{"id":180,"date":"2025-04-01T21:00:26","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T04:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eoinodwyer.com\/scribblings\/?p=180"},"modified":"2025-07-21T07:36:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:36:20","slug":"cryptonomicon-and-the-information-superhighway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eoinodwyer.com\/scribblings\/cryptonomicon-and-the-information-superhighway\/","title":{"rendered":"Cryptonomicon and the Information Superhighway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I first read Neal Stephenson\u2019s Cryptonomicon<\/em>, way back in 2003, the novel hit me like a ton of bricks. With its interweaving timelines set in World War II and the late nineties, long discussions of cryptography, and its general playful nerdiness, it was a delight to read. Despite my edition clocking in at 910 pages\u2014918 if you count an appendix detailing a card-based encryption algorithm\u2014I even re-read it in 2012 and enjoyed it just as much the second time round. Stephenson’s style also heavily influenced the first novel I wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then two things happened. The first was that I went to a talk by the author, William Gibson. Both authors have written in the Cyperpunk genre, so they are often compared. One of the talk attendees asked Gibson why he thought his audience was split roughly equally in gender, while Stephenson attracted an almost entirely male readership. While I don\u2019t recall Gibson\u2019s answer, that was about when I realized that Stephenson is very bad at writing women. Female characters in his books tend to only be the love interests of his protagonists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, that\u2019s something I would be willing to forgive a late nineties writer for\u2014the Bechdel-Wallace test wasn\u2019t in mainstream public consciousness at that point. But a few years back, a mention of the Information Superhighway jogged my memory of a scene from the novel, which made me return to it for a third time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scene in question involves the protagonist of the 90s timeline, programming whiz Randy Waterhouse. He\u2019s at a dinner with his (soon to be ex) girlfriend, Charlene, and several of her academic friends. One of them makes a remark about the Information Superhighway\u2014taking the metaphor way too literally\u2014leading to Randy strongly objecting, and some very fun verbal jousting ensues. At the time, I read it as a light-hearted take down of pseudo-intellectualism and academics expounding on things that they don\u2019t really understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then, for some reason, I remembered this line: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

How many on-ramps will connect the world\u2019s ghettos to the Information Superhighway?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At the time, this quote had seemed silly, but with internet access now essential for modern day life, and much of the developing world\u2019s access being increasingly dependent on large corporations<\/a> and billionaires<\/a>, that question didn\u2019t seem quite so stupid. And upon reread, I’ve either grown <\/em>a lot as a person, or the scene has aged very badly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dwarves vs Hobbits: A Confrontation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First of all, Randy likes to imagine himself a Dwarf\u2014of the Lord of the Rings variety\u2014who has hung up his axe and decided to live in the Shire. Dwarves are a bit prickly and spend a lot of time making beautiful things like Rings of Power in the dark, so it\u2019s not a bad metaphor for programmers. However, in this metaphor Randy views Charlene\u2019s friends (and presumably Charlene) as squabbling hobbits who have no idea that the real world\u2014which is where Randy imagines himself to be from\u2014is \u201cmuch vaster and complex\u201d than they could ever imagine. Basically, he thinks they\u2019re pompous and boring fools who live in a bubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Randy has spent almost his entire adult life at universities\u2014just like his girlfriend! The only difference is that he has spent most of his time working as a library clerk or in the IT department instead of grad studies. Other than a year and a half working on a startup with a friend, Randy at age thirty-something has essentially the same experience of the \u201creal\u201d world as the academics around him. So for starters, he\u2019s a jerk with a giant sense of unearned superiority simply because he\u2019s good with UNIX.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now normally, Randy simply ignores the conversations of Charlene and her friends, but when the visiting Dr. Kivistik makes the previously mentioned questionable remarks involving the Information Superhighway, Randy decides to \u201cget patriarchal\u201d and strongly objects. At first he simply argues that the Information Superhighway is a bad metaphor, which is reasonable enough. He has strong technical knowledge about the internet, Kivistik does not, and therefore Randy is the most qualified person to declare if the metaphor is bad or not. He says it\u2019s a bad metaphor: therefore it is. We\u2019ll unpack this line of argumentation later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Joys of Being Technocratic Elite<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

However, then Kivistik accuses Randy of belonging to a technocratic elite and suggests that his ability to pick up UNIX programming is a privilege. That\u2019s when Randy loses his cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the thing is, as readers, we already know this to be true<\/em>. We know this not simply because programming in the English-speaking world is dominated by white men, or because Charlene points out that Randy\u2019s father is an engineer, but because the other timeline in the book is told from the perspective of Lawrence Waterhouse, Randy\u2019s grandfather. And Lawrence was a mathematician who worked on codebreaking in WW2 and was personal friends with Alan Turning, the literal father of modern computing. In the novel, Randy\u2019s family aren\u2019t just technocratic elite\u2014 they got in on the ground floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The infuriated Randy then proceeds to make all the arguments that every white male programmer has made since time immemorial about how he doesn\u2019t actually have any privilege whatsoever. He went to public school, had to teach himself programming, came from a family without wealth or power, and worked really hard to get where he is today. He objects to being told that he is stupid and morally bankrupt. He believes that \u201cif you work hard, educate yourself, and keep your wits about you, you can find your way in this society.\u201d But he also knows the lingo that Charlene and her academic friends use, and so Stephenson writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cI strenuously object to being labeled and pigeonholed and stereotyped as a technocrat,” Randy said, deliberately using oppressed-person\u2019s language…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So the thing that got me here is that in 1999\u2014the year this novel was published\u2014Neal Stephenson was already aware of the concept of patriarchy, knew some of the general lingo about oppression, and that people had criticisms about privilege in the tech community. And then he went and wrote a scene obliquely discussing these issues where somehow he almost completely skips over any real argument about race or gender\u2014despite these being the central issues of privilege in tech. So this entire scene is a straw man to present these criticisms as ludicrous fifteen fucking years before Gamergate<\/em>. Which means we\u2019ve now been having these arguments about privilege and representation in tech for over 25 years and almost nothing has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beards and Shaving Fetishists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, following the thread of Randy and Charlene\u2019s relationship throughout the book was even worse. You see, before the argument breaks out in the restaurant, Stephenson drops this paragraph:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Randy had ruined his relationship with Charlene by wanting to have kids. Kids raise issues. Charlene, like all of her friends, couldn\u2019t handle issues. Issues meant disagreement. Voicing disagreement was a form of conflict. Conflict, acted out openly and publicly, was a male mode of social interaction\u2014the foundation for patriarchal society which brought with it the usual litany of dreadful things. Regardless, Randy decided to get patriarchal with Dr. G.E.B Kivistik.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This idea, that academics think conflict is the foundation of the patriarchy, runs through almost every description of Randy\u2019s relationship with Charlene in the novel. Charlene\u2019s academic writing at the time is about beards in the Northern California high-tech community, but Randy somehow thinks this is all about him, because he has a beard. Randy\u2019s later love interest, Amy, posits that this was Charlene\u2019s way of trying to work out her problems with him (presumably about him not shaving when she wanted him to) instead of having a healthy fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Charlene\u2019s papers on this are obviously played up to be a joke\u2014she does research on shaving fetishists and goes off on how shaving a beard is symbolically annihilating the boundary between the self and the other\u2014but even in this fictitious world it\u2019s enough to get her published in a major journal and job offers from three Ivy league universities. Randy doesn\u2019t want to move to the East Coast, so this puts further pressure on the relationship. Despite Randy being written as the sympathetic main character of the timeline, he comes off as someone who disdains his girlfriend\u2019s work, thinks it revolves around him, and is annoyed at her success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conflict and Academic Groupthink<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On top of this, he views Charlene, her friends, and her colleagues as all being part of a giant groupthink. Towards the end of the dinner, he notes that the \u201cpro-consensus, anti-confrontation elements then seized control of the conversation and broke it up into numerous small clusters of people all vigorously agreeing with one another.\u201d Essentially, Randy always feels like he\u2019s the only person voicing disagreement on issues in the group. He\u2019s so used to clenching his teeth to avoid argument that he gets a headache while at a conference with Charlene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now as someone who has been to several Christmas parties hosted by professors, I’ve been in Randy’s shoes before. I’ve definitely worried about groupthink in those discussions, even if I didn’t have major disagreement with what was being said. However, the way I’ve come to think of it is as follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were to sit a random group of people down today and ask them if racism was bad, there would almost certainly be 100% agreement that it is. But if you were to bring in a time traveller from 1960s Alabama to that group, they would find this universal agreement perplexing, because for them the idea of racism being bad is very much still up for discussion. As a society, or as communities, we hold to certain values that are simply not up for questioning, e.g. racism is bad or working hard is a virtue. If we come from outside that community\u2014or our society\u2019s values are currently in flux\u2014meeting a group of people who have stayed in the old value system, or moved to the new value system, feels like being surrounded by artificial agreement, because we think those values are still up for argument. But if a belief is a value, it informs our arguments instead of being the subject of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randy is outside part of the value system of Charlene and her community but he doesn\u2019t understand that he is. He also clearly has made no effort to understand those values. Again, this is somewhat understandable. Most of us have been in Randy\u2019s shoes on some issue at one time or another, as there have been major shifts in societal attitudes in our lifetimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bodice-rippers and the Patriarchy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

However, Randy gets no redemption in Cryptonomicon<\/em>. Towards the end of the novel, he draws the conclusion that the reason his relationship with Charlene didn\u2019t work out was that she actually wanted to be treated like the characters in the bodice-ripper novels she secretly reads. Charlene needed to be with a dominant man, but instead she kept trying to fix their relationship by trying to keep it egalitarian. Now I originally misread this and thought it was more of a in-the-bedroom sort of a need (which would be fine!), but Stephenson makes it very clear that Charlene is supposed to be the passive one in the relationship. Of course, Charlene was unable to express or admit to this need because\u2026well feminism is clearly the implied culprit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randy\u2019s problem with the lack of conflict in Charlene\u2019s world is actually the reverse. He\u2019s the one that doesn\u2019t know how to handle conflict with his partner. Stephenson\u2019s equating of opposition to the patriarchy and conflict-aversion is really just short hand for feminism being bad and making women unhappy by forcing them to act contrary to their natures. The possibility that the relationship didn\u2019t work out because Randy despised Charlene\u2019s work, opinions, and friends is never considered. The only nice things Randy seems to mention about Charlene in the entire novel are that she’s “slender and not unattractive.” If Stephenson was attempting to write the perfect, completely-clueless misogynistic programmer, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Randy does end up with Amy\u2014who is unequivocally labelled as the dominant one in their relationship\u2014it\u2019s only to paint a very Republican view of feminism. Amy is a deep-sea diver, the brash daughter of a U.S. marine, and obviously opposed to Charlene’s worldview. It\u2019s okay for women to wear pants and do manly things in Stephenson\u2019s universe, but they shouldn\u2019t make us think about privilege or our place in society. That\u2019s crazy-talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just Listen to the Elves<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So after that unpleasantness, let\u2019s circle back to the Information Superhighway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, Randy has the Lord of the Rings metaphor all wrong. Academics are obviously not Hobbits\u2014they\u2019re Elves! They can be a bit snobbish, insular, and talk in their own fancy language, but they do know a lot about the world. They probably have some important things to tell you about that Ring of Power you just made1<\/a><\/sup>,<\/em> because they personally met Sauron back in the day while he was working for Morgoth, the first dark lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, even if you\u2019re a programmer with amazing knowledge of UNIX or TCP\/IP protocols that no academic can match, you might not know much about the history of technology. One of the developers interviewed in the Netflix documentary on social media, The Social Dilemma<\/a><\/em>, claimed that social media was a fundamentally different technology than tools like bicycles, because no one ever claimed bikes were ruining society. Except that\u2019s exactly what they did<\/a>. And if you\u2019ve got a powerful new technology\u2014for instance your Ring of Power\u2014you should probably have an understanding of how past technologies impacted society. Otherwise, you might might not realize or understand the impacts of your creation, or even what metaphor to use to describe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course, the issues of privilege and technological gatekeeping that Randy waves away have real world consequences. If white male developers dominate the industry\u2014and you ignore criticisms from non-technical folk\u2014you tend to end up with soap dispensers<\/a> that don\u2019t work for people of colour, stalker apps<\/a> being built on top of your APIs, and crime prediction software<\/a> that somehow makes the police more<\/em> racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The irony, now that DEI is being rolled back in almost every American company with the re-election of Trump, is that in many ways modern programmers are becoming the insular clownish figures that Stephenson paints academics in the humanities as. While the world faces the climate crisis and rising authoritarianism, the tech industry focuses on trends that are divorced from either reality or our needs: cryptocurrencies, VR, and LLM-based AI. Developers are wasting their lives trying to juice stockholder value and search for problems that their solutions can be used for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m told Stephenson has gotten better at writing female characters in later novels. However, he was recently trying to make the Metaverse<\/a> happen using blockchain, so I\u2019m not holding out a lot of hope that he\u2019s escaped the bubble of developer culture just yet.<\/p>\n\n\n

  1. And yes, I obviously know the Rings of Power were made by Celebrimbor<\/a>, an Elf, and the Dwarves just helped out. But clearly Stephenson was a bit muddled on the finer points of Tolkien\u2019s mythology, so we\u2019re rolling with his misunderstanding.<\/em> \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When I first read Neal Stephenson\u2019s Cryptonomicon, way back in 2003, the novel hit me like a ton of bricks….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":81,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"And yes, I obviously know the Rings of Power were made by Celebrimbor<\/a>, an Elf, and the Dwarves just helped out. 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