Slater

Hall Monitors

October 2023.

Johann Daniel Major, writing in 1670, contemplates the prospect of human flight and is Not Happy:

What a completely new and dangerous appearance the world would have, how much more hazardous, indeed how much more abominable the world would seem to have become for all posterity. What treachery, robbery, and assassination, what other sins and shamefulness would be heaped upon one another. Towns and castles, whole provinces and kingdoms, would presumably soon be obliged to fill the air either by means of the frequent firing of canon or by stirring up rising smoke; or else to protect themselves thoroughly with large iron gratings, used as nets, and to arm themselves if not against total invasion, at least against the frequent throwing of fire and stones by the flying army which, like Lucianic birds of prey, darting from the world of the moon, would otherwise raze everything to the ground. From this activity alone the world would seem a thousandfold hateful and more ruinous than from the… misuse of the compass, of gunpowder, and of printing.

Johann Caramuel Lobkovitz, also writing in 1670:

God denied to men the faculty of flight so that they might lead a quiet and tranquil life, for if they knew how to fly they would always be in perpetual danger. Whose life would then be free from danger? What house would be safe from robbers? What city would be safe against the enemy? In truth no care, no foresight would be sufficient to protect men, especially at night, from the flying foe.

William Derham, writing in 1713:

The art of Flying… in some Cases might be of good use, as to the Geographer, and Philosopher; but in other Respects might prove of dangerous and fatal Consequences; as for Instance, by putting it in Man’s power to discover the Secrets of Nations and Families, more than is consistent with the peace of the World for man to know; by giving ill Men greater Opportunities to do Mischief, which it would not lie in the Powers of others to prevent.

Frederick Marriott, in 1880:

Like the invention of gunpowder, it is doubtful whether it would be a boon or a bane to mankind. Many leading interests would be paralyzed. Railroads and ocean steamers would become utterly useless. Hundreds of millions of invested money would be lost. War, as at present carried on, would become a farce when ‘strategical positions’ could be overhung by a cloud of torpedo-bearing air-ships. Engineers and geographers would lose their vocation, for the trackless air requires no embankments or bridges, and needs no survey but that which the polar-needle can supply. The heart of Africa would be as accessible as London, Paris, or New York.

(All of these quotes are from Clive Hart’s The Prehistory of Flight.) Laurent Gaspard Gerard, writing in 1784, got more prescriptive and proposed the following regulations:

  1. All flying machines might be owned by the State;
  2. If individuals were allowed to own them, the flying machines should be built by artisans specially selected for their probity; a magistrate’s permission would be needed before a machine could be built;
  3. An individual would be permitted to use his flying machine only for the benefit of himself, his wife, and his family; children could fly the machine only when accompanied, a restriction which would avoid la debauche des jeunes gens;
  4. Magistrates might allow the construction of a flying machine only after having received a detailed statement of the use to which it would be put.
  5. If private ownership were nevertheless prohibited, a depot might be set up from which flying machines could be hired;
  6. It might be a legal requirement that on each flight the hirer be accompanies by a government-nominated copilot — a ‘strong, brave, and honest’ man — who would ensure that the hirer did not deviate from his stipulated route; if the copilot could not prevent the making of such a deviation, he would file a report on the delinquent’s behavior;
  7. Given the difficulty and danger of their job, copilots should receive a generous State salary.

These arguments are similar — in many cases, identical — to those made by techno pessimists today. A few themes:

All downside, no upside: What will result from human flight? Wars, crime, the collapse of rail and steamboat shipping, the loss of geotechnical engineering jobs, etc. It sounds like flight is a dangerous technology that should be banned, or at least slowed down.

For me, not for thee: “Geographers and Philosphers” might be trusted with the power of human flight, but the technology is too dangerous to share broadly.

Red tape: Flying machines should be wholly owned, or tightly regulated, by the state. Highly paid government inspectors should make sure that nobody’s using the technology for non-approved purposes.

The first untethered hot air balloon flight took place in 1783, and the Wright Brothers made their Kitty Hawk flight in 1903. So most of these writers were hand-wringing hundreds of years before human flight became a widespread technology.

Today, I think that most of us can agree that human flight was a Good Thing, and that its positives far outweigh its negatives. We didn’t need to restrict the technology to “Geographers and Philosophers”, we didn’t need to prohibit private ownership. I haven’t checked the stats, but I think that most cities aren’t suffering daily attacks from “Lucianic birds of prey.”

And yet: these same arguments get made for every new technology. The debates today are merely the latest installment in a long-running series. And maybe that provides a check: if a techno-pessimistic argument today “proves too much” in that it could have been used to ban, restrict, or nerf a highly-beneficial technology from the past (e.g., human flight), then it’s probably on the wrong track.