Post by sumanthablack123 on Aug 25, 2017 7:02:12 GMT
There's a term used in environmental circles: charismatic megafauna. It refers to the endangered animal species that get all the attention from the media and the public.
Lots of species are threatened with extinction, but the charismatic megafauna get most of the documentaries and donations. You know: pandas, lions, elephants, tigers - animals that are either cute or majestic. Nothing microscopic or slithery, that lives in a trench or looks like a skull.
It's obviously silly that creatures we can anthropomorphise get most of the preservation money, but, fortunately, in another part of the environmental forest, there's the Ugly Animal Preservation Society (UAPS): a tiny organisation trying to redress the balance. They are devoted to the creatures whose looks and sliminess defy you to save them. The UAPS believes that the lion is no more deserving of preservation than the hagfish. (Google "hagfish", but don't blame me for the nightmares.)
All of which has me wondering how this all works in technology. What are the charismatic megatechs, and what makes them so?
Perhaps the blockchain is the technology equivalent of the panda. You hear an awful lot about it without ever being clear what exactly it's for and why we should care if it disappears. (Don't write in, that's a little harsh on the panda.) The other big hitters are probably drones, robots, AI and self-driving cars. It used to be smartphones and 3D printing, but they've become too ubiquitous and banal. You can't be charismatic if you're everywhere.
What makes those things charismatic? Rareness obviously plays a part. Not all drones are special, for instance. No one's that excited about the £15 ones you see in those "gifts for men" stores in shopping centres. Maybe drones are like cats. We'll have the small ones in our houses to entertain us (although the people who have loads of them are seen as a bit weird). But it's the big, deadly ones that really fascinate us.
That's clearly a factor in what makes tech "sexy" - some military pedigree somewhere, something martial and malevolent. Money's obviously important, too - the media doesn't like technology that's not making somebody rich.
A lot of this tech attention smells like old-fashioned sexism; the technologies that get the hype are those associated with traditionally male activities (war, money, driving), whereas those associated with women are denied charismatic status.
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Lots of species are threatened with extinction, but the charismatic megafauna get most of the documentaries and donations. You know: pandas, lions, elephants, tigers - animals that are either cute or majestic. Nothing microscopic or slithery, that lives in a trench or looks like a skull.
It's obviously silly that creatures we can anthropomorphise get most of the preservation money, but, fortunately, in another part of the environmental forest, there's the Ugly Animal Preservation Society (UAPS): a tiny organisation trying to redress the balance. They are devoted to the creatures whose looks and sliminess defy you to save them. The UAPS believes that the lion is no more deserving of preservation than the hagfish. (Google "hagfish", but don't blame me for the nightmares.)
All of which has me wondering how this all works in technology. What are the charismatic megatechs, and what makes them so?
Perhaps the blockchain is the technology equivalent of the panda. You hear an awful lot about it without ever being clear what exactly it's for and why we should care if it disappears. (Don't write in, that's a little harsh on the panda.) The other big hitters are probably drones, robots, AI and self-driving cars. It used to be smartphones and 3D printing, but they've become too ubiquitous and banal. You can't be charismatic if you're everywhere.
What makes those things charismatic? Rareness obviously plays a part. Not all drones are special, for instance. No one's that excited about the £15 ones you see in those "gifts for men" stores in shopping centres. Maybe drones are like cats. We'll have the small ones in our houses to entertain us (although the people who have loads of them are seen as a bit weird). But it's the big, deadly ones that really fascinate us.
That's clearly a factor in what makes tech "sexy" - some military pedigree somewhere, something martial and malevolent. Money's obviously important, too - the media doesn't like technology that's not making somebody rich.
A lot of this tech attention smells like old-fashioned sexism; the technologies that get the hype are those associated with traditionally male activities (war, money, driving), whereas those associated with women are denied charismatic status.
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