if morality is broken, we can fix it

18 February 2012 | NewScientist | 3

EDITORIAL

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“WHEN it’s steam engine time, people will invent steam engines.”

So goes an adage that has become popular in some technological circles in recent years. In other words, major innovations occur not when an inventor is struck by a bolt from the blue, but when the scientific and social conditions are ripe.

The steam-powered “aeolipile” was invented by Hero of Alexandria in Roman Egypt during the 1st century AD, but it wasn’t until some 1700 years later that the steam engine as we know it emerged, thanks to better construction materials, plentiful fuel and, critically, growing industrial demand for an alternative source of power.

Some advocates of the idea suggest that it is a kind of guiding principle for the development of technology in general. They argue that world-changing innovations are not only inevitable when the time is right, but may be made many times over as multiple inventors spot the same opportunity and come up with solutions. Not all are successful: despite much talk of “first-mover advantage”, pioneers can easily find themselves without an audience

for their products (see page 42).Today’s steam engines are

social media. Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t the only person to come up with the idea of an online social network; in fact, he wasn’t even the only Harvard student to think of it. But whereas Facebook is set to become one of the most highly valued companies on the planet, its precursors are at best settling into early retirement; at worst, they have gone out of business.

So why did Facebook succeed where others, including

SixDegrees.com, tribe.net, Friendster and MySpace, failed? To be sure, some vital precursor technology was lacking, particularly the computational horsepower needed to reveal your friends-of-friends-of-friends. And internet anonymity was still the order of the day when many of these fledgling services were trying to establish themselves. Early adopters and exhibitionists aside, many potential users were more comfortable goofing off under

fake identities than entrusting information about their real lives to corporate servers. In short, it wasn’t their time.

It certainly seems that it is Facebook’s time now: the network is heading fast for its billionth member. What’s more, Facebook has a history of trying to rush us into its own timescale. You may not think it’s time for location-based services, face recognition or automated diary planning, but Facebook thinks differently. So far, it seems that users have the upper hand: the giant firm has repeatedly introduced services only to pull them back again. But such innovations often return – when the time is right.

Perhaps the most striking product of the tension between what Facebook and other social media services think we are ready for, and what we do, is the confusion over the ownership of our digital assets – and the legacies they turn into when we die (see page 24). The designs of existing social networks reflect this universal human state so poorly as to suggest they are far from the be-all and end-all of their kind. New services will succeed them. But it would seem their time has not yet come. n

Steam engine timeSocial networks are having their moment. How long will it last?

SCIENCE has made great strides in explaining morality. No longer is it seen as something handed down from on high; instead it is an evolved system of enlightened self-interest. Altruism, for example, can benefit your genes and disgust can protect you from disease. This picture is progress, but it can also lead to a kind of fatalism, a belief that our moral values evolved for good reason

and so we should stick with them.Yet some value judgements are

difficult to fit into this framework. Why is it acceptable to take certain drugs but a criminal offence to take others? Why is it wrong to create human embryos to cure diseases endured by millions?

Now an experiment suggests that morality isn’t entirely about evolutionary benefits to individuals (see page 10). We also

have an evolved tendency to make and obey arbitrary moral rules, probably as a way of promoting social cohesion.

That picture opens the door to more progress. Yes, we follow rules that bring little benefit and can even be positively harmful. But the rules are not set in stone, so there is nothing to stop us getting rid of those that don’t work and putting better ones in their place. n

If morality is broken, we can fix it

“Major innovations may be made many times over but not all of them are successful”

120218_R_Editorial.indd 3 14/2/12 16:57:54

if morality is broken, we can fix it

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