I grew up in what was a heady time for technology. Personal computers were a new thing, the WIMP GUI was just becoming a thing, and the only phones we had were the ones that were attached to walls and had cords. Growing up as the son of an IT Director (before that was even really a thing), I always had new high-tech toys to play with, and I became increasingly enamored with the unbelievable magic of it all. To this day, I’m still overcome with a sense of wonder whenever I discover some new complexity hidden within our electronic friends, and I’m taken back to those heady days where it all seemed like magic. For me, computers are like living organisms that were ostensibly created by humans, but are still an extension of the same ‘stuff’ of life, the sense of which you get whenever you feel wonder at some natural phenomenon that seems impossible until you realize that it is right in front of you.

Growing up, I also found this sense of wonder in what I suppose you’d call the liberal arts: literature, language, philosophy, art, and everything in between. The media was different, but here were all expressions of this same ‘stuff’ of life that I found wonderful, each in their own way. These liberal arts were still ostensibly created by humans, but they all contained that same sense of life and wonder that is unique to the human experience. Indeed, it is one of my personal obsessions to explore and probe this sense of life and wonder unique to the human experience, wherever it may be found.

This probing led me to bigger questions about the nature of what makes us human, the genesis of which I won’t go into here, both because it is very personal and not likely to be relevant to anyone else, and because there are countless books by people much smarter than me that do more justice to the topic than I ever could. What I eventually realized is that my unique contribution, as well as the ‘why’ behind my vocation, has to do with my nature as someone who’s experience has led him to pursue the same ‘stuff’ of life in both technology and the liberal arts. Most people draw a hard line between science and the humanities as two disciplines that seem apart from each other, if not at odds with each other. That leads to unfortunate beliefs, such as one that paints science as cold, unfeeling, and ultimately unconcerned with the humanity it affects. In fact, science is among the most human of activities because it touches that unique part of the human experience that transcends the petty ego of the individual, just like a particularly powerful piece of art or philosophy.

The quintessential human experience as transcendant of individual ego is important. This isn’t to suggest that scientists/artists are devoid of ego, but rather that what they make touches a part of us that goes deeper than our self-interested selves. It touches our shared nature of humanity, the part that gave us space travel, the polio vaccine, and Beethoven’s Fifth. In short, it touches our higher nature.

And this is what the core value of ‘make technology human’ really is: that technology should help us reach out and touch our higher nature. It should be deeply in tune with what makes us human, instead of reinforce the tired image of technology as an uncaring force that bulldozes everything in its path for progress’ sake. It shouldn’t turn the focus to itself, for it is just an opportunity for us to experience our higher nature, not an end unto itself. And it should feel like an extension of ourselves and our world, not an alien force in conflict with it.

I think this vision of technology is even more important with the rise of Silicon Valley’s attention barons. It used to be that the old cliche of ‘making the world a better place’ or ‘changing the world’ was a truism of most people starting a technology company. Now, in an industry where Facebook, Google, Snapchat, and Uber are the role models, and everyone is obsessed with venture capital, it seems like a quaint joke. I even believe that those companies probably started out with the same stuff that fueled Jonas Salk or Galileo, but they lost it long ago in the name of petty self interest.

This isn’t a revolutionary idea. It certainly isn’t a new one, but it seems to be increasingly lost. I write all this mostly as an exercise in introspection - to reflect on my own why, but also to remind myself of what is actually important in a neverending sea of noise.