Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology

The “magic” of modern technology implies that the trajectory of the digital revolution is objective and unassailable and that the people driving its development are great figures of history. Technological objects, even those that are or seem to be playful or diverting, are designed with a certain purpose in mind, and they can influence us in profou

This kind of thinking sees the future as defined by universal progress—rather than by a messy, contradictory struggle between different interests and forces—and never driven by the aspirations of those from below. It reduces the value of human agency to entrepreneurialism and empty consumerism.

The friar is a piece of craftsmanship that has lasted four centuries, whereas a comparable artifact today might be built in a Chinese factory, under appalling conditions, complete with planned obsolescence. Such a contrast demonstrates how technology is a field of creativity and skill, especially in its early, innovative stages. But when it is scal

The purpose of a usable past is not simply to be a record of history. Rather, by building a shared appreciation of moments and traditions in collective history, a usable past is a method for creating the world we want to see. It is about “cutting the cloth” of history, as Brooks put it, to suit a particular agenda. It is an argument for what the fu

Knowing that others have desired the things we desire and have encountered the same obstacles,” Brooks argued, “would not the creative forces of this country lose a little of the hectic individualism that keeps them from uniting against their common enemies?”

Our past tells us about our present—how it was just one of many possible futures claimed by those who came before. In this context, both the creation and use of technology express a kind of power relation.

Digital technology is treated as a force of nature, without an agenda, inevitable and unstoppable. The past that has survived in the minds of the current generation is one that reflects what has happened rather than what is possible.

Society is often treated as an object, which digital technology does things to, rather than a community of people with agency and a collective desire to shape the future.

Our current society reveres some kinds of labor and debases others, and the power of technology to improve our world and livelihood is not equally distributed.