I can’t deny that the twenty-first century is pretty cool. From the standpoint of available technology, the world is doing better than ever before. We have near-instant communication across the globe, machines building other machines that can fly, automatic toilets, LinkedIn, and autonomous drones armed with lethal force. These are all exceptional feats of engineering, and we should be proud of the millennia of innovation that have gotten humanity to this enlightened age. Everyone else clearly agrees, because the well-oiled engine of technological progress shows no signs of slowing down.
On the other hand, from most other standpoints, things aren’t looking so great. The engines of “democracy” and “access to basic human needs” are coughing out clouds of black smoke and really, really seem like someone should check in on them. So, my dear technical professionals, what gives? When did we start assuming we exist in a bubble? More and more, engineers are engineering solutions for other engineers; it clearly shows, and it doesn’t make a lick of sense. This quest for technical glory is a pervasive and cleverly disguised form of laziness. After all, even if you’re dimly aware of your own tunnel vision, it’s always easier to turn a blind eye to it and invest more of yourself into inventing the next cool thing, finding a “cleaner” solution than what’s out there already, and otherwise picking the low-hanging fruit. Please, enough–elegance is a weird and exceptionally immature metric. Does it really matter if you shave one transistor off your PCB design or find a slightly faster prime factorization algorithm, when millions of people still don’t have clean drinking water, machine learning algorithms have deeply ingrained biases, and we’ve smashed through the 1.5°C mark like it’s a (still thinning) sheet of ice? Yes, the latter problems are more intimidating, and the chance of failure is higher, but at least the reward is greater than an alarmingly cyclic pat on the back from a friend who recently shaved one transistor off their PCB.
Amidst this polemic take on technical innovation, I should clarify that I’m not arguing against new things on principle. I believe that our current world is broken in innumerable ways, and that that can’t be fixed without changes to systems, improvements in institutions, and new ways of empathetic thought. What I do think is that it can be fixed without new technology, and that nuclear fusion and space travel might just have to wait in line behind widespread adoption of solar power and reliable public transit. I highly value and am satisfied with the comforts of life that exist today in a developed country, and I know billions of other people would feel the same, if given the chance to. “Progress”–in the sociopathic entrepreneurial sense of the word–is a falsely linear narrative that has already done more than enough harm, and the more nuanced philosophy, psychology, and geopolitics that surround it need a chance to catch up.
This hope is likely unrealistic, but in my ideal future, we’d forget about elegance, and lay aside aspirations to give the keynote speech at this year’s “Non-Euclidean Flywheels x Applied Buzzword Inc.” conference, presenting to a rapt audience about one of the most dangerous things out there: solutions without a problem. By that, I mean that it’s easy to lead with the technology, then go looking for ways it can be parachuted into people’s lives. The intentions in doing so are often very good, but without meaningful input from the affected groups woven throughout the design process, the outcome will more likely than not shoot others in the foot.
Instead, we might take the time to focus on meaningfully challenging problems: the sort that can’t be captured in a patent, thesis, or minimalist startup. These problems require talking to experts outside the STEM bubble (of whom I’ve been told there are many). If the conclusions you reach look like hacked-together smorgasbords of human knowledge and took many battles and compromises to reach, then you’ll know something is on the right track. I will repeat this once more: elegance is too narrow a construct for relevant ideas, and complex problems require complex solutions.
As I speak, I know there are brilliant and highly competent people already inventing the future. I am and always will be in awe of these people, whose decisions and creations have such an outsized impact on the world. I wouldn’t be here at all if I had no aspirations of being among their number. I just ask that perhaps, as we all tell our narratives about deciding and creating, we might take the time to remember how much greater the impact is when building community, and not a 0.3% faster graphics card.