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Real or make-work?

We can argue about whether that's really the case, but in the end I don't think it matters much what the reasons are behind the hacker reaction to the iPad; more important is whether the next part of Speirs' argument is true:

The tech industry will be in paroxysms of future shock for some time to come. Many will cling to their January-26th notions of what it takes to get "real work" done; cling to the idea that the computer-based part of it is the "real work".

It's not. The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.

The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table's order, designing the house and organising the party.

I don't think anyone would disagree that the “real work” is indeed all those things. But the implicit dismissal of the other stuff leads to what seems to me to be a dangerous view:

Think of the millions of hours of human effort spent on preventing and recovering from the problems caused by completely open computer systems. Think of the lengths that people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done.

What I find deeply troubling is this idea that computing skills are “orthogonal” to people's “core interests”. It's true that dealing with the details of present-day computing can be tiresome, and often gets in the way of solving “real-life” tasks. But there's another aspect here that is crucial. That daily struggle with all the infelicities of computers has one huge virtue: it gives users first-hand experience of many absolutely key computing issues – security, privacy, choice etc. Those matter, because they enable people to understand what's at stake as governments around the world increasingly try to pass legislation limiting what computers can do, particularly on-line.

If ordinary people lose that basic knowledge, it will be almost impossible to restrain the politicians – who very often don't understand the technology themselves, but are simply keen to re-assert their control over a troublesome medium, or need to repay generous industry “support”. A good example of the bad things that can happen in these circumstances is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), currently being negotiated behind closed doors.

Next: Copyright or Copywrong

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