A 25-year old bet comes due: Has tech destroyed society?

Insert preview text here. View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions  01.10.21 Back in the 1990s, Kevin Kelly was the executive editor of a young publication called WIRED. In those days, the magazine took a more techno-utopian view of the world, and its pages heralded a future bursting with promise. So when, in 1995, Kelly came across a book in praise of the Luddites, the radical 19th-century textile workers who rose up against technology, he viewed it as a personal affront. And he sensed an opportunity for an ideological sparring match. The book's author, Kirkpatrick Sale, was convinced that technology would cause civilization to implode. Kelly decided to challenge him to a bet. Would he wager $1,000 that society would collapse by 2020? Sale took him up on the spot. As Steven Levy writes this week on Backchannel, Sale defined collapse as the convergence of three conditions: An economic disaster, a social rebellion, and environmental catastrophe. On December 31, the bet came due. A riot mob had not yet stormed the US capitol. President Donald Trump still had an active Twitter account. But even before this past week's mind-scrambling news, the outcome wasn't obvious. In 2020 the pandemic ripped massive holes in the fabric of society, and the US weathered a record number of billion-dollar natural disasters. Is civilization in genuine peril? Sandra Upson | Features Editor, WIRED   BACKCHANNEL | 16-MINUTE READ A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society? BY STEVEN LEVY In 1995, a WIRED cofounder challenged a Luddite-loving doomsayer to a prescient wager on tech and civilization's fate. Now their judge weighs in.   BOOK EXCERPT | 13-MINUTE READ The Autonomous-Car Chaos of the 2004 Darpa Grand Challenge BY ALEX DAVIES The self-driving vehicles smashed, burned, flipped, and tipped. But the ambitious race through the Mojave launched an industry.   DEPTH OF FIELD | 3-MINUTE READ The DC Insurrection Lays Bare the Fiction of America BY JASON PARHAM The actions of rioters showed a need to hold on to a vision of the country that's at odds with reality.   IDEAS | 5-MINUTE READ There Should Be a Nobel Prize for Vaccine Logistics BY BENJAMIN MAZER Immunization against Covid-19 is not going perfectly, but at least it's going. Let's give credit where it's due.   CLOUD SUPPORT | 6-MINUTE READ Do I Have a Moral Obligation to Be On TikTok? BY MEGHAN O'GIEBLYN I'm only 30, and already feeling like I owe it to society to keep up.   OPINION | 4-MINUTE READ Call Trump's Scheme What It Is: Autocracy BY JUSTIN SHERMAN Pundits and platforms have spent years mislabeling and underestimating threats to democracy. It led to the mob. GET WIRED Get one year of WIRED access for less than $1 per month. Tech news and analysis you won't find anywhere else. Subscribe now.         This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions