I wrote this thought piece in April of 2000 at the very beginning of my consideration of the implications of technology for society and globalization. At the time, I was focused primarily on classical literature, but had been exposed to some discussions about technology at University of Illinois. The essay is erroneously titled “The Economy of Information.” It would be tempting to find a new title, but that act would create a historical inaccuracy. This essay is what led to much of my writings about the internet.

Computer Networks Recapitulate the Human Mind that Gave them Birth

The most interesting, and most powerful confluence in technology is the parallel process of genetic research and computer chip design. Perhaps the more appropriate terms are silicon & carbon engineering. At the very same time that the human genome is being mapped out and a one-to-one correspondence between the specific gene and the trait is imagined, increasingly minute wafer fabrication at a microscopic level is conducted at the same scale as the process of DNA replication. Both carbon and silicon engineering at the microscopic level are developing in parallel. Oddly, silicon engineering seems more and more like carbon engineering (DNA) because unlike previous technologies, like the sewing machine, or the automobile, today’s chip could not be readily replaced if the supporting technology for production disappeared.  That is to say, if you destroyed all parts factories and research laboratories in the automobile industry, you could still produce a vehicle rapidly if you knew the principles of manufacturing. If we lost the factories and data behind a modern silicon wafer, however, we could not reduplicate because the previous generation of computer needed to design it, as the generation before that one was employed before it.

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