The Road Behind

We've seen some truly extraordinary developments in the world of technology.  The theme always seems to be faster, smaller, more revolutionary.  As with anything else, a future built on the foundations of the past is one that will survive and grow.  But one built on its own without consulting history will inevitably crumble and self-destruct.  We see it all the time.

Failure is important in determining what will and won't work moving forward.  It makes no sense to keep trying something that has been proven not to work.  This goes for everything from technology to legislation.  So many poor business decisions are made despite the overwhelming evidence that a particular course of action simply won't succeed.  People believe it's somehow different for them, that they've solved the problem, or that those in the past just didn't do it right.

The overwhelming desire for the right to repair is a perfect example of this.  It has been proven over and over that consumers want the ability to repair their own vehicles, devices, and property.  Yet we repeatedly see attempts to take this away from them, sometimes by even redefining what ownership actually is.  In other words, buying a car or a piece of software doesn't mean that you actually own it anymore, but simply that you have licensed it and are subject to whatever terms the manufacturer dictates.  While some of us get sucked into this mindset and dutifully pay endless fees for everything from extra speed in our cars to software upgrades that often take away features, there are more of us who fight back and figure out ways around these unfair forms of control.

A key method of losing this battle is to sever links to the past.  Forgetting how a certain piece of technology worked back in the day is a surefire way of not understanding its equivalent in the present and the future.  If you don't know how it works, you have much less power in determining how it should work and how the end user ought to be treated.

Here in the hacker world, we find ourselves in a very strange and unique place.  Because of our passion for technology and our almost obsessive desire to learn as much as we can about its inner workings, we find ourselves in a relationship with it that those who simply manufacture or sell technology never get to experience or understand.  When the executives upstairs decide to discard hardware or software because of something more profitable, they feel absolutely no allegiance for the old systems or the slightest bit of regret at their loss.  They have no passion and they have no understanding.  These are two ingredients that hackers have in abundance.

We have heard of so many instances where people are forced into upgrading software and then told they have to upgrade their hardware because their old systems can't support the new software.  It seems to be a neverending cycle for many.  While upgrades and updates are necessary and important, we seem a bit too eager to abandon something that works in favor of someone else's vision without really knowing why.

We see it all the time with web-based content and social media networks, where people grow accustomed to the way things have been set up, only to be told the rules have changed and all of their content is now in danger of vanishing if they don't accept the new environment.  Of course, these companies have the right to do this as these are their systems and they can use them as they please.  But it's a bad situation for any user to be in when they have relinquished control and must be at the mercy of some faceless entity that they often can't even talk to.

Many of us have fond memories of the old telephone network, a vast sprawling creature that encompassed the world and which we all thought of as an omnipotent entity that would always be there.  When we started publishing 40 years ago, the Bell System was in the process of being (((broken up))) because it was too powerful, and ever since then we've witnessed it change and morph into something else entirely.  And that old system that everyone was in awe of back then?  It exists mostly in our memories or in telephone museums.  The people who run the telecommunications companies have little interest in that.  But the hackers and phone phreaks who used to break into those systems of the past are often the ones telling the stories, along with former telecommunications workers like those in the Telephone Pioneers of America.  In the end, it comes down to individuals who love the technology, not the companies that sell it.

Maybe it makes little sense to keep payphones around.  After all, everyone has cell phones these days and they cost money to maintain.  But while we like technological advances as much as anyone, we know quite well that they don't always work or that new tech is susceptible to things that old tech wasn't.  For instance, in a power outage, old-fashioned landlines would still be able to make phone calls for weeks because of the generators at the central office.  Today, if the cell tower goes down, you're out of luck.  Even those with new fiber optic landlines only have a few hours of backup power available, unlike the old copper lines the phone companies are desperately trying to abandon.  Maybe those are conditions we're okay with accepting, but they're definitely a downgrade in that department.  We have to wonder if continuing to maintain at least a bare bones network that was more capable of withstanding a sustained outage might not be wise.

Not insignificantly, the purging of old pieces of technology robs us of the opportunity of taking them apart and seeing how they work.  That's something you can't really do with the latest, most advanced telecommunications devices.  So today's kids don't get to learn that lesson, except maybe through a textbook.

Automobiles are another example of this.  For many of us, it's absolutely forbidden to take apart components of your car and replace or upgrade them.  You have a shop to bring your car to for that - and not just any shop.  Only those licensed by the manufacturer will be supplied with the proper computer codes to access the innards of your vehicle.  Any deviation from these rules and you've voided your warranty.  In the past, replacing a water pump or changing an oil filter on our own was a rite of passage for many of us.  Today we're discouraged from even trying.  And we remain ignorant end users as a result.

We may have access to some of the most amazing tech ever invented.  But are we truly learning?  Is it wise to sunset everything that's old and condemn it to the outdated pile?  Can we really understand future technology if we don't understand its history?  We don't see how.

Learning to code is a hugely inspirational achievement for many of us.  Will we be better off if artificial intelligence can just do that for us?  Many experts are saying that's precisely where we're heading.  And while it's super cool and awesome to see how quickly AI can whip something together that would have taken us so much longer, we're actually being robbed of the experience and the joy that comes with the process.  If simply accomplishing a task and moving on to the next one is all that life is about, then we ought to just sit back and let those tasks get done faster and with less of our involvement.  But if life is about building these things ourselves and figuring stuff out on our own, then we ought to stop discarding those experiences in the name of efficiency and start getting our hands as dirty as possible.

Consider what makes a symphony, a painting, or a play a work of art.  It's not simply the mathematical arrangement of music, colors, or words.  It's the fact that it came from a human mind.  That's what ties us to it more than any programmed output ever could.  When we give up our hands-on access to anything, we lose that connection that forever ties it to us.

One thing that has never changed throughout every issue we have ever published is the wondrous feeling that whatever has already been invented will pale in comparison to whatever is coming in years ahead.  But we should never confuse that inevitability with the belief that everything new is by default better than what came before.

Oftentimes, we lose something in the transition - and part of our responsibility is to hold onto that something and preserve it in some way, lest it be lost forever.  Visionaries frequently believe that history is something that can be defied because they know better.  But that's not how progression works.

While we don't need to always be proud of history, we do need to always at least attempt to understand it.  In the world of technology, that means tackling the basic concepts that make everything from a steam engine to a mainframe computer operate.  When we know how the theories behind the science work and are willing to commit to experimenting on that level, the real learning will quickly follow.  Skipping this essential part ensures that we'll become enslaved to a technology we have no understanding of.