The "maximum" in MaximumPC means doesn't just mean the fastest speed or the highest ratings—it means more than best. It means pushing the envelope to be the best possible.
As geeks and nerds, we are always striving for the best possible, because we're never satisfied with where we are or what we have. We want more. That's everything you need to know about the forward thrust of technology—the unsatisfied human desire to have more, better, and different. In the long stumbling, bumbling, fumbling history of our weird little species, we have invented so many marvelous tools to expand the power of our muscles, but only one tool to expand the power of our brains—the computer.
In all of its different forms—smartphones, tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktop machines, mainframes, networks, a vast global communication system—the computer gives us access to almost all the knowledge in the world. But even more important than this enormous information-wealth, the computer also gives us the ability to process this data, to manipulate it, to fiddle it and diddle it and create astonishing new ways of looking at our world, each other, and ourselves. The computer allows us to achieve insights into who we are and what we're up to that would otherwise be impossible.
As a species, for the first time in history, we have the opportunity to be more accurately informed and make wiser decisions than ever before.
—assuming we use our technology wisely.
Too often, we forget that the most important component in any system is the user. We forget that we are the authors of our own choices. Even worse, we forget that we actually have a choice.
As individuals, and as a culture, we become what we dream. We become what we speak. We become the conversation we live in.
One of those conversations, curiously enough, is the future envisioned by Star Trek. Many of the people who built the first computers and wrote the software that ran on those computers were science fiction fans, Star Trek fans, nerds and geeks of the first order. And many science fiction and Star Trek fans were among the earliest adopters of computer technology. The overlap of the two communities wasn't accidental. Dreaming and building are two sides of the same coin. So it's worth taking a closer look at the relationship.
Star Trek was never just about the adventures of Kirk and Spock in the magnificent starship Enterprise—it was, despite all the limitations of time and money and television, an inspired attempt to ponder the question, "What does it mean to be human?" Like all the best and most inspiring science fiction, Star Trek was a promise that life as it is today is not the way life has to be tomorrow. We can be more.
I personally believe this is the primary reason why the franchise has lasted, through six television incarnations, nearly a dozen feature films, and hundreds of novels—it is about the best that humans can be.
Star Trek shows us a time that is worth living in—and one of the most important pieces of that time is a joyous recognition of the diversity of human experience. It is a vision of a future that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out.
It's worth noting here that Star Trek is the inheritor of some of the grandest traditions in science fiction. Before there were Star Trek conventions, there were science fiction conventions—the oldest is the Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Convention at which the Hugos are awarded, the highest honor available in the science fiction community. The Hugos are named after Hugo Gernsback who published the first science fiction magazine in the world, Amazing Stories, in 1926. He pretty much created science fiction fandom with the letters column of Amazing and later on with a correspondence club called The Science Fiction League (1934). All this fannish interaction resulted in the very first Worldcon, held in New York City in 1939.
One of the fannish traditions that began at the Worldcon and other conventions is that "the ceiling constitutes an introduction." Those first fans were geeks and dorks and nerds of the first order, but they accepted each other's geeky, dorky, nerdiness because they recognized each other as kindred souls. Some of those kindred spirits included Isaac Asimov, Lester Del Rey, Fred Pohl, Cyril Kornbluth, Murray Leinster, Donald A. Wollheim, E.E. "Doc" Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Bloch, Damon Knight, and too many others to list here.
If science fiction as a genre represented an escape from the ordinary, then science fiction conventions represented an escape to a place where it wasn't strange to be extraordinary. The fannish community quickly recognized itself as a place where being "weird" was the new normal. There were no exclusions.
Throughout its history, the science fiction community has always been a decade ahead of the rest of the world in its embrace of change. The community included African-Americans while the rest of the nation was still struggling with its prejudice. The community began to address the issues of women's rights before the rest of the nation knew it was an issue. The SF community included its gay and lesbian and transgendered members while the rest of society was still embarrassed to admit that such things existed.
That's the tradition that got passed on to Star Trek fandom and all the other fandoms as well. It is a tradition that continues today at Comic-Con, the largest fan convention in the United States. And it is a tradition that we, as geeks and dorks and nerds, would do well to remember. We can't afford to throw anyone away. There's too much work to do.
Coming back to MaximumPC and the readership of this magazine—I believe we are the leading edge of the user community. I believe that we are the people that others look up to. We set the example, because we're the experts on what works and what doesn't work. Other people look to us because they know we work hard to have our machines be the very best.
It's time to include the space between the chair and the keyboard in that commitment too.
The most important component in any computer system is the person using it. If we are going to be committed to excellence in our machines, then we should extend that commitment to ourselves as well. We should aspire to be the best we can too, by being the people we want to be. Generous, confident, respectful, compassionate, thoughtful, pragmatic, friendly—all the ways of being that demonstrate we are joyously human and humane. (Sometimes, I like to use the Star Trek test. What would McCoy think? What would Spock say? And listening to them both, how would Kirk finally act? Sometimes it works. I do have some experience with those characters.)
Unfortunately, and all too often, in our online interactions—in the games we play, in the comments we leave, in the tweets we send, in the things we post on Facebook—all too often, we devolve back to a cringe-worthy chimpanzee level of behavior.
Perhaps we assume that anonymity and distance are a safe retreat from accountability. Perhaps we think that when we turn off our machines, we escape the consequences of our worst behaviors. Perhaps we believe that it doesn't count, so it's okay to flame another person. But whatever the thinking or the assumption or the belief that produces the behavior, whether we've been just a little half-assed or completely ass-whole, too often we behave as if the internet is a license.
No. It is not.
To be blunt, it is not acceptable to call someone "nigger" or "spic" or "kike" or "retard" or "fag" or "raghead" or "lame" or anything else that disrespects that person's humanity. If it's not acceptable to do it in person, it's not acceptable online either. When we stumble that way, we fall into personal failure.
Online rudeness isn't just a shallow and ugly misuse of the possibilities of our amazing technology, it's also an individual's tacit admission of his own essential weakness and insecurity. Rudeness is what desperate people use as a substitute for power. It doesn't work. In fact, it's self-destructive, because instead of creating connection to others, disrespect makes connection impossible. It further alienates everyone and it is an appalling step backward from the greater possibilities.
The damage we do to ourselves and to our community is that we add another pebble to the avalanche of mistrust. We make it that much harder to create partnership. We make it harder to build that better world we all want to live in. We betray the commitment to building a future that includes all of us.
Here's my request. Yes, it's unrealistic, idealistic, and impossible, but here's my request anyway:
Take a stand against online rudeness. When you see it, interrupt it. If you've used any of those words listed above or others like them, please stop. If you hear people around you using them, take a stand—ask them to stop. Say, "That doesn't work for me."
We are all in this adventure together. We share one planet. Anyone who's been in space comes back transformed by the experience of seeing how small and fragile the "blue marble" really is.
I believe it isn't enough to dream of change. We have to be the change. It happens one person at a time. It happens in the little things even more than the big. It happens in the way we treat each other.
I write science fiction. What excites me the most about the future are the adventures and discoveries we will share together.
The key word in that sentence is together.
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