by Peter Nowak
There probably isn’t a better example of technology’s dual nature than Livermore. On one hand, scientists there have contributed inventions that can destroy the world many times over; on the other, they’re working diligently to save lives and improve the world. Zywicz sums it up best: “It’s amazing how all the defence applications over the years have spun off into things like Dyna, which are so vital and useful to the civilian section. Without that defence research spending, it never would have happened.”
Enemies Today, Friends Tomorrow
War-inspired technology isn’t just helping with health problems, it’s also paradoxically presenting new opportunities for peace. While some believe a superpower showdown between the United States and China is inevitable, technologists think such a war is highly unlikely because of how interwoven the two countries’ economies have become through internet-based supply chains. If the United States went to war with China, the flow of manufactured goods would stop dead. Americans would be forced to do without everything, from new computers to clothes to diapers. China, meanwhile, would see its biggest market close its doors. Both countries would plunge into an economic meltdown and take the rest of the world with them, making the Great Depression look like a gentle dip in the stock market.
When the world was less interdependent, wars were commonly started over a desire for more territory, as was the case with the Second World War. That seems silly now. If technologydriven economies in tiny countries such as Luxembourg and Ireland can pull in more gross domestic product per capita than big nations such as the United States, Canada or Australia, land grabs simply don’t make sense anymore. Resource grabs, such as the American invasion of Iraq, are still happening, but technology may provide the answer there too. If the developed world can wean itself off oil—hybrid and electric cars are the early steps in this process—peace may finally come to the Middle East. We are starting to move beyond wars fought by nation against nation and toward those fought by nations against marginalized groups. That seems to be a step forward. If only we could solve the growing problem of food shortages.
And let’s not forget the final barrier of language is set to fall, thanks to technology. The people of the world are about to become a lot closer. The internet united and inextricably linked the economies of China and India with Western countries; we’re about to take the next step to deepening such relationships, which means there is hope that the future will bring better understanding, and perhaps fewer wars.
A Porn Star President?
Pornography has had its negative effects, not the least of which was paving the way for talentless hotel heiresses to achieve fame. But advances in the technology used to sell porn have also brought us closer together. As a trail-blazing communications medium, albeit an often naughty and sometimes obscene one, pornography has funded the development of technologies that let us connect with one another. Whether it’s laying phone lines in developing countries, giving VCR makers a market or adding functionality to the internet, porn companies have often been willing to put down the dollars when no one else would, and we’ve all benefited from their actions. And there’s no reason to believe we won’t continue to do so.
Here’s one example. Researchers at Scotland’s Distance Lab, an organization devoted to better connecting people separated by long distances, are working on something called Mutsugoto, an internet-based system that lets users have sex with each other through remote-controlled lights. On one end, the user sets up an electronic light rig over his or her bed, which then connects through the internet to another system anywhere else in the world. Users on both ends wear special rings that control the lights over the other’s bed, which they then use to sensually “draw” on the other person’s body. As the Distance Lab puts it, “drawings are transmitted ‘live’ between the two beds, enabling a different kind of synchronous communication that leverages the emotional quality of physical gesture.”4
It’s a way-out-there idea, but it’s also a fascinating take on communications technology that only hints at untold-of possibilities. Like AEBN’s Real Touch and other teledildonics, applications of sexual technologies are poised to take communications in directions we’ve never considered.
With new connections opened up, we are in fact communicating better, particularly on sexual issues. As pornography has gradually encroached on mainstream media, we have been forced to re-evaluate and re-define what is socially permissible every step of the way. While some people lament how sexualized our society has become today, bringing sex out to a place where it is openly discussed has surely been one of the most positive developments of the past century. Gay rights, though they still have a long way to go, simply didn’t exist a few decades ago, while being a single or divorced parent used to earn social scorn. Though porn and technology are by no stretch of the imagination responsible for all of this, they have played key roles. As porn star Joanna Angel says: “I don’t know if I can give porn the credit for really starting the chain, but it’s definitely part of the chain.”5
Porn technology is continuing to change our views on sex. As Paris Hilton and Girls Gone Wild have shown, porn is expanding from its traditional role as a professionally produced product that is sold to consumers to something that anyone can partake in. Social websites such as MySpace, ubiquitous cameras and cellphones are allowing for the instantaneous mass spread of amateur porn and giving young people a very different attitude toward sex and nudity from the one their parents likely had. Stoya, the young porn star from Philadelphia, says she got into the business professionally because half the people she knew were putting naked photos and videos of themselves on the internet just for fun anyway. “It’s not a big deal. The kids I meet don’t necessarily look at it as these big scary adult companies holding guns to people’s heads, exploiting them and forcing them to do things they don’t want to do, because they have a friend or have talked to someone on MySpace [who’s involved].”6
Porn is also becoming today’s rebellion of choice. While a few decades ago a teenager might have bought a leather jacket or smoked cigarettes to rebel against her parents, today she just might make her very own green-tinged sex video and post it online. You never know—tomorrow’s president may not be asked whether he inhaled marijuana, but whether he wore a condom.
Are these positive developments? Some would argue that the sexualization of culture is a sure sign of decadence and decline. I’m of the belief that sexual liberation and acceptance of different lifestyles are positive steps forward in our evolution.
A Paradox of Plenty7
Of our shameful trinity of desires, technology has produced the most dramatic transformation of opinion in the domain of food. In the fifties, food was much scarcer than it is today and wasn’t available year-round. As a result, meat sat frozen in the freezer for months while vegetables and other preserves waited on the shelf in jars and cans. People would typically eat just about anything they could get their hands on.
Half a century later, abundance has turned us into a very selective society. Some consider us complainers. While people in starving countries will do just about anything for a steak or a pork chop, many in the West are turning to vegetarianism and veganism. As comedian Chris Rock so bluntly joked, “We got so much food in America we’re allergic to food. Allergic to food! Hungry people ain’t allergic to shit. You think anyone in Rwanda’s got a fucking lactose intolerance?”8 We’re even choosier about what we eat than who we have sex with. As one sociologist puts it, “To compare junk food to junk sex is to realize that they have become virtually interchangeable vices— even if many people who do not put ‘sex’ in the category of vice will readily do so with food.”9
What is often overlooked is that technology provides us with plentiful food that is inexpensive, available year-round, easy to store and fast to prepare and throw away if we don’t want it or use it in time. This has formed the backbone of all the other freedoms we enjoy. The success of the McDonald’s restaurant in the heart of Manhattan’s f
inancial district is proof—at lunchtime, it’s packed with the high-powered financiers and stock brokers who keep the wheels of the global economy spinning (although not so well, of late). Big Macs and Quarter Pounders provide them with the quick calories they need to get on with their busy day. Ironically, food technology has created a luxury of riches that gives us the choice of being vegetarians and vegans.
Despite the issue of obesity and the related health problems it can bring on, abundant food, along with improved medicine, has also significantly increased how long we can expect to live. In 2009 the average lifespan of Americans, Canadians, Brits and Australians, the people who eat the most processed foods, was between seventy-eight and eighty-one. That represents an increase of about ten years from the fifties, when mass processing really kicked in. Perhaps all those Big Macs and Twinkies haven’t been so bad for us after all.
We want our food to be healthier, with fewer preservatives and chemicals, but we don’t want to give up the convenience or low costs we’ve come to expect. As such, we’re inspiring even more technology. Food scientists are obliging with new advances like the Natick lab’s pressurized processing. Scientists at the University of Alberta, meanwhile, are experimenting with replacing chemical preservatives with natural ingredients such as mango pits and the fatty acids found in wheat and barley. These natural substances are turning out to be just as good at destroying harmful bacteria as their chemical counterparts. “If you replace chemicals with a natural preservative, without compromising safety, the [food] quality is better,” says one scientist.10
Beyond the ever-shifting appetites of people in the developed world flutters the spectre of a growing population and shrinking farmland. Developing nations are also, well, developing—their food systems are catching up to those of the West. The amount of technology that goes into our food is only set to grow.
If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Join ’Em
War, porn and fast food don’t exist in a vacuum. It would be wrong to say these three businesses have driven all technological advances—many other industries have contributed their fair share, and will continue to do so.
Computer and software giants such as Microsoft and Apple have developed scores of innovations, from the Windows operating system to the ubiquitous iPod. Soon we’ll be touching our computers and talking to them rather than typing and mousing. Carmakers have given us steadily better products, from power steering to collision detection, and they’ve created some remarkable robots. In the years ahead, our cars will drive themselves while we surf the internet on a dashboard-mounted, voice-activated computer. Pharmaceutical companies have developed a raft of miracles, with drugs that treat everything from blood pressure to erectile dysfunction. In the future, we’ll have better cold medicines and faster vaccines for potential pandemics. Telecommunications firms have connected us in myriad ways, from the internet to cellphones. Mobile chips inserted in our heads to give us an instant internet connection cannot be too far off. Hollywood studios have given us home video and are now introducing three-dimensional and motion-synced movies. Entertainment is becoming more immersive, and we are edging closer to fulfilling the early promise of virtual reality.
These industries are just as competitive as their military, porn and fast-food counterparts. They also depend on innovation to drive new products, and thereby profit growth. But for the most part, we consider them clean industries, inspired by entrepreneurs, ingenuity or generally noble needs. We don’t look down on them the way we do on our shameful trinity. But what’s funny is that none of them are really clean. As should be apparent by now, virtually every industry has directly or indirectly benefited from the innovations of war, sex and fast food.
In the end, we’re no closer to creating a society bereft of our shameful trinity of needs than we were a thousand years ago. There’s every reason to believe that the technologies of war, sex and fast food will continue to shape our world. Over the past century, these industries have been primarily Americadriven, but that’s changing as the world becomes increasingly globalized.
Food is already a global industry and will only become more so as more countries develop their markets. Demand for porn is global but there are very few international players like Playboy, largely because the industry is dominated by relatively small, privately run companies. The internet-driven decline in the business has everybody talking about consolidation, so many smaller players may have to merge into fewer bigger companies to remain competitive. As for war, you’d think it would be the one market that would never go truly global because of national security concerns, but it’s already surprisingly open. Historically, NATO and the Warsaw Pact had shared military industries, but today the market is realigning itself from West versus East to nation states versus terrorists. This reshaping may produce some strange bedfellows. Given the interrelatedness of China and the United States, it’s possible the two countries will some day jointly fight terrorists and share military technologies. Chinese companies such as Huawei are building American communications networks—infrastructure once deemed so vital to national security that DARPA was tasked with its development—so we’re already halfway there.
Indeed, the next century of technological development may be led by China. In 2008 the country for the first time became the number-two military spender in the world (France and Britain were third and fourth, respectively). The country is modernizing its arsenal, which consists largely of fifties-era Soviet weapons, but experts don’t believe this is a sign that China is preparing for war; it’s simply playing catch-up.11
China is also the biggest market in the world with a ban on pornography. The communist government is iron-fisted in its attempts to stamp out porn, to the point where it seems as though officials are more afraid of sex as a subversive force than religion or ethnicity. There’s no reason to believe, however, that Chinese demand for porn is any less than it is everywhere else in the world, so its gradual creep into the country seems inevitable— and China will some day have its own sexual revolution. Perhaps the government is afraid that when the people have sexual liberty, they will demand political freedom as well.
As for food, the country is only now experiencing the kind of processing advances the United States had in the fifties. Not surprisingly, fast food is booming. Overall, China has seen double-digit growth in its food industry year on year for nearly two decades.12 With more than a billion people to feed, there is no end to that growth in sight. It’s also reasonable to expect that during this massive transformation, Chinese scientists will put the same effort into developing new food technologies as their American counterparts have. Fifty years from now we may all be eating artificial chow mein created in Star Trek–like replicator machines.
China is only the biggest and most obvious example of what we can expect from developing countries. Much of the rest of the world is also modernizing and pursuing new technologies. And these new technologies won’t just change the stuff we have, they’ll also alter how this stuff affects us, how we see the world and how we relate to each other. Technology isn’t about nifty new gadgets, it’s about bettering our lives. For the most part, despite what Luddites and anti-technologists may think, our lives have gotten better. Technology has brought us out of the dark ages by fulfilling our needs and desires. We can power our homes, feed our families, travel anywhere we want, learn about anything, answer questions, communicate with each other and acquire pretty much any object or experience we want, pretty much instantaneously. That sounds like progress to me.
Ultimately, our shameful trinity of needs is universal—and never-ending. Whether you live in the United States or China or anywhere in between, war, porn and fast food aren’t going away, and neither are the new technologies they will bring us. As a result, sex, bombs and burgers will continue to shape our world and the lives we live upon it.
NOTES
Introduction: A Shameful Trinity
1Huxley, Aldous, Ends and Means: An Enquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the
Methods Employed for Their Realisation, London, Chatto & Windus, 1937,p. 268. Copyright © 1938 by Aldous Huxley. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for the Estate of Aldous Huxley.
2Author’s interview with Colonel James Braden, April 2008.
3Author’s interview with Joe Dyer, April 2009.
4Author’s interview with Vint Cerf, March 2009.
5Singer, P.W., Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century, New York, Penguin Press, 2009, p. 140.
6Author’s interview with George Caporaso, Feb. 2009.
7Reuters, “Global arms spending hits record in ‘08—think tank,” June 8, 2009, www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/id USL8101212020090608.
8The Associated Press, “Global arms spending rises despite economic woes,” June 9, 2009, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/ global-arms-spending-rises-despite-economic-woes-1700283.html.
9Wired, “Pentagon’s Black Budget Grows to More Than $50 Billion,” May 7, 2009, www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/pentagons-black-budget-grows-to-more-than-50-billion.
10Singer, Wired for War, p. 140.
11Ibid., p. 247.
12Ibid., p. 239.
13Author’s interview with John Hanke, Feb. 2009.
14Author’s interview with Ed Zywicz, Feb. 2009.
15Salon.com, “The Great Depression: The Sequel,” April 2, 2008, www. salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/04/02/depression.
16CBS News, “The Cost of War: $136 Billion in 2009,” Jan. 7, 2009, www. cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/07/terror/main4704018.shtml.