I’m a recent admirer of Kevin Kelly’s writing. This article, where he explains the emergence of a third, “nerd culture” (in addition to the science and art cultures), is thoughtful and inspiring. Below are some excerpts and my reactions.
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Science as the outsider culture:
When we say “culture,” we think of books, music, or painting. Since 1937 the United States has anointed a national poet laureate but never a scientist laureate.
Ironically, science continually creates tools that enable new art forms: radio, TV, computers, smartphones.
But it’s no longer just science vs art. A third culture has emerged, driven largely by computers.
It’s a pop culture based in technology, for technology. Call it nerd culture.
Nerds now grace the cover of Time and Newsweek. They are heroes in movies and Man of the Year. Indeed, more people wanna be Bill Gates than wanna be Bill Clinton.
(I think there is growing backlash against this “nerd culture”…if anything, it’s a sign that nerd culture is crossing that chasm and people are feeling transition pain)
Cultures create new jargon. Let’s “google” something. The language of text messaging.
Science is the pursuit of truth. Art is the exploration of humanity. Nerds are about novelty and creation.
Scientists would measure and test a mind; artists would contemplate and abstract it. Nerds would manufacture one.
This nerd culture builds tools, ignores credentials and admires crazy.
C. P. Snow had imagined a third culture where scientists interacted directly with artists. Nerd culture is both a step towards that vision, and something entirely different.
A really good dynamic computer model—of the global atmosphere, for example—is like a theory that throws off data, or data with a built-in theory. It’s easy to see why such technological worlds are regarded with such wariness by science—they seem corrupted coming and going.
But it will only grow, because computers and internet.
As large numbers of the world’s population move into the global middle class, they share the ingredients needed for the third culture: science in schools; access to cheap, hi-tech goods; media saturation; and most important, familiarity with other nerds and nerd culture.
“The effect of concept-driven revolution is to explain old things in new ways. The effect of tool-driven revolution is to discover new things that have to be explained” – Freeman Dyson
I disagree with Kelly on the following:
Indeed, raw opportunity may be the only thing of lasting value that technology provides us. It’s not going to solve our social ills, or bring meaning to our lives.
It seems clear to me that the manifestations of technology (the internet, mobile phones, cheap PCs, home appliances) have made Joe- and Jane-citizen richer, smarter and more comfortable. Computer simulations of cancer-fighting drugs…accurate pricing data for third world farmers and fishermen…vast libraries of digital books for schoolchildren around the world…these are all examples of how technology addresses social ills.
(it may just be semantics; for example, Kelly might mean that even the world’s fastest computer is worthless without a competent user, and the computer itself is the product of human minds and hands)
Kelly ends with this beautiful thought:
The culture of science, so long in the shadow of the culture of art, now has another orientation to contend with, one grown from its own rib.