The eye speaks

Why the future doesn't need us....or Technology versus African-Americans and damn near everyone else on the planet!

The following is from an email I sent to Wired magazine's comment address in response to an article printed in their May 2000 issue (8.05) entitled "Why the future doesn't need us" by Bill Joy. Participate. Read the article by clicking the link below and let Wired know what you think by sending email to whythefuture@wired.com

First of all, I must commend Bill Joy on his article entitled "Why the future doesn't need us" (May 2000 issue 8.05 ) in Wired Magazine. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it prompted me to reread an Atlantic Monthly article that caused a stir in the African-American technical community entitled "Technology versus African-Americans" (The Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 1999, ).

In a way, "why the future doesn't need us" expands "Technology versus African-Americans". The former talks about a foreboding future and the latter talks about the peculiarly bad experience African-Americans have had with technology and how that history explains the current "digital divide."

After rereading both articles I began to wonder if African people aren't truly the proverbial canaries in the mine.

Will this country's failure to understand and come to grips with the "peculiar technology" of the slavery mean that everyone--regardless of race, creed, or ethnicity--will have to re-live our history? I hope not.

What drives me nowadays is the fear that people of African descent--my people--will be the first targets of some deliberate or inadvertent technological disaster. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but how many scientists and/or engineers does it really take to create and release a killer virus (AIDS?) or runaway nanobot? If I am to use our history in this hemisphere as my guide, I wont have to wait very long for disaster to strike...again...that is--assuming we aren't in the midst of one right now.

When I started 18 years ago, I believed that engineering was about making life better. I saw it as a calling or ministry, and I still see it that way. However if I a fail, I want to know enough about my field so that I can at least warn the people I love of the danger.

Thanks for the nightmares, Mr. Joy.

© 2000 Jesse N. Alexander