Tron! Cheesy Art with Complicated Themes

How can a cheesy movie from the 80's relate to the current issues around privacy and WikiLeaks? It is a metaphor for the dance we are doing with technology.

In "Tron" the computers and the elements of the computers are personified. (This is hilarious, BTW. Especially to watch it now, as we all know so much about how computers work. If RAM died, the memory would be wiped out, right? And, boy, did hacking used to be easy! :) I digress...) While this was a creative way to make the computer a variety of characters, there was a clear line of "good" vs. "evil." More specifically, the right to openly create programs vs. the moment the technology becomes harmful. It is here we see the connection to WikiLeaks.

This is precisely the line that divides those that are pro-WikiLeaks and what it stands for and those who believe the creator and contributors should be executed: which is "good" and which is "evil."

WikiLeaks is the Master Control Program in Tron. We built it. Many carry a distaste for Microsoft and Apple products claiming that there should not be such high costs (or any cost at all) and strict licensing for software like Word and itunes. The result of this distaste is an environment in which creativity and "open source software" is celebrated. We have major corporations like Google asking their users to create apps for their phones. We have young minds finding ways to provide copy written material like music and movies through, first Napster, and now bit torrent.

Like the Master Control Program in Tron, with this freedom comes consequence. In the case of WikiLeaks, with this freedom and unique opportunity for lay-people to acquire the technical skills to reach the world, we find ourselves now with technology towing over humanity. The shadow falls upon us and we have to decide: do we value our freedom as programmers (the puppeteers of the Master Control Program) or do we decide that we need a Tron to destroy technology run amok?

In Tron, the evil Master Control Program was defeated. But who was the hero? A renegade programmer who wanted his share of the pie. In Hollywood, this was the happy ending. In real life, if the story were real (ha!) and continued, wouldn't our hero build another intelligent program? When would it become 2,117 times smarter than him? When would the technology spin out of control again? We can't know but we can certainly assume it would, given the premise of the movie.

So, we are still left holding the bag. Who or what do we celebrate? The creative genius with unlimited desire to break the technology molds or the ability to shut down technology when it gets so large we become uncomfortable or endangered?

Ah, Tron. You were cheesy, but also so complicated. Long live the 80's!