Our digital life together

In a 1974 interview (see video clip below), Arthur C. Clarke, the grand man of science fiction and author of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), confidently predicted the personal computer and the internet. IBM launched the PC in 1981, though Clarke would have seen its precursor in 1970. The internet developed in the early 1980s, but its component parts go back to the 1960s. So Clarke had reason to be casting this vision in 1974.

Clarke is stunningly prescient in his response to the reporter’s question whether by 2001 his young son would be “better adjusted” to the world Clarke portrays in his novel.

“The big difference when he grows up—in fact you won’t have to wait until 2001—is that he will have in his own house … a console through which he can talk through his friendly local computer and get all the information he needs for his everyday life, like bank statements, his theatre reservations, all the information you need in the course of living in a complex modern society.”

But Clarke’s social speculation is even more interesting. The interviewer expressed concern over life “built around the computer,” over becoming “a computer dependent society, and computer dependent individuals.” But Clarke, in his excitement at the liberating possibilities of modern telecommunications, dismissed this concern.

“Any businessman or executive could live almost anywhere on earth and still do his business through a device like this. And this is a wonderful thing. It means we won’t have to be stuck in cities. We could live out in the country or wherever we please and still carry on complete interaction with other human beings.”

As far back as 1964, he predicted this disappearance of cities.

But the population-dispersing effects of telecommuting never played out. Some people work from home, at least sometimes. There is teleconferencing and people can “Skype in” to local meetings. But there is no real substitute for a face-to-face meeting with eye contact, a personal smile, and a handshake. A wholly trustworthy God intended for us to have productive relationships that require a mutual trust that electronic distance strains.

Even had Clarke’s tech-enabled social vision come to pass, his excitement would have been misplaced. The good life for human beings is a life together, not scattered and isolated: family, friendship, church, community. What draws us together enhances life. What draws or drives us apart diminishes us. Our pods, tablets, and smartphones, when misused, leave us empowered but lonely.

Technologies in themselves are neither good nor evil. God commanded us to take dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:28), and modern science has enabled us to unpack as never before the blessings embedded in creation. But dominion without wisdom is oppressive domination, and wisdom aims at our flourishing in work and worship together. Modern science, modern politics, modern economics as such are all about personal empowerment with nothing to say about wisdom. Christians must be mindful always to be more than modern, keeping the conquest of nature within the Kingdom of God and the empire of love.