C I P R I A N I

Chuck Klosterman is a great writer.  I’m not a critic and am embarrassed that I’ve not read every great American writer more extensively,  but I’ve read enough to know that I connect with him more so than most other writers.  Maybe it’s because he once wrote a piece in defense of Billy Joel.

I just finished his most recent novel THE VISIBLE MAN.  This is not a review of that book (though it’s certainly worth the read. Breezy and evocative – like the rest of his work, I enjoyed it).  The reason I bring it up is because the focus of this particular entry is technology and while I was kicking it around, I came across this passage in Klosterman’s book:

“Because humans live finite lives, all technological advances immediately feel banal to whatever generation inherits their benefits.  Any advance can be appreciated only by the handful of people who happen to exist within the same time period of that specific technology’s introduction…Those are the only people who notice the difference.  To a seven-year old, a computer doesn’t even qualify as technology.  It’s like a crowbar.  Everything magical is temporary.  So the idea that science makes our life ‘better’ is kind of an ephemeral illusion.”

This passage seems to inversely echo Arthur C. Clarke’s famous line:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

That’s why I’m fond of it Klosterman’s writing:  He’s original and reminiscent of other things at the same time.  Another book of his, Killing Yourself to Live, reminded me of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (another favorite), but in the best possible way (and he even brought up the parallel himself).

Hornby’s book was universal, at least to men of my generation – but something about Klosterman’s take was uniquely American.  But I’m way off my original intention:

The economy is a wreck because of technology.

Sure, it’s made our lives easier but like the line from Don Henley & Bruce Hornsby’s classic song The End of the Innocence:

“Who knows how long this will last, we’ve come so far so fast…”

When Henry Ford started selling that grand invention of the automobile to the masses, he changed the world. Now, of course, Ford wasn’t the only company selling cars.  Other companies sold them too and eventually the Auto Industry was one of the key components of the American economy.

The automobile – this invention, this innovation – not only created jobs in the factories that built the cars, but also the jobs in the dealerships, service stations, gas stations, tire manufacturers, auto part manufacturers, motor oil distributors, and don’t forget the advertisers, drive-thrus, drive-ins and roads.

This particular innovation caused a ripple effect, creating millions of jobs and sub-industries and supporting and sponsoring that many more.

The Airplane did the same thing. So did the televsion. In fact those big game changing innovations not only made lives easier, they stimulated the economy by creating millions of jobs.  Whether it was the building of the Thing, selling of the Thing, advertising the Thing or repairing the Thing.  Jobs, Jobs, Jobs were invented too.

Now of course, the personal computer did this too, and eventually this lead to the Internet, our Generation’s “Man on the Moon”, for better or worse.

And while we now literally have the world at our fingertips, how many jobs did this particular innovation create?  Of course it created quite a few millionaires and even some billionaires, so in addition to making life easier for most, it also created wealth…for a few.

But as far as that ripple effect of “tire makers”, “dealerships”, “mechanics”, “gas stations”?  Not so much.  Sure you’ve got some folks blogging and running various (and possibly nefarious) websites, but this stuff just doesn’t feel like an “Industry” to me – a “cottage” one at best.

Now, Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook? That kind of feels like an industry.

Kind of.

I don’t know…Maybe I’m old fashioned, but at the very least, let’s just say that all the folks that WalMart and China and the closing of all the record stores laid off got a job working on the internet…or WalMart. Ir seems we’re still at zero sum.

Smart phones are fantastic, but they’re sold in the same place by the same people that used to sell the dumb ones.

Now, this has always been the case. Industrialization and automation wipes out jobs and there is a transition, a down period, until some innovation jolts the economy and creates real jobs.  And we can Red State and Blue State ourselves to death – but the truth is, for awhile, we’ve been moving money around in one scheme after another because a lot of antiquated ways of doing things just got wiped out by a more efficient innovation. And that innovation doesn’t necessarily cause a boom that includes creating jobs for millions of people like the car, or airplane, or tv did.

Such is progress. Such is innovation. But pair this most recent game changing innovation of the internet with the rise of cheaper labor in China and the like and WalMart eradicating the mom and pop stores, it’s no wonder things are the way they are.

In this, our finite lives, as much as we take for granted the ease in which we can book a flight or order a book or send a message, what exactly are the benefits of what we’re passing on?

The magic is certainly temporary, but is the progress just an ephemeral illusion, ultimately leading to a future in which we find ourselves unable to even use a crowbar anymore because we’re chained to a computer that we can no longer afford?