Rojas: The Might Of Technology

We were kindly invited to the the birthday get-together of Peter Rojas (Engadget’s Editor-In-Chief) last Saturday night. We managed to get a couple of minutes to chat with him and our conversation eminded us of something he told us before. Peter, as many of you know, is a very switched on chap who’s interest in technology does not just lie with how technology can change individuals lives but how technology has an impact on society never previously contemplated or imagined. I thought I’d dig out this quote from the interview we did with him a few months ago. Some of you may have missed it.

So what makes you want to do this? What makes someone so dedicated to blogging about technology?

When I was younger my passion was for critical theory. It’s
something that I studied at college and even wrote my dissertation on
Guy Debord and the Situationist International, Debord wrote a book
called The Society of the Spectacle. They were a Sixties group that
wanted to create radical political change through subversive and
agitational art. It’s a lot more complex than that, but needless to
say, it was perfect for a disaffected, cerebral twenty-year-old. One
thing I’ve realized over the past few years, especially with the
internet, is that tech is effecting social change in a way politics
hasn’t been able to lately. Take one example: Guy Debord and the
Situationists were strongly against intellectual property and created
art that challenged existing notions of intellectual property, and
since then there have been plenty of theorists and activists trying to
change put forward new ideas of intellectual property, but they weren’t
accomplishing much — then Napster came along and made instant change
that no political or corporate effort could do. Napster put
intellectual property at the center of an international debate and
almost overnight changed people’s opinion on and use of intellectual
property forever.

To be honest, I always thought I was going to be an academic and end
up writing and art and politics or something like that, but there’s
something really tangible and real about writing about all this
technology that has the potential to change people’s lives in there and
now. Technology short-circuits; it changes to our social fabric. What’s
exciting about technology is that it’s going to change the world in
ways that we don’t even know.

Engadget
Peter Rojas Interview On IF! (subscription required)