Cybrpnk's Rantings

Last night was the wrap party for the Visual Effects work on I, Robot. Unsurprisingly some of the conversation was about the difference between Isaac Asimov's world with robots as envisioned back in the 1950s, and our contemporary, darker view. This got me to thinking about the dramatic divide between what America used to try to be, and what it now tries to do. This distinction can be simplified into a distinction between America as an optimistic society, as opposed to America as a greedy society. One of the most striking themes that runs through a lot of the classical sci-fi, and which strikes as us so naive today, is the unspoken belief that the purpose of scientific and technological progress is to improve the lives of all humanity. This was a time when we, as a society, saw ourselves as locked in a bitter struggle with godless communism, which we faced down not with piety and open markets, but good old American know-how. The fundamental premise of the mythology of the cold war was that we were going to band together and out-innovate the Soviets, and that the result of that would be a better world for everyone.

Certainly this mythology masked a lot of dark truths, but internally it led to a culture where the government's role was in funding innovation, and science's role was to both protect America from an external threat and to lay the foundation for a better world. And not just a better world for America, but a better world for all humanity. It was this optimism, this bold envisioning of a better future, that so many people around the world appreciated about America. Sure we were crass, naive, boorish, but we had big ideas and really tried to make them real.

What a stark contrast to America today. Somewhere around the late 70s or early 80s our entire culture shifted. Some of it coincides with the fall of the Berlin Wall. There was a sharp decrease in the fear of an external threat. And did we react with a renewed commitment to our bold vision of the future? No, we reacted by embracing a creed of greed. We have transformed a bold, optimistic program of government-funded science and technology into a cold, pessimistic culture of privately-funded technology in the pursuit of profit. We have gone from the culture that could envision wiping out smallpox to the culture that chooses tax cuts for our richest citizens over global eradication of AIDS. When you look at the numbers involved, it is truly shameful. In the face of tax cuts of well over a trillion dollars, the commitment of, let's say, $20 billion a year to fight AIDS certainly looks doable. And when you consider that one of the largest barriers to AIDS treatment in much of the world is the US patents of drugs, our failure to act strongly and effectively is absurd. Especially given that a fair amount of the research that led to the creation of those drugs was US government funding. For, after all, the government still funds some research, but it prefers to do so when it will lead to private profits.

What a tragic shame that we who claim to inherit the mantle of greatness which we imagine has been the birthright of America for generations have degenerated to the point where we can imagine a government role in bringing religion to the poor, we can commit to massive investment in weapons systems and war, we can blame outsiders for the messes we have made for ourselves, we can act in complete disregard for the future of the planet, and we can embrace a ruler whose mantra is 'threat' not 'hope.' Sound like the middle ages to anyone else out there?