the little engine that couldn't

Like a few others, Aramis gave me a few problems; it was a pretty dense book, and while the investigation was in chronological order (or at least it seemed to be), the information/interviews/data being used wasn’t—or was it? It didn’t seem to flow in any logical way, but maybe it wasn’t supposed to? Still, I managed to take some good ideas away from the book—and from the failure of Aramis.

On a related note, it surprised me that such an advanced mass transit system was being developed at a time when the technology necessary to create it was relatively simple. Twelve years after the release of this book, Aramis seems to be more technologically possible; though obviously, not in America. Of course, the autopsy of Aramis shows that it was more than technological hurdles that stopped the project.

What interested me in this failed technology was the chance for it to be misused; I’m thinking mainly of the “rape wagon” story from the chapter—who is going to be around to protect the little old ladies? Invariably, someone will always use technology for a purpose far removed than what the technology was intended for. With Aramis, we saw the possibility of sexual assault (not to mention regular assault) and vandalism that the designers of the project had to work around. As Elliot said in class, technologies can be expropriated for uses that range from “deviant” to “illegal;” but can these unintended uses redefine the technology?

The Internet, once used for military and university correspondence, is now facilitating the transfer of illegal downloads, pornography, drugs (check Craig’s List), and sex (check Craig’s List). And for as much as everyone celebrates second life, I have to wonder how many people have actually spent time within this virtual world. One of the sites I write for had a series of articles of all the sexual deviance going on in second life: simulated pedophilia, incest, bestiality, prostitution, torture etc. And whenever a “famous person” has an event in Second Life, it will inevitably be invaded by virtual anarchists; this is possible because Second life tries to sell itself (even though it’s free) on this kind of freedom.

And this “griefing” (that’s the terminology) leaks into the real world, too. Second Life inspired the interruption of a real-life event with a flying penis-copter—and keep in mind that raining phalluses are a common event during virtual Second Life press conferences. Of course, this is all very entertaining—to me, anyway—but it makes me think about the safeguards of technology (to prevent this sort of behavior), and how people get around these safeguards—or even exploit the technology in ways that the designers never though of (as with the “rape wagon” story).

In the end, Aramis taught me that there’s no way that technology can possibly be autonomous; in this case, the creation of Aramis is a 15-year mess that can barely be contained within 300 pages.