It feels, at last, that the 21st century has arrived. Until recently we’ve been at the end of the 20th, but now it’s different. Obama, of course, but something else as well.
There’s been a conversation going on—a wider, more inclusive and better-informed conversation than humankind has ever experienced before. You may have noticed the explosion of conferences, seminars, blogs, chats and twitters. What’s it all about? Two recent books—Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest and Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody— sounded the alert. It’s about the unexpected synergy of information. Informed, data-rich communication is reaching critical mass.
In the absence of data, you theorise. In an abundance, you just need to do the maths. And, because of all those super-efficient search engines, we share more and more data. Data dissolves ideology.
Two further books exemplify this: David MacKay’s Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air and Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline are rigorous responses to the challenge of climate change. Both work from data rather than theory, and offer systems of management rather than ideologies. Both are number-rich and theory-light, and urge action—now. In MacKay’s words: “We have to stop saying ‘No’ and start saying ‘Yes’.” In Brand’s: “We are as gods and have to get good at it.”
We’re either at the start of a renaissance, or at the end of civilisation. Increasingly, from facts and figures and arithmetic, we’re building the intellectual tools to decide which it will be. While some shrill conservatives cling to the past, the rest of us are moving forward to something still in the process of being defined. That’s why, compared to them, we look a bit untogether. They know precisely what they don’t want, but we can’t yet clearly articulate what we do want. That’s the nature of the future—it’s a collective act of informed imagination. And the quality of information is improving.
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Data dissolves ideology? That’s either a deeply ideological statement – or a naïve one. Data without a theoretical (ideological?) preconception (to be falsified or not) is intellectually worthless.
FYI: One of Stewart Brand’s more controversial conclusions is calling for more nuclear energy – and a big problem in this area is the wide gulf between public understanding and what actually goes on in nuclear power plants. This gap extends even to the scientists, reporters, pundits, politicians and activists who consider the issue, since they draw their information from dry reports and quick site visits instead of any first-hand knowledge of how atomic reactors are run day to day.
Mr. Brand has been kind enough to endorse my book “Rad Decision: A Novel of Nuclear Power,” which is designed to address that knowledge gap for interested parties of all persuasions. I’ve worked in US nuclear plants over 20 years and my novel covers the people, politics and technology of this energy source in a way only an insider can, looking at both the good and the bad. “Rad Decision” is free online (no advertising, no corporate sponsorship), and is also in paperback. See the homepage for reader comments – they seem to like it for both its information and its entertainment value.
I believe there are many possibilities for the 21st century, both with and without nuclear power, but I also think we’ll make better decisions about our energy future if we first understand our energy present. http://RadDecision.blogspot.com
“I’d like to see Rad Decision widely read.” – Stewart Brand
Thanks Brian, but Paul Cilliers spotted this trend ten years ago in his excellent ‘Complexity and Postmodernism’ (1998) where he argues ‘At the heart of the matter … our technologies have become more powerful than our theories. … We can do with technology what we cannot do with science.’ (pp. 1-2). Well worth a read.
[...] line from Brian Eno from this month’s Prospect Magazine, still the most intelligent of the British [...]
Theorise, or speculate?
When we’re missing data, indeed we try to interpolate and infer what might fill the gaps. In a situation in which the cost of acquiring data is as low as it currently is, there is scarcely an excuse to speculate.
I submit, however, that theory, defined as a set of principles, is exactly that which will enable us to unify and navigate the disparate data.