A couple of weeks ago I had the great opportunity of being bombarded with questions from two colleagues of mine – Andrew Maynard and Sean Leahy. They didn’t corner me in a hallway. They politely invited me to join them for their Modem Futura podcast.
It was a lot of fun. We covered a variety of topics, but most of it was focused on electric vehicles and some of the things I’ve written about on this Substack. If you’re interested in listening to the three of us chat about quick acceleration, the charging infrastructure, my advice to someone thinking about buying an EV, and many other things, you can find it here, or on your podcaster of choice. And certainly don’t stop with that one… they have dozens of incredibly interesting episodes that dive into the big questions about technology today.
[I should warn you, however, I’m still new to this podcast thing, so I made plenty of mistakes. If you pay attention you’ll notice at the “55 minute” mark I’m pretty sure I refer to my EV’s “gas mileage.” I have to work on that!]
Andrew and Sean opened the line of questioning by focusing on the title of this Substack. They were intrigued by the idea that a technology “skeptic” would spend so much time exploring technology. It made me realize that my motivation behind the title might not be entirely clear. For me a skeptic isn’t someone who rejects something… it’s someone who hasn’t yet been convinced.
The discussion did put a bit of doubt in my head… do I actually know what “skeptic” means? I decided to check by taking the step that has been a part of so many awkward wedding speeches: I looked it up in the dictionary. My Webster’s Random House Dictionary has a particularly intriguing definition for skeptic: “a person who questions the validity, authenticity, or truth of something… especially religion or religious tenets.”
Whew… I think I was using the word right.
I’ve referred to myself as a “tech skeptic” not because I reject technology or think it’s all bad. I’m a skeptic because I choose not to immediately buy into hype. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the history of technology and I’ve found that a lot of tech enthusiasts wear heavily tinted rose-colored glasses. Reality is nearly always more complicated, and compromised, than the promise.
In fact, the one part of the definition that I forgot about, the religious angle, might make the term “skeptic” even more apt for me than I thought. I do find that technologies are often promoted with a fervor that borders on religious. As consumers there are times that we are sold technologies with a passion that asks us to suspend logic. We’re told that the results of a specific technology will be nothing less than miraculous. We’re told that the great benefits of technology will be bestowed on us, if we just believe in it. And people who adopt new technologies aren’t simply “users,” they’re “converts.”
I started this Substack because some of the claims I saw being made about electric cars bordered on techno-religious fervor. I knew they couldn’t possibly all be true. It’s hard for me to think of a technology that you can simply plug into your life and the result be immediate and unmitigated good. With a technology as complex as an EV and as integral to my life a car is, I couldn’t imagine the process being straightforward.
Looking back over the past year, I think this Substack has proven my skepticism was warranted. Integrating an EV into my life has been rather complicated. I’ve been lost at times. I spent hours driving to and from charging stations. I had a white-knuckle drive into the mountains to Prescott because I was experiencing significant charge anxiety. And I panicked when I accidentally put my car in “one pedal driving” mode.
I also think that my skepticism has been very beneficial to me. Instead of blindly accepting the hype, I’ve carefully thought through many aspects of EV life and made conscious and informed decisions. Without that skepticism I’d probably be sharing piles of personal data with companies and people around the world. Without the testing I’ve done I might trust my car’s computer nannies to always point me in the right direction. Without researching what the EV possibilities were, I might have been turned off by the ones that don’t quite fit my goals and perhaps never gone down this path to begin with.
I think it is possible to both be a skeptic and get the benefits from technology. In fact, I’d argue that the two are intimately intertwined. I think you are much more likely to benefit from the technologies you use if you approach them with a skeptical eye from the outset.
One of the questions Andrew and Sean asked me on the podcast was if I had to do it all over again, would I have done something different? Was I a happy EV owner?
It was a question I didn’t expect at all. They had read my Substack so perhaps they were focused on the various frustrations I’ve had over the past year. But I didn’t expect it because the answer was so obvious to me – I am incredibly happy as an EV owner and if I had to do it all over again I don’t think I’d change a thing. I really enjoy my car’s smooth ride. I love the instant acceleration I have when I need to make a quick maneuver on the road. I like to think that I’m doing something good for the environment. And I love that – knock on wood – I haven’t had a single mechanical problem with the car since we brought it home.
OK, so maybe if I did it all over again I would have found the time to get my home charger installed earlier and saved myself from a lot of time waiting in line in a parking lot for a public charger. But if I had done that, I don’t think I’d have nearly as many good stories to tell for this Substack.
In the end my hope with the Substack is to empower others to analyze their relationship with technology in a similar way. It is probably most straightforward for those who have or are considering an electric vehicle. Readers can go back and follow my journey. They can see all the decisions I made and perhaps benefit from the research I did to inform my own decisions. But we have relationships with a lot more technologies than just our cars. I think it is well worth thinking more about our relationship with our mobile phones, our computers, and even our dishwashers. When we don’t think through these things, we blindly accept what someone else has crafted for us. And many times the people who sell technologies to us are offering something very different than what they pitched.
So to come back to the question I posed in the title of this post… Am I still a skeptic? Absolutely. I’m going to continue not believing the hype. I’m going to keep reflecting on what I want out of my EV. And I’m going to keep asking questions. That approach has served me very well.