“No sense in being pessimistic. It wouldn't work anyway.”
August 26, 2024 1:13 AM Subscribe
Pessimists Archive is a project to jog our collective memories about the hysteria, technophobia and moral panic that often greets new technologies, ideas and trends.
A few examples:
When the Surgeon General Warned About Pac-Man
The New York Times Banned Word Games Before Embracing Them
The Forgotten War on Beepers
When the Mac 'Ruined' Writing
Remember Typewriter Licenses?
A Warning About AI from 1863 (!)
Predictions about 2023 made in 1830
An Ancient Poem Against Sundials (250 B.C.)
Source for the title
A few examples:
When the Surgeon General Warned About Pac-Man
The New York Times Banned Word Games Before Embracing Them
The Forgotten War on Beepers
When the Mac 'Ruined' Writing
Remember Typewriter Licenses?
A Warning About AI from 1863 (!)
Predictions about 2023 made in 1830
An Ancient Poem Against Sundials (250 B.C.)
Source for the title
Hrm. I don't know about this hodgepodge of both funny scares and, to me, justified criticism. The framing of hysteria, technophobia, moral panic, doomerism, or reactionism feels derisive of, well, pointed commentary on how certain technologies (such as AI, which seems to be a focus point) are already used to detrimental effects.
In a way, I suspect the authors to not understand (be it willingly or accidentally) some of the examples they mock. I turned to the poem against sundials for something light to make fun of, but then it read:
"The gods confound the man who first found
out how to distinguish hours! Confound him too
Who in this place set up a sundial
To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
Into small portions!"
That just reads like an insightful precursor to Lewis Mumford's argument about the clock as basis for capitalism to me.
I'm not sure if that makes me a pessimist too.
posted by bigendian at 2:12 AM on August 26 [16 favorites]
In a way, I suspect the authors to not understand (be it willingly or accidentally) some of the examples they mock. I turned to the poem against sundials for something light to make fun of, but then it read:
"The gods confound the man who first found
out how to distinguish hours! Confound him too
Who in this place set up a sundial
To cut and hack my days so wretchedly
Into small portions!"
That just reads like an insightful precursor to Lewis Mumford's argument about the clock as basis for capitalism to me.
I'm not sure if that makes me a pessimist too.
posted by bigendian at 2:12 AM on August 26 [16 favorites]
It pre-dates microfiche archives a bit, but Plato offered some cautionary words about the technology of writing back in the day.
posted by LemmySays at 2:59 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
posted by LemmySays at 2:59 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
“𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚖𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚖! 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚖, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚢, 𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍, 𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚎𝚢 𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚎𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚍, 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚖𝚘𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚋𝚘𝚕𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗[; the victuals were cooked by steam, yea]”
steam, punk
posted by HearHere at 3:02 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
steam, punk
posted by HearHere at 3:02 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
@bigendian
I don't know about this hodgepodge of both funny scares and, to me, justified criticism.
Maybe that is, or ought to be, the point. They look different in hindsight, but at the time, one did not seem (much) less reasonable than the other.
posted by demi-octopus at 3:31 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
I don't know about this hodgepodge of both funny scares and, to me, justified criticism.
Maybe that is, or ought to be, the point. They look different in hindsight, but at the time, one did not seem (much) less reasonable than the other.
posted by demi-octopus at 3:31 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
I do crossword puzzles a lot and enjoy them, but the criticisms in the "banned word games" are quite right: their supposed educational value is a joke; if you tried to learn English from then you'd wind up with some pretty weird definitions in your internal dictionary; they're largely a silly way to pass time without making your brain work too hard. (Also the puns are painful.)
The article doesn't really back up its claims of a ban either: it says the NYT "refused" to publish crosswords for two decades, but doesn't give any reason to think that this was a determined stance against publishing them instead of the NYT just not seeing much reason to start, in the same way it doesn't currently publish Go or Shogi puzzles as far as I know.
So yeah, kind of sloppy and not necessarily making the point it seems to want to make. I did like seeing the snippets of old articles, though.
posted by trig at 4:11 AM on August 26 [2 favorites]
The article doesn't really back up its claims of a ban either: it says the NYT "refused" to publish crosswords for two decades, but doesn't give any reason to think that this was a determined stance against publishing them instead of the NYT just not seeing much reason to start, in the same way it doesn't currently publish Go or Shogi puzzles as far as I know.
So yeah, kind of sloppy and not necessarily making the point it seems to want to make. I did like seeing the snippets of old articles, though.
posted by trig at 4:11 AM on August 26 [2 favorites]
i dont think this archive will work or will be useful please put this comment in to it
edit: ffs chavenet you got this joke in the post title
posted by lalochezia at 4:16 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
edit: ffs chavenet you got this joke in the post title
posted by lalochezia at 4:16 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
Even though the Onion's "Holy Shit Man Walks on Fucking Moon" arguably justifies every penny of JFK's Moonshot, the Americans of 1961 who felt that other problems could have done with that sort of cash had a point. It isn't just a case of the benefit of hindsight, either. We know the positives that came from the space race, but we don't know what could have been instead.
If some billionaire spends trillions to get to Mars and back while letting the Earth burn, I suspect our kids aren't going to get many chuckles out of it.
posted by rory at 4:39 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
If some billionaire spends trillions to get to Mars and back while letting the Earth burn, I suspect our kids aren't going to get many chuckles out of it.
posted by rory at 4:39 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
Koop wasn't wrong exactly about video games. They're such a huge part of our culture and economy now that it's kind of hard to imagine life without them, but they haven't been an unalloyed good for our physical, mental or financial health. Yes, probably we were not going to have a real panic where children were breaking into pharmacies to steal pills to lay out in Pac-Man designs, nor were they throwing deadly barrels at each other off construction scaffolding, but we did find frequent gaming is an ergonomic nightmare, putting all-new pressures on our joints and nerves, preparing us all to develop phone-neck and screen-thumb here in the 21st century (and a good thing VR never caught on, or we'd all have extra-compressed cervical vertebrae).
The concerns that they would inspire violence do seem a little...ah...quaint, considering what was going on in the actual world at the time (Pac-Man came out in the US like 7-8 years after the draft ended). But then I guess everyone had already complained that violent TV, movies and comics were going to turn us all into killers.
But what I find interesting--and what moved me to comment--was this line from the Koop article, where he says that kids are having "dreams that have to do with the things they have been doing all day." I'm not sure this was really studied prior to games--the tendency for any repetitive activity to show up especially in early NREM-stage dreaming--but it seems most pronounced with games. (I find it also if I do too many crosswords before bed, so I should probably read the banned word games part too.) (Actually, it has happened a few times lately while I am doing a quiet little replay of BOTW, avoiding what enemies I can and just gliding around looking at things.) Games do, in a visible, noticeable way, seep into our psyches, and we should at least be alert to the idea that they're doing something in there. (And that's before we get to in-game purchases and free-to-play and all the horrible psychological tricks being done to us in the name of keeping the industry going!)
TL;DR: Some panics are based on nothing...but some may, while getting the details wrong, be on to the fact that not all quick cultural changes are completely benign!
posted by mittens at 5:08 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
The concerns that they would inspire violence do seem a little...ah...quaint, considering what was going on in the actual world at the time (Pac-Man came out in the US like 7-8 years after the draft ended). But then I guess everyone had already complained that violent TV, movies and comics were going to turn us all into killers.
But what I find interesting--and what moved me to comment--was this line from the Koop article, where he says that kids are having "dreams that have to do with the things they have been doing all day." I'm not sure this was really studied prior to games--the tendency for any repetitive activity to show up especially in early NREM-stage dreaming--but it seems most pronounced with games. (I find it also if I do too many crosswords before bed, so I should probably read the banned word games part too.) (Actually, it has happened a few times lately while I am doing a quiet little replay of BOTW, avoiding what enemies I can and just gliding around looking at things.) Games do, in a visible, noticeable way, seep into our psyches, and we should at least be alert to the idea that they're doing something in there. (And that's before we get to in-game purchases and free-to-play and all the horrible psychological tricks being done to us in the name of keeping the industry going!)
TL;DR: Some panics are based on nothing...but some may, while getting the details wrong, be on to the fact that not all quick cultural changes are completely benign!
posted by mittens at 5:08 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
at the time, one did not seem (much) less reasonable than the other
The typewriter ban was wholly unreasonable, saying much more about the faults and dangers of Nicolae Ceausescu and his fellow travellers than those of typewriters.
posted by flabdablet at 5:26 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]
The typewriter ban was wholly unreasonable, saying much more about the faults and dangers of Nicolae Ceausescu and his fellow travellers than those of typewriters.
posted by flabdablet at 5:26 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]
If some billionaire spends trillions
they won't be a billionaire for long.
posted by flabdablet at 5:28 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
they won't be a billionaire for long.
posted by flabdablet at 5:28 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
Samuel Butler:
posted by flabdablet at 5:41 AM on August 26 [14 favorites]
... until the reproductive organs of the machines have been developed in a manner which we are hardly yet able to conceive, they are entirely dependent upon man for even the continuance of their species. It is true that these organs may be ultimately developed, inasmuch as man’s interest lies in that direction; there is nothing which our infatuated race would desire more than to see a fertile union between two steam engines ...Rule 34 circa 1863
posted by flabdablet at 5:41 AM on August 26 [14 favorites]
The Pessimists Archive's About page consists of endorsement pull-quotes from three people: Steven Pinker, Marc Andreessen, and Andrew Ng.
The presence of Andreessen (previously) in particular makes me wonder how (or even whether) the Archive's authors would differentiate knee-jerk pessimistic morally panicked rejection of new technology from the productive raising of concerns and socially responsible regulation of new technology.
posted by audi alteram partem at 6:19 AM on August 26 [8 favorites]
The presence of Andreessen (previously) in particular makes me wonder how (or even whether) the Archive's authors would differentiate knee-jerk pessimistic morally panicked rejection of new technology from the productive raising of concerns and socially responsible regulation of new technology.
posted by audi alteram partem at 6:19 AM on August 26 [8 favorites]
Okay, yeah, that puts a lot in perspective for me... Good find, audi alteram partem.
posted by bigendian at 6:56 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
posted by bigendian at 6:56 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]
We need one of these sites for cross-generational whining, especially older generations complaining about younger ones.
It's a tale as old as time.
posted by yellowcandy at 7:27 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]
It's a tale as old as time.
posted by yellowcandy at 7:27 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]
If some billionaire spends trillions
>they won't be a billionaire for long.
Don't worry, they're someone else's.
posted by trig at 7:55 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
>they won't be a billionaire for long.
Don't worry, they're someone else's.
posted by trig at 7:55 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
One thing Lexus Nexus was good at, and some of the radio catalogs turned into podcasts rss's are great for is tracing an issue back and forward through time. If you choose the environmental or labor ones, you see that the sire warnigs were too optimistic and the 'but there is hope, because technology or responsible companies or market forces will... " never panned out, time and again. I usually go back to 1985 when i was born so yrmv but it is the inverse of this archive. We underestimate the downsides
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 8:43 PM on August 26 [4 favorites]
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 8:43 PM on August 26 [4 favorites]
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Use of word processors has made spelling and proofreading worse, certainly. Of course, English spelling is a nightmare, but still.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:42 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]