While so much of our world collapses, we all look for solutions. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe' recently offered another approach. Speaking last month about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, "There is no need for peace. There is need for decolonization. There is need for transitional justice. And more than anything else, there is need to listen to Palestinians, to hear... their aspirations for the future of Palestine. Start with them. Let them be in the driver's seat and tell us how they view the future of Palestine."
I see Pappe' calling for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a place where healing can begin, a place where we can listen to stories from Palestinians who've lost childhood, limbs, family, neighbors, homes and land. A place where Palestinians can begin to dream again for equality and democracy.
While so much of our world collapses, we need many Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.
Gerry McGovern's newest book, 99th Day: A Warning about Technology, reads like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about technology's impacts on ecosystems and public health. From his start on a small Irish farm, McGovern wanted to be a modern, materially wealthy man. In the early '90s, he developed an online community, a blogging system and a way to manage web content. He became "an evangelistic tech bro, a booster of 'renewable' energy who believed there was no innovation that tech couldn't solve." In a blink, he made money, money, money.
Eventually, McGovern learned about the ecological effects of manufacturing, operating and discarding electronic technologies. At the end of his dreamy solar system's usable life, he realized it's un-recyclable hazardous waste. (His previous book, World Wide Waste, focuses on the two billion tons of electronic waste we humans generate every year.) While moving to Spain, Gerry discovered that the country's rains were disappearing-- and how mining for electronics contributed to the drought. Through his partly Indigenous Brazilian wife, he began to see the living connections between water, soil, rocks, birds, bees and future generations.
In 99th Day, with refreshing honesty, Gerry McGovern names his part in our techno-sphere's mess; and then he reports the worldwide consequences of digitalized society. McGovern calls his book a warning. For writing it, we owe him hearty thanks.
I'm honored to post "A Confession," 99th Day's first chapter.
Chapter One: A Confession
I was a true believer. A full-throated member of the Growth Death Cult. A super-optimistic, evangelistic tech bro. A booster of "renewable" energy and the "Green" Transition, and the idea there was no problem that tech innovation couldn't solve.
I came across the World Wide Web back in late 1993 in a small flat in Dublin. The first moment I saw it I had this vision of wagons rolling out West to a new frontier. At that time, I was in my early thirties and drifting. Living in shoddy accommodation and scraping by on part-time work. My partner and I had two young children and I felt this intense pressure to provide. The Web would be my way out.
I had been writing rock 'n' roll and technology journalism. Mixing interviews with Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Ice T and Lou Reed with stories about computer-aided design and CD-ROM multimedia might have been exciting, but the life of the freelance journalist, and dreaming-to-be fiction writer, was not an easy one.
Some weeks before I came across the Web, I had interviewed a senior executive at the Irish state agency, the National Software Directorate. I decided to write him a snail mail letter. I knew the Web was a bit too new, so I pitched a report about the rapidly growing multimedia industry, with an add-on focus on this emerging thing called the World Wide Web. Amazingly, he got back and said, yes, let's do this.
In early 1994, I went to this huge multimedia exhibition and conference in Cannes, France. The CD-ROM was being pushed as the future of everything from games to medicine to education. I went around sniffing out the Web. There wasn't much sign. However, as the year progressed, the Web surged, and the report focus began to change on a monthly basis. Twelve months later, I returned to Cannes and the Web was everywhere. I listened to fevered voices talk about doing all-nighters and lining up finance.
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