modernizing. In their eagerness they are hurriedly encumbering themselves with an archaic nineteenth century technology.
This is as absurd as their efforts at cultural modernity. In their attempts to advance culturally leaders and intellectuals in Asia—Africa—Latin America are hurriedly building opera houses—theaters—symphony halls—art galleries. Suddenly it has become chic to go to the theater and to hang paintings all over the house.
They are feverishly aping old art forms deluding themselves that they are now modern.
Importing nineteenth century technology is of course far more serious. First because progress is slowed down. Second because in five or ten years these countries will be saddled with many of the problems now hounding the advanced-industrial communities: pollution—overburdened utility services—clogged streets and highways—automobile fatalities—urban decay.
Already many of these problems are beginning to be felt in the large urban centers of Asia—Africa—Latin America.
Early-industrial countries can take shortcuts to the future by embracing not the old industrial technology but the emerging Teletechnology. Theirs is the advantage of not having first to dismantle the giant octopus of industrial technology. They can up-wing from the late feudal technology to the postindustrial age.
* * * *
All nations, advanced-industrial as well as early-industrial, must make plans to move rapidly into the age of telespheres.
Guidelines
—The United Nations must immediately set up a Universal Technological Council. This council must comprise technologists—communication and transportation engineers—city planners—architects—computer-era—cyberneticists—sociologists—psychologists—economists—political scientists—environmentalists—visionary thinkers. These Council members must be familiar with teletechnology and enjoy reputations in their fields for vision and innovation.
—Every country or regional bloc, advanced-industrial as well as early-industrial, must also immediately set up a Technological Council.
—If an early-industrial country or bloc does not have competent telesphere planners it can engage some from the Universal Technological Council (Unitec). Three or four such planners can help establish a Technological Council in a developing area acquaint it with new trends catalyze it to new directions.
—The Universal Technological Council as well as the National and Regional Councils with the help of computers must then proceed to draw up plans. Farsighted projections of trends in the next ten twenty thirty forty years. For instance new techniques in procreation—the single life—mobilias—increasing fluidity and leisure—the rise of transnationals and regional blocs—globalism—space travel...
—Based on these and other projections the Technological Council must then draw up plans for applying the new technologies. This will call for Big Push mobilization. What are some of these technologies?
* * * *
Transportation.
—Within communities: automated people movers—automated monorails—helicopters—solofly (better known as rocket belts, now used in the U.S. and Canada for mountain hopping or flying across short distances).
—Hover-trains—hover-planes—hover-crafts—hover freights—hover boats—hover yachts—all using air cushion principle. Some hover vehicles already in use.
—Magnetic trains floating above magnetic tracks at around 600 kph.
—Automated vehicles traveling in automated guideways within communities between communities across continents.
—Helicopter buses—helicopter shuttles—helicopter patrols—helicopter ambulances—heli-movers—heli-deliveries—heli-visits on rooftops and gardens...
—Supersonic and hypersonic planes for long-distance travel. At present it is possible to travel from Paris to New York door-to-door in two hours. You helicopter from Paris to Orly airport. Supersonic across the ocean. Helicopter from Kennedy airport to New York City. You leave Paris at 5 P.M. arrive 1 P.M. New York time—arriving four hours before you left. Hypersonic planes projected for the 1990s will zip you anywhere on the planet in less than an hour.
—Space shuttles to ferry people between earth and astrocolonies.
* * * *
Communication
—Pocket lasers—laser phones—pocket phones—picturephones—videophones—satellitephones. These will help upheave inter-people communication.
—Two-way TV—closed-circuit TV—frame-freeze TV—three-dimensional TV—telenewspaper—international facsimile and photo transmission—global telemedicine.
—TV patrols. These TV eyes already deployed in a few American cities will be placed at street junctures and intersections. You will turn on your TV set and watch activities in any community on the planet. Let's see what's going on at Trafalgar Square. Let's watch the strollers on the People's Street in Peking. Switch to Rome and see if the cafés on the Via Veneto are crowded...
—Portable computers. Already available and spreading. To communicate with individuals—retrieve information from Central Computer Services—take over housework—shopping—office work ... Computer speech synthesizer reads to you from printed material.
—Central Computer Services. Accessible to anyone at any hour day or night by videophone—satellitephone—two-way TV or computsat to obtain or transmit information on very nearly anything. For instance weather conditions in any part of the planet. C.C.S. at telemedical centers will provide instant information on a patient's background or provide quick diagnoses. C.C.S. at national regional and U.N. headquarters will hold instant referendums on community and global ma
tters.
—Communication Satellite networks. In the 1990s it will be possible to reach very nearly every man woman and child on the planet. And to hear from anyone anywhere via satellitephone—videophone—videolaser—videosat—computsat.
The above projections are illustrative showing only some of the technologies in the coming years. (For a detailed rundown of postindustrial technologies see my book Telespheres.)
I repeat—we are at the beginning of an epochal technological shift.
Teletechnology is a new dimension in human life. This is a technology that can reach the moon in nine hours. Whip messages across the planet in seconds. Make astronomical computations in microseconds. Perform physical mental and managerial tasks.
Teletechnology is global—involving everyone and every facet of life.
Family—marriage—school—full-time work—bureaucratic government—city—nation—these are all feudal/industrial systems. They were viable so long as we had feudal/industrial technologies, These systems cannot and will not survive under the emerging Teletechnologies.
They are too structured too fragmented too slow too rooted.
Teletechnology will generate its own life styles. Redo all aspects of life.
Unfortunately the shift from the old technologies to the new is now advancing piecemeal and uncoordinated. We are shuffling into the future.
The result: decay—pollution—suffering—archaic life styles.
Our entire planet is now conceptually in a new age. We urgently need visionary technological councils—visionary planning—massive mobilization of efforts and resources to up-wing swiftly to the marvels of the Age of Telespheres.
* * *
beyond cities: instant communities
What are the most beautiful cities in the world?
Paris—Rome—London—Copenhagen—San Francisco—Rio de Janeiro—these are the cities most often mentioned.
Other favorites: Kyoto—Bangkok—Adelaide—Jerusalem—Cairo—Athens—Leningrad—Budapest—Vienna—Venice—New York City—Mexico City...
We are all so thoroughly brainwashed by oldworld values and esthetics that we absolutely cannot see the ungainliness of all these cities. An ungainliness which stares us in the face.
In fact the more dirty old and drab a city the more people seem to admire it.
But what the hell is so beautiful about Paris—London—Vienna? What is so beautiful about tight dingy sunless streets? Austere gloomy cathedrals? Drab old buildings with dark cockroach-infested rooms and halls? Decrepit old shops piled with junk? Bleak factory buildings and decaying industrial neighborhoods?
We have been brainwashed to see beauty in ugliness—modernity in squalor—culture in oldness—esthetic charm in drabness and uniformity.
We fail to see that it is the people of the major cities who are relatively modern—not the cities themselves.
Let us not blame modern technology and progress for the breakdown and drabness of the big cities. These are not modern cities. They are all geriatric.
In fact the ones we consider the most beautiful—Paris—Vienna—San Francisco—are among the ungainliest.
But so long as we go on believing that our cities are beautiful and holding up old rundown cities as models we will continue to fester in archaic lifestyles.
It is absurd to complain of ghettoes when every single city is now little more than a large ghetto.
It is absurd to clamor for a better safer more civilized life as long as we continue to languish contentedly in these cities which are themselves intrinsically dehumanizing.
Governments can go on pouring out millions to renew the cities. They are only frittering away money time energy. These old cities cannot be rehabilitated. They cannot be modernized. Urban renewal is a colossal farce.
All our cities are obsolete. The very concept of city is obsolete.
London—Paris—New York are conceptually medieval cities. Built to accommodate horse carriages—gaslights—small neighborhood stores—family-oriented religion-oriented work-oriented feudal life.
Even our few twentieth century cities like Los Angeles and Brasilia are conceptually archaic because they too were built on premises of older technologies.
All existing cities must go. They are all too backward and deficient. Too rooted in oldworld values technologies and institutions: churches—temples—mosques—castles—streets and alleys—schools—factories—prisons—slaughterhouses—cemeteries...
* * * *
It is too costly and disruptive to tear down the cities and start off on the same sites with new concepts of community.
We must begin by closing down whole areas of our cities (as the Chinese are now doing in Peking). Then within specified times close down the cities altogether.
We need not tear them down. Leave them intact as Museum Cities for tourists to visit and historians to study.
We speak of preserving historical landmarks in the cities. The cities themselves are now historical landmarks. We should leave them as they are—and get out.
Jerusalem—Damascus—Athens—Paris—London—New York—Tokyo and other old cities are historically too valuable to tear down. We need to preserve at least some of the cities.
At present in the name of modernization we are tearing down the cities bit by bit. The result is that we neither have 21st century settings nor are we preserving the pristine characters of the cities.
Our cities are all too old to tear down too old to live in. They are now valuable only as museums.
Museums can be interesting to visit but not to live in.
* * * *
We live in a new age and need new concepts of community: spacious—mobile—instant—cheerful—global.
—Every country or regional bloc must right away set up at least one Instant Community. This can act as a catalyst to start a trend away from cities to new concepts of community.
—No attempts should be made to transform an existing city to an Instant Community. New Communities must be planned and set up along new concepts and on new sites.
—The Instant Community must above all reflect and accommodate the new mobility. An entire community of over 100,000 people can now be created in less than six months. It can stand for a few months or years, then the whole community may be dismantled or moved. A trend has started toward mobile homes and communities. For example over fifty percent of new housing in the United States comprises mobile homes. Tent cities—mobile cities—Disneylands—world fairs and festivals—these are forerunners of Instant Communities. Rapidly assembled, their emphasis is on movement and fun. Most blueprints of new communities are based on oldworld premises of permanence and rootedness. This is the central error in these plans. They do not take into account the exploding mobility of people and social systems.
—The Instant Community must therefore incorporate only the newest concepts of construction. This means no stones—bricks—steel or concrete. No foundations. Nothing static—permanent or rooted. Nothing that will stay long enough to decay corrode or degenerate into ghettoes and tenements.
—The Instant Community must have only Instant Habitations. Light sturdy colorful habitations made of aluminum—fiberglass—plexiglas—plastic and other modern synthetics. These Instant Homes are highly flexible and maneuverable. Press a button and you rotate the entire house—tilt it to different angles to catch sunlight or moonlight—make it crawl float or fly. These Instant Habitations have great variety in design color and shape. They can be flown ready-made or packaged by helicopter to desired sites. Easily assembled easily enlarged and just as quickly dismantled or transplanted. Bubble houses can also be instantly packed unpacked inflated.
—The Instant Community must combine the most beautiful aspects of nature with the new teletechnology and liberated life styles.
—The Instant Community can be set up in a green valley a desert near a mountain on a lake or sea—whatever topography is desired. Even outer space.
—Many of our new communities wil
l actually be in Space. Our present space stations will soon evolve to huge Astrocolonies. Within a few years thousands of men and women will occupy Space Communities. Some of the concepts designs and materials could be used in our Instant Communities here on Earth.
—The Instant Community must enjoy the freedom of controlled weather. Bubble domes can be floated around to protect parts of the community from rain snow or scorching sun. For instance if people are at the beach why allow a sudden downpour to sabotage the fun? If the clouds cannot be conveniently dispersed float the transparent bubble dome overhead. At a later stage communities will also benefit from solar satellites to turn on instant sunlight any time night or day. We will regulate the weather in our communities as easily as we now regulate the temperature in our homes.
—The Instant Community will be extensively automated and therefore dependent on abundant energy. Solar complexes and Nuplexes (nuclear energy complex) situated outside the community or on floating platforms can provide abundant cheap energy. They will also provide power for the cybernated agriculture and industry—help recycle wastes—desalinate water...
—The Instant Community must insure ample elbow room. I am not sympathetic to the concept of the megalopolis or mile-high skyscraper cities. They perpetuate the old problems of congestion and asphalt environments. The Instant Community I am proposing does not and must not throw people on top of one another. New transportation and communication are radicalizing our concepts of distance. People can have ample elbow room—open space and greenery without feeling isolated. Hop into your helicopter or the automated monorail and visit friends in another community a hundred kilometers away more quickly than it now takes to visit friends across the city.
—The Instant Community must only deploy new transportation systems. This means no cars—buses—trucks or subways. Streets are obsolete. Only modular automated transportation: people-movers—monocabs—monorails. Also extensive airborne transportation: solofly—hovercrafts—helicopters ... People assemble not on streets but in public gardens—mobilias—People Centers—playgrounds—beaches...
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