Artifice and nature Commentary The end of the nineties was a time of excess similar to the roaring twenties, an era that saw a burst of progress and prosperity. Comfort and advancement go together. This can hardly surprise anyone, since to get ahead you need hope, and to hope you need to trust that you will survive. Let's take a look at current times and try to see what inflates their bubble, what makes them times of optimism rather than despair. First, the demise of the American economy was untimely foretold. We saw neither the great depression of 1999, nor the Y2K cataclysm, nor the end of time. Rather, one day rolled in after another. People got raises, fed themselves, clothed themselves, and learned new ways to have fun. A great deal of technological advance can be reduced to the concept of fun. Plane rides are fun. Television is fun. Wireless phones are fun. Cars are fun. The almighty gadget is fun. PCs aren't fun, but what's inside them is. Games, trivia, news, audio, video, programs, pictures, and books are fun. Culture isn't fun because it takes too much of an investment, but there are the weird few who find it fun, those who get amused by misspellings, broken links, missing datelines, misinformation and disinformation. In short, technology adds to the savor of life, even if it doesn't always address its vital points. Progress aims at perfectibility, but settles for the practical, for shopping on the Web, or for haphazard data. In the so-called real world too, as compared to cyberspace, an odd contiguity occurs too. People pay fortunes to own paintings, while ramshackle museums harbor priceless art accessible for free. Customers pay through the nose for coffee table books, while classics rot on the shelves in public libraries. And people spend hard-earned money for mediocre new machines (PCs or DVD players) while dying media, like refurbished computers, or VCRs, offer princely convenience for a pittance. Progress, real advancement, lacks the embodiment of credibility given technology through its adoption by reactionaries. If for example, the business people who snickered at the Web during its infancy now lay claim to its enthronement, this reinforces the fact that revolutions consolidate under conservative influences. The strong brush aside the anarchists and dreamers to grab the reins of power. Reactionaries also confuse human talent with machine-like efficiency. For the sensible, machines are the servants of man; for the insensible, men are robotic servants. So you have the current displacement of the "nerds" by the "neckties." But perhaps progress awaits another cycle of innovation that will bring a new group to the fore. With hopes, this will be a practical class, less tempted by the vainglory of success, and less tempted by cannibalism, dominance, and other self-defeating attitudes. Progress goes hand in hand with optimism, but often gets mistaken for something that exists in nature. Foolhardy philosophers argue that natural evolution equals progress, but there's hardly any proof: nature simply adapts, takes root where it can, unintentionally, and rather mindlessly. Ars (latin for art or invention) embodies progress to a greater degree by applying a human twist to improvement. Artifice defeats nature's random power and compels its reluctant blessings. Misused, it compels nature's reluctant evil. In the hands of primitives, it is a horror; in the hands of civilized men, it is a solace. There is god in the machine; a self-indulgent god that eases the torment of random cataclysm and yokes itself to the powers made available by nature. Artifice and nature thus conspire to human survival, even to human existence, to a richer appreciation of what remains available to man in this desolate corner of space, where he can yet enjoy a meek destiny. The optimism of progress, quite detached from traditional allegiance to senseless customs or somber rituals, helps devise new ways to make life bearable, even fun. February 9, 2000