I have Tesla Cybertrucks driving around my neighborhood. The gulf between the desired aesthetic (e.g., how it's shown in marketing materials) and how it looks in real life is massive. It has some terrible angles that make it look squat and ungainly from certain vantage points, and any dirt or wear immediately looks incongruous on its flat panels. Its geometry is in open rebellion against reality (and maybe beauty), so it's notable in that regard at least.
Well this is ironic, or maybe appropriate. I've written about objects being replaced by images, and now it turns out I misjudged one of the objects I discussed because I've only seen the image!
I think the reference to Fordism is telling. Perhaps Apple realised that trying to develop and refine the private car is the equivalent of Ford's "faster horses". The future of transport, at least urban transport, will not be defined by better, shinier, more efficient, more automated private cars - it will be defined by a combination of mass-mobility and micro-mobility. Instead of looking for innovation in the private car sector, look for it in public transport, e-bikes, cargo bikes etc - this is where we are more likely to see innovative products that will have longevity.
I hope you're right – better public transport, bikes and fewer cars would be a big improvement from my point of view! Unfortunately I don't see that happening in the UK, where there is money to be made by taxing cars and no money to spend on public transport.
I haven’t followed the Apple Car that closely but the rumour I heard was that it was impossible to make a fully self-driving vehicle because of the limitations of AI driving. Just as the iPhone didn’t have a keyboard, imagine a car without a steering wheel. Ironically, the sense of being in control of something larger than yourself is an appeal of driving so it would have fed in to the passive future.
Yes, there is a deeper problem here that both software and hardware (the latter now serving as packaging for the former) are eroding human agency and competence. That's why I probably wouldn't have liked the Apple car. But I would still prefer a trajectory that involves us in some relationship with material products than one based on artificial representations of things.
Wessie, very interesting. There is something depressing about the ascendancy of the digital over the material, of computer design and engineering over old fashioned design and engineering of stuff. So maybe things have more "Pathos"? I certainly feel that.
But in the world we have, I'm not entirely sure it's an entirely bad thing for national and even global political economies to continue their march into the digital ether. Maybe people, in the sense of folks, will be left with gardens, sports, even crafts. I know a number of very wealthy people who have become woodworkers. Would it be altogether bad if the pace of material transformation of ordinary lives continued to slow, and we sort of enjoyed that?
Strangely enough, I'm currently trying to write a book proposal about these very questions! I think the material world and its rituals are becoming more poignant and ceremonial, or at least they will if we invest them with enough meaning. A good analogy is the changing value of nature after urbanisation. But I worry that enjoyment of this redefined material world is becoming a luxury, requiring time and (equally scarce) attention. We assume the wealthy will upload themselves to the cloud, but the opposite is true – the aristocracy of the future will enjoy "real life."
Wessie, good luck with the book proposal! If you want a pair of eyes . . .
The rich are always going to have nice things, that's what it means to be rich. (I should say I'm pretty comfortable.) Nor do I think the wealthy are uploading themselves in the cloud, but much wealth -- the flows of capital that make modernity -- is already digital. More on this in other quarters. You are concerned, rightly imho, with the character of the physical. And I don't think that's necessarily a luxury good at all. You are asking questions around what design, consumption, maybe rituals of materiality (gardening? craft?) mean for relatively ordinary life. What are meaningful THINGS for the inhabitants of large polities?
Thanks David, I may well ask for your insight at some point!
I don't mind the rich having nice things – I'm no working-class hero either – but I'm interested in the dynamics of inequality insofar as they inevitably shape the character of the world we inhabit. Beyond that, the material (and immaterial) culture of different parts of society is a matter of sociological observation.
And yes, those are the questions I'm asking, but more particularly: how does the meaning and value of artefacts change as they are displaced by technology (not the same as being replaced!), and what patterns can we discern in their displacement? Who benefits from the paradigm shift away from discrete objects to centralised systems, and what should be wary about losing? Hopefully that gives a flavour!
I have Tesla Cybertrucks driving around my neighborhood. The gulf between the desired aesthetic (e.g., how it's shown in marketing materials) and how it looks in real life is massive. It has some terrible angles that make it look squat and ungainly from certain vantage points, and any dirt or wear immediately looks incongruous on its flat panels. Its geometry is in open rebellion against reality (and maybe beauty), so it's notable in that regard at least.
Well this is ironic, or maybe appropriate. I've written about objects being replaced by images, and now it turns out I misjudged one of the objects I discussed because I've only seen the image!
I think the reference to Fordism is telling. Perhaps Apple realised that trying to develop and refine the private car is the equivalent of Ford's "faster horses". The future of transport, at least urban transport, will not be defined by better, shinier, more efficient, more automated private cars - it will be defined by a combination of mass-mobility and micro-mobility. Instead of looking for innovation in the private car sector, look for it in public transport, e-bikes, cargo bikes etc - this is where we are more likely to see innovative products that will have longevity.
I hope you're right – better public transport, bikes and fewer cars would be a big improvement from my point of view! Unfortunately I don't see that happening in the UK, where there is money to be made by taxing cars and no money to spend on public transport.
Great post.
I haven’t followed the Apple Car that closely but the rumour I heard was that it was impossible to make a fully self-driving vehicle because of the limitations of AI driving. Just as the iPhone didn’t have a keyboard, imagine a car without a steering wheel. Ironically, the sense of being in control of something larger than yourself is an appeal of driving so it would have fed in to the passive future.
Yes, there is a deeper problem here that both software and hardware (the latter now serving as packaging for the former) are eroding human agency and competence. That's why I probably wouldn't have liked the Apple car. But I would still prefer a trajectory that involves us in some relationship with material products than one based on artificial representations of things.
Wessie, very interesting. There is something depressing about the ascendancy of the digital over the material, of computer design and engineering over old fashioned design and engineering of stuff. So maybe things have more "Pathos"? I certainly feel that.
But in the world we have, I'm not entirely sure it's an entirely bad thing for national and even global political economies to continue their march into the digital ether. Maybe people, in the sense of folks, will be left with gardens, sports, even crafts. I know a number of very wealthy people who have become woodworkers. Would it be altogether bad if the pace of material transformation of ordinary lives continued to slow, and we sort of enjoyed that?
Strangely enough, I'm currently trying to write a book proposal about these very questions! I think the material world and its rituals are becoming more poignant and ceremonial, or at least they will if we invest them with enough meaning. A good analogy is the changing value of nature after urbanisation. But I worry that enjoyment of this redefined material world is becoming a luxury, requiring time and (equally scarce) attention. We assume the wealthy will upload themselves to the cloud, but the opposite is true – the aristocracy of the future will enjoy "real life."
Wessie, good luck with the book proposal! If you want a pair of eyes . . .
The rich are always going to have nice things, that's what it means to be rich. (I should say I'm pretty comfortable.) Nor do I think the wealthy are uploading themselves in the cloud, but much wealth -- the flows of capital that make modernity -- is already digital. More on this in other quarters. You are concerned, rightly imho, with the character of the physical. And I don't think that's necessarily a luxury good at all. You are asking questions around what design, consumption, maybe rituals of materiality (gardening? craft?) mean for relatively ordinary life. What are meaningful THINGS for the inhabitants of large polities?
Thanks David, I may well ask for your insight at some point!
I don't mind the rich having nice things – I'm no working-class hero either – but I'm interested in the dynamics of inequality insofar as they inevitably shape the character of the world we inhabit. Beyond that, the material (and immaterial) culture of different parts of society is a matter of sociological observation.
And yes, those are the questions I'm asking, but more particularly: how does the meaning and value of artefacts change as they are displaced by technology (not the same as being replaced!), and what patterns can we discern in their displacement? Who benefits from the paradigm shift away from discrete objects to centralised systems, and what should be wary about losing? Hopefully that gives a flavour!