The Dust Bowl was caused by economics, not, you know, dirt. That came later.
Starting in the early 1900s and into the height of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, farmers — increasingly using new tractors in lieu of mules or horses — ratcheted up the production of wheat.
Indeed, as early as the 1920s the USDA began encouraging farmers to grow even more wheat because the country needed it. So, they did. In 1905, a single farmer could plow 8-10 acres per day. By 1935, farmers could manage as much as 50 or more acres per day.
Plus, farmers knew that wheat grew in the plains, wheat could be sold, wheat was more or less profitable, and so it went: more wheat meant more money. Even if they knew there were cracks in this economic system.
The combination of soil depletion, exposed soil, lack of roots, ever-larger tracks of land usage, and over-farming started a process that ruined agriculture not just in the plains, but degraded the Midwest and even impacted air quality on the east coast. Food production diminished, prices went up, and it took massive government intervention to reverse course.
This was top of mind lately as I wondered if we’re applying the same kinds of mistakes to other contemporary industries.
I think “big tech” today fits the bill:
- A significant number of people exist within one and only one tech stack
- A significant number of people “grow one thing”, with a focus on, say, coding or design
- Calls from government have pushed for more STEM majors, resulting in a need for “more of that one thing”
- The “soil”, if you will, is our minds and attention — and it is increasingly depleted
It is a uniquely American trait that when we find something that generates money we exploit the hell out of that thing until it’s either gone or something else is found that’s more profitable. In rare cases, the government may step in to preserve or stop some resources from being used, like water, animals, or land (usually timber).
It seems to me we tech-related knowledge workers are on a collision course with ourselves as AI tools supposedly free us up from “menial work” like sorting and organizing and instead allows us to … spend more time doing even more mentally taxing work. The equivalent of, “We need more! So let’s make more of you and 10x your output … again!”
Then there’s the culture that many of us willingly partake in. Ask yourself this if, like me, you work in tech:
- “I work within a single ecosystem of services, like all-Apple, all-Google, etc.”
- “A significant portion of my tools and tech stack rely on one or two companies.
- “A large part of my leisure is spent immersed in these services or tools, too.”
- Much or all of my work is focused on a narrow band of skills, such as copywriting, Photoshop and design, drawing, or coding.
If you answered “yes” to many of those questions, you are part of a tech monoculture.
The most egregious offense is die-hard Linux, Windows, or Apple users. I have mused about this before with friends that if you imagine your great great grandfather coming home at the end of the day and saying, “I had an exhausting day at work shipping the grain to the silo. The railroad company is raising its rates. I sure do love the railroads, though. Now hand me the latest Railroad Magazine and let’s gather around the radio to listen to Railroad Weekly about new things we can buy with our Railroad Points,” you would think he’d lost his mind.
Yet, this is how an alarming number of people live and work. They use their Mac all day, pay for things with an Apple Credit Card in an Apple Wallet using an Apple iPhone. They have an Apple Watch on their wrist. When the company makes even more money, they read about it in multiple blogs and report on it, breathlessly cheering that growth. When a new product is announced, people listen to Apple-centric podcasts where men (it’s mostly men) talk about their technology consumption and whether they will buy this new tech.
That is justifiably weird; and I say that as a guy who finds computers fun. Still, this all has justifiably terrifying perils.
If that one company (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and others) does something you don’t like, it is increasingly more difficult to extricate yourself — and your personality from that thing. Just as farmers in the 1920s and 30s knew that their farms were failing and their efforts were clearly eroding the soil, the economic noose they were in gave them little choice but to “just keep at it” because what else was there? “I am a wheat farmer. I grow wheat. I need money.” That’s a hard thing to overcome.
The unfortunate thing is that, right now, the solutions are very nearly impossible for most people. There are only three possible operating systems and effectively only two mobile operating systems. Opting out of these likely means opting out of them entirely. If you don’t want your photos analyzed by Google, your contacts held by Apple, your money funneled through App Stores, or some other use case, the only effective means is opting out of using the devices entirely. And since so much operates on the assumption you have these tools — like home security systems, speakers, music, etc. — you may have to opt out of those things, too. Even if you built your own PC and stocked it with open source software and ran Linux, many people are still frozen out either by technical skills or the simple fact their lives depend on some language, software, app, or service that won’t run there. I don’t think it’s malicious Adobe apps don’t run on Linux — it’s probably just not worth the economic trouble. But that doesn’t make this any easier if you live in those apps.
No, I suspect we are all more or less on the same collision course as our forefathers who knew their farming practice was harmful, or at least not helpful, and yet could not extricate themselves individually because the culture was forcing them into a specific practice. Opting out wouldn’t have been impossible, but it would have come with significant changes:
- You may have to grow a wider variety of food just for yourself and family, not necessarily to sell. This is risky, since one frost, flood, or drought could literally kill you.
- Your income would likely be lower.
- Your neighbors would still be operating in the same space, so their actions would continue to impact you. Like exhaust that blows over into your lungs.
The same, too, within tech:
- Your entertainment will likely have to shift away from games and streaming to other more intentional or analog items, like reading books or listening to music you buy.
- Your income will likely be strained as you set intentions to only engage with the tools or services for the least viable amount of time.
- Your neighbors will continue to expect they can iMessage you, or post about some event on Facebook, or otherwise engage with you through traditional means.
Not all hope is lost, though. We increasingly see people opting out of social media, which was once considered the most mono of monocultures in Facebook. New options exist, and so, too, does the option to engage in none at all. We just have to make that culturally acceptable and be comfortable with the tradeoffs.
