View It is the end of the year, and the tradition is to look back at what has just happened. Let’s not do that. Let us take a step back and look at the broader picture, because although we have been worried about data leaks and operating system updates, we have overlooked this.
The world is going through a great technological revolution in history, just like any time before. Agriculture and settlement have transformed us from slaves to masters of life support systems. The printing press liberated the mind and made the Enlightenment and science possible. The industrial revolution connected energy and society.
Now, the information revolution is doing the same with data, making it work, putting it in everyone’s hands, and breaking the status quo at such a speed that we can barely see its shape.
And it is very fast. The first mass market smartphone was launched in 2007.Now, by the end of 2021, there are 6.4 billion smartphone users worldwide. This is 80% of human beings in 14 years, all of whom are connected to the Internet and connected to each other. Other technologies have seen similar growth rates—the television penetration rate per household in the United States from the 1940s to the 1960s—but never been so global and so personalized at the same time.
Nothing can narrow the gap between desire and fulfillment so powerfully.
Of course, there are also growing problems, they become all the news. No culture, business, politics or society is immune to the instantaneous global transmission, copying and storage of ideas. All the great technological revolutions of the past have brought new costs: disease, repression, pollution, instability, and war. The environmental costs of the industrial revolution may require us to bear.
But between each revolution, people look at the “previous era”, but they can’t see themselves going back to the past. Even today, decades after the Internet has become ubiquitous, and 40 years after it has become almost ubiquitous, it is impossible to imagine how a global pandemic would develop without it.
An unparalleled revolution is roaring, and everyone is not invited to participate, but is ordered to participate. It’s easy to get lost in the numbers. Eight zettabytes of storage space. More than one trillion processor cores (possibly: no one is counting. Arm alone broke through 100 billion chips – Not the core – in 2017, it grew exponentially five years ago). But these are not what makes the whole thing work. It’s not something that promoted the revolution. That will be people. That’s us.
Even those who work at the core of IT can easily forget that when we play movies or post bad jokes on Twitter, every step is initiated and taken care of by people. No matter how much automation or artificial intelligence is deployed, the actual workload that requires eight fingers, two thumbs and one brain to concentrate will never decrease, only increase.
Regardless of your horizontal position in the DevSecOps pipeline or the vertical position in the IT department structure, you are working harder than ever to keep the plate spinning, and nearly 7 billion people can realize their immediate wishes with a single tap . You are not just a part of it, you are a geek, you are it. As a class, one is indispensable. As an invisible class, even among you.
There are two consequences of becoming someone who truly manages the world. One is, hey, you manage the world and you should be proud of this fact. No emperor has your secular power, and no magician can actually master the mysteries you use. Believe it.
The second consequence is that power brings responsibility, not just to do what you can — or do what you can — the same thing if you are lucky. But for the broader consequences of your actions, or lack of them.
Behind every technological revolution there will be other more political revolutions. The power structure that has grown up in agriculture has also created inequality that may be pushed too far-the word “lord” comes from Old English hlāfweard or loaf-keeper: the person who controls the bread controls the people. It’s not enough until people are fed up.
The printing press fueled the religious reforms, it fueled 200 years of bloody conflict in Europe, and every revolution since then is based on pamphlets and propaganda.
There is no doubt that if IT workers around the world decide to unite to promote change, saying yes or no to this or that, the impact will be revolutionary. This may seem incredible, especially because the rewards “in the IT field” are generous and stable, and most geeks who read these words are in liberal democracies, who have been the beneficiaries of many revolutions in the past. Isn’t the boat used to shake?
Even for people who don’t care about politics, it doesn’t hurt to look around and think the world can get better. It is not sinful to think that you can help to do this, if not for yourself, then for those who do not have your superpowers. To be sure, some people look at the world and hope it gets worse, and one day you may have to decide to help or hinder. These are ideas that we all must think about.
The information revolution has narrowed the gap between social and personal aspirations and fulfillment. We must be more careful than ever before what we want, but we must hope. The world has given you great power: think about it, think about it. ®
