Last October Mark C. Taylor wrote a scathing critique of our society’s obsession with speed in The Chronicle of Higher Education. He looks back over the past century and shows how technology has increased productivity and communication to create a society that rabidly chases growth at the expense of sustainability. He argues that stress, massive inequality, and environmental degradation will only worsen with time, ultimately threatening our very survival.

“Within the long arc of history, it becomes clear that the obsession with speed is a recent development that reflects values that have become destructive. Not all reality is virtual, and the quick might not inherit the earth. Complex systems are not infinitely adaptive, and when they collapse, it happens suddenly and usually unexpectedly. Time is quickly running out.”

Yet, we wouldn’t be where we are today without speedy technology.

So, does speed kill? What’s problematic about innovating through speed? What aspects of our society do we want to change and how should we go about doing that?

Is speed the issue, or are we the issue?

Serena—Comfortable with asking ambiguous questions and tries very hard to be patient for answers:
Taylor’s historical approach is certainly compelling, but the irony is that we wouldn’t be able to read his article had it not been for the Internet i.e. speed. It would probably be buried in some journal and would never have been able to reach the number of people that it has.

I don’t think speedy technology is inherently evil. Just think about how much quicker we can provide aid when natural disasters happen, for example, and how “strangers” can provide counseling about personal issues on forums.

The problem is that technology has been used in heartless, amoral ways, even when the original intent was “good.”

For example, it’s awesome to get Amazon packages the next day but how does that impact our support for local businesses that foster value beyond material goods?

Sam—Rides bike fast. Breaks bike. Slow to repair bike:
I totally agree. Speedy tech is not the devil, it’s how we use it that makes it good or bad. You talked about Amazon. Kickstater is like an anti-Amazon. It recommends that creators show their faces in their videos because that increases your chances of getting funded. So Kickstarter’s encouraging personal connection and community.

Eric—Luddite who avoids Facebook and refuses to Tweet, preferring to enjoy thoughtful articles like those you find on The Atlantic or in The New Yorker:
I would build on this thought and say that it’s not just how we make use of <insert technology> but how we as a society adapt as a result of what we create, because the consequences aren’t always readily apparent to us when we make them. We have to live with the new to find the boundaries and what we value.

When we created cars, we didn’t know that we’d have to transform how we design cities to accommodate them, or how the resulting suburbs would promote isolation and commoditization. But we learn, we adapt, and we design new things/systems/thinking to regain what we felt we lost while trying to retain the benefit of the new.

I think the same will happen with speedy tech—we need to figure out how to adapt, but we are working on understanding the consequences and only just starting to articulate/experiment (as Maria Popova expresses in this interview).

Will an impatient society eventually stop learning?

Phileas—Researcher who spends a lot of time speeding up computer code yet stubbornly refuses to get a smartphone:
I think the key point is that technological capabilities, no matter how quickly they grow, always do so more slowly than our societal expectations of progress. When I hear people (myself included) grumbling on domestic flights because the wireless connection at an altitude of 10,000 feet is too slow, I see clear symptoms of this mismatch.

There’s a particularly worrisome trend in both business and science, where the ability to store and collect unprecedented amounts of data has created outsized expectations of being able to solve new problems

(exhibit A: the human genome project; exhibit B: the massive data-mining operations by online and offline retailers). If the current trend continues this problem is only going to get worse over time.

Tania—Scientist who worries about going nowhere at top speed:
You see this in education too, where the outsourcing of facts to the Internet means that students underestimate the amount of skill, time, and effort required to make a useful observation or contribution. Just because Google or someone out there knows it doesn’t mean you know it.

I would summarize it as: anecdotes ≠ data, facts ≠ knowledge. Developing intuition and understanding is supposed to be one of the goals of getting a higher education and it unfortunately can’t be rushed.

The problem with being “always connected” is that it is a constant struggle to inculcate patience and experience (and maybe even embrace) solitude, both of which are required to learn, think and create.

Is our economy rigged?

Serena: I want to have a deeper understanding of Taylor’s point about real and virtual goods, because he may be tapping into why there is a software bubble right now.

“In the past 50 years, two economies that operate at two different speeds have emerged. In one, wealth is created by selling labor or stuff; in the other, by trading signs that are signs of other signs. The virtual assets scale at a speed much greater than the real assets.”

Sam: I feel like what Taylor is really saying is “high-frequency trading is gambling and creates no real value.” I bet high-frequency trading creates real value for companies sometimes, and lots of times it’s just like gambling at a casino. As is investing in software/app companies. Some get hot and make a quick buck fast, some don’t. And so the question is—are casinos good for society? Probably not for one that values deliberation. It seems like gambling is exactly the opposite of living deliberately and with patience.

Jia Jia—Marxist yuppie who enjoys criticizing modern life while savoring its comforts:
I think he’s implying that our economy is rigged on two levels. Firstly, you make more through gambling than through making or doing stuff. Secondly, some people in the casino know card tricks and they’re the ones who always win. This rigged system means that those who win aren’t deserving because they don’t work for rewards and they don’t play fair. They’re scoundrels.

Ahalya—Published author and self-proclaimed pundit on high-frequency trading:
A major complaint made by “slower” investors nowadays is that fast traders use their speed to jump ahead of or “front-run” them, so that they get a worse deal in the markets. A non-financial analogy is ticket scalping. Suppose you are trying to buy tickets for an event on a website and you have selected a ticket listed at $20. Once you hit “submit” however, you are informed there are no longer any tickets available at that price and you can only get a ticket at $30. That’s because someone faster has beaten you to the $20 ticket!

What’s interesting and slightly thorny is that this front-running behavior isn’t actually illegal. High-frequency trading can also generate positive effects in the markets because they trade across different markets so rapidly that they can help smooth away a lot of mispricings in securities.

That said, even if speed creates some efficiencies the more philosophical question is whether it has a positive impact on society. The unrelenting desire for speed has led to a “race to the bottom” amongst high-frequency traders. They try to shave microseconds off their speed and make the markets harder to navigate for others as a result.

The overall consequence is that the marketplace has shifted away from being community-driven to one that is opaque, “tiered” and designed to provide advantages to those who are faster, and can relentlessly siphon away profits from the slower and less privileged. And that’s not a good thing!

Are we racing faster towards human extinction?

Jia Jia: It’s all a question of natural law for me. You can’t create or lose energy or mass and I believe that such a principle of balance permeates everything. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. You want to live long? Be a tortoise or a clam.

So, if we want to talk about the merits of speed, I suppose it depends on how long of a view you’re taking and whose benefits we’re talking about. I certainly have speed to thank for the comforts of my present lifestyle but the path that’s gotten us here is one that’s littered with massacred populations and destroyed environments and it’s headed towards more environmental degradation and extinction, eventually our own. The Earth will always be there, whether it’s livable for us is another matter.

But human extinction is probably a ways off in even the most pessimistic scenarios, and besides, optimists are hoping that space and biotechnology will delay our fate indefinitely through colonization of other planets, cloning etc. What’s important to me is that a fast-paced life doesn’t leave me time to think and appreciate living.

In the flurry to get things done, it’s easy to lose a part of what it means to be human—kindness, consideration, solidarity and respect for each other and the world that we’re in.

What next?

Sam: I am very interested in helping to shape a national/world culture that values sustainability, patience, etc., but to do so we need a way to persuade those who hold “distorted” values to change them. Simply pointing out the problems isn’t enough.

How can we present a compelling alternative that addresses the shortcomings of the current value system and is appealing to the perpetrators? I don’t think it’s something you can logically argue. We may have to live this life to show its benefits without telling people that they should live this life.

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By: Ahalya, Eric, Jia Jia, Phileas, Sam, Serena, Tania