From an essay by Dan Simmons comes this paraphrase of Wendell Berry’s nine-part test for adopting new technology:
- The new tool should cost less than the one it replaces.
- It should be at least as small as the one it replaces.
- It should do better work.
- It should use less energy.
- Ideally it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
- It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence.
- It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
- It should come from a small shop that will take it back for repair.
- It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.
Berry, a writer and farmer, included the test in an essay about why he refuses to use a computer. (He composes with a pen and paper.) I can sympathize with his arguments against computers as writing tools, but I don’t think his test can be applied against computers in general, since so much of what computers do in the modern world could not be done without them. In other words, Berry’s test might apply to computers-as-writing devices, but not computers-as-DNA-sequencers, since DNA sequencing is a new kind of work.
The test is most interesting when applied to something like an eBook reader (I’m thinking of the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader), a device that proposes to replace an established technology. From my reading of Berry’s test, eBook readers fail all nine parts. Only parts #3 and #9 even seem arguable, but they’re failures all the same — #3 because eBook readers lack some of the basic features of paper books (no batteries required, easy annotation, loanable, resalable), and #9 because eBook readers promise to destroy brick-and-mortar book stores.
Whether all nine parts of Berry’s test are valid in today’s world is another question. Regardless, he’s a brilliant essayist, and I occasionally like to temper my mania for gadgets with some agrarian skepticism.