Forked Lightning — A charge to those who seek careers in big tech

If you, like me, are a graduate of the American education system, there is a strong likelihood that you are familiar with the adage “a road not taken,” a phrase made popular by the turn-of-the-century poet Robert Frost. Having spent over 10 years as a member of the education system teaching English Language Arts I have had ample opportunity to reflect on these words not only in the classroom, but along my own educational pilgrimage as well. But what can the words of a poet teach us the digital age — one of science and reason, fueled by information technology?

Today, as it did in Frost’s heyday, the humanities reach out as a soft science — a broad sweeping field of inquiry that studies the human experience and seeks to quantify the immeasurable. As I myself transition from teaching English to the study of computer science, I am reminded of the transcendentalist movement that built strong ideologies between the individual and society. While it may seem a reach at first, I would (and do!) argue that very ideas of net neutrality and freedom of information are rooted not in the hard sciences, but in their soft science siblings. Examine the issues that are often quoted as ‘quintessentially transcendentalist:’ a close relationship with nature and the human experience, empowerment through self-sufficiency, and a healthy distrust of organized institutions. Would it be possible to distinguish these over-a-century old ideas with the rise of social media and the seemingly endless energy to connect with a common humanity? Or the desire to learn from others experience through windows, doors, and mirrors — in the words of another famous American poet to “contribute a verse?” And how about the ongoing and ever twisting debate of the role of government in protecting the right of free speech balanced against corporations right to create and enforce contracts and the legal complications therein? No, these tenets are one and the same. While time has passed, and technology evolved, the human condition remains largely unchanged.

In a society where all information is not only transcribed, indexed, and distributed across the entire planet in a sprawling World Wide Web this generation of developers is charged with a mission coined one hundred years prior. Let us not repeat the mistakes of those in power before us. Accepting the world as is, in failing to refute the de jure Ivory Tower of the ‘haves’ would mean surrendering our own power; and, in final literary reference, a failure to heed Dylan Thomas’ charge to ‘not go silently.’ To take the symbolic road less taken would mean creating a world where the human condition is not monetized, hoarded, and kept hidden away for the select few. For those in a position to write the future through code, they are given power to right the wrongs of the past. When technology affords the youth of tomorrow to truly follow their hearts and minds through equal access to through the humanities, but also through the sciences, will Frost’s iconic charge to graduates transcend platitude to become a both social and scientific promise.