Limits - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 118

from the world beyond recall, just as every time they stamp out a species of life, a life form ultimately
tested since the birth of life disappears from the world beyond recall. clix
It's a powerful indictment of our civilization and the saddest story I've ever read. In Ishmael, the
Grasshopper lives in peace with nature, the Ant is hell-bent on consuming the world, and that's
the trouble I have with both myths. The classification of people into two categories is part of the
problem. Fables reflect and reinforce our innate bias for binary opposition. They encourage us to
ostracize them. But if we realize what's going on, and the danger of dichotomy is gone, then we
can explore new ways of seeing stories. For instance, the tortoise and the hare aren't two kinds
of people but opposite ends of a strategic spectrum. We each have the capacity to sprint or plod,
and there's not only one way to win. Similarly, each of us can be a fox who knows many things
or a hedgehog who knows one big thing. The best strategy depends on context.
Once our eyes are open, myths can be paths to wisdom. They help us understand ourselves and
our culture. Consider, for instance, the cross-cultural archetype of the trickster, a subversive
character who is often both hero and buffoon. Anansi, Brer Rabbit, Coyote, Loki, Raven: the
trickster is a shapeshifter, a familiar outsider who transgresses boundaries in the folklore of
many cultures. A creature of ambiguity and liminality, the trickster breaks rules, plays games,
defies categories, and upsets the dominant order. He may be wise, foolish, noble, and mean.
He's a deeply entangled paradox.
Of course, the trickster isn't a myth. He's real. He lives in Silicon Valley. He has a gift for you.
It's a wearable computer with a heads-up display or a cloud-based home security solution or a
drone that delivers pizza or a toilet that monitors your health. It's easy to use. It just works. And
you know what's insanely great? It's free. So give us your eyeballs now.
When I was a kid in England, I rode a yellow skateboard. I learned to fall and to ollie and that
the future is invented in California. Over time I've been a loyal consumer. I've bought Apple
computers, HP printers, and Cisco routers. I've also been a producer with clients in Cupertino,
Mountain View, Palo Alto, San José, San Francisco, and Sunnyvale. I'm great friends with the
Valley. It's a wonderful place to be.
Tricksters are exasperating because they're so good and bad at once. The iPhone isn't simply
useful, usable, and desirable. It's a work of art. But it's also an ugly status symbol, a driving dis-
traction, and an environmental nightmare. Fitbit, Jawbone, and Pebble are fascinating fitness
tracking devices, but do we even know whether they're making us more healthy or less?
I'm not sure how to manage this trickster, but I do know we must shift from self-justification to
self-awareness to move ahead. The secular myth of disruptive innovation isn't new, but it is ef-
fective. We're so busy searching for dinosaurs, we forget to look where we're going. In 2004
when Bruce Sterling first spoke of spime - speculative objects precisely located in space and
time - the vision he painted was bright green. Transfigured from passive consumers into heroic
wranglers, we would mash products, sensors, RFID, and GPS into sustainable spime to reduce, re-
use, and recycle like never before.
It's possible to live in a cleaner way. We live in debris and detritus because of our ignorance. That ignor-
ance is no longer technically necessary…Our capacities are tremendous. Eventually, it is within our tech-
nical ability to create factories that clean the air as they work, cars that give off drinkable water, industry