by 
Recently I was on a bus in Dublin, Ireland in conversation with a European professor. We’ve known each other for many years but see each other infrequently. As part of catching up, I shared with him that earlier in the year I spoke at Newcastle University (England) for their annual Riddell Memorial Lectures. “Curb Your Technological Enthusiasm: When should we be tech-prudent?” was my title. My professor friend immediately challenged the idea that we can do much to stop new tech from spreading. I have heard this claim from other intelligent people: technological change is inevitable so we just need to learn to accommodate it the best we can. Perhaps you share his skepticism. As a general idea, it may be true, but in the specific, not so.
I pointed out that there are lots of technologies — entertainment, industrial, medical, and others — that neither of us have ever purchased, and we might even actively discourage our children or communities from acquiring. Many inventions have gone no where or had very short lifespans and limited spreads. Consider the steam-engine automobile, the double-decker bus, or this list of innovation flops.
That fact is that very few technologies spread without someone, somewhere — individuals, corporations, or governments — buying them. And we have a lot of control over what we buy, and many opportunities to influence what others buy, including our local governments. Just because there are computer tablets, that does not mean we have to buy them for our children or put them in our kids’ schools. The tech is available to implant a tracking chip in our children, but I am yet to meet someone who has done it. No one piece of tech or innovation is ‘inevitable.’ And so, we have the responsibility to make good judgements about which one’s we’ll adopt. We need to be prudent about which technologies or technological solutions to problems that we will support.
No doubt, some new tech will be largely good, but some will have negative consequences, too, even when the inventor’s intentions are good. Fortunately, we can use scientific methods to evaluate the consequences of many technologies and let that evidence guide the public in whether to adopt them. But what happens when technologies spread too quickly and get rooted too deeply in our lives before they can be fully evaluated? What happens if they are like kudzu?
I live in the southeastern United States where we battle this infamous invasive vine. Also called Japanese arrowroot, kudzu can grow more than a foot each day and commonly envelops trees, utility poles, bridges, barns, and houses. What was originally brought to the US as an ornamental plant and later used as inexpensive livestock feed, was deliberately spread by governmental programs in the middle part of the 20th century as a way to combat soil erosion. Ironically, this attempt to address an ecological problem became its own ecological problem, destroying native species and habitats. Sadly, kudzu is only one of many well-meaning technologies that has become a nearly intractable problem. It seems even science-informed problem-solvers can fail to anticipate the longer-term consequences of their efforts.
Some technologies — human-engineered solutions to problems — get out of hand. You can probably think of some contemporary examples. For many of us, digital social media is one such example, especially in the hands of children. Various pesticides, food additives, and weapons might make your list. My point isn’t to identify bugaboos, but to see if there is a way of better predicting which tools or ‘solutions’ could become plagues.
In my Riddell lectures, I focused on ways in which insights from the study of cultural evolution, and especially how the cognitive science of cultural forms, might give us tools for anticipating which new technologies might be like kudzu. I argued that we can do a better job judging various technologies early in order to discourage rapid spread or deep rootedness in our communities. We can also do a better job of determining whether many of our technologies are likely to improve versus harm human thriving.
If you are more interested in what I shared in Newcastle, the lectures can be found on YouTube. I am also hoping to begin creating additional short videos that explore this topical space. You will be able to find these on my YouTube channel. So if you are interested, consider subscribing so that you can easily find these videos when they are released.
In the meantime, I encourage us all to be thoughtful and prudent with new technology. Will it promote human thriving? Will it better restore and align the world with God’s purposes? Or will it be like kudzu, something that seemed like a good idea but now is a problem that we can’t overcome?
