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The Generative Pattern 73
is. Barriers to accessibility can include the sheer expense of producing (and
therefore consuming) the technology, taxes, regulations associated with its
adoption or use, and the secrecy its producers adopt to maintain scarcity or
control.
Measured by accessibility, paper, plowshares, and guns are highly accessible,
planes hardly at all, and cars somewhere in between. It might be easy to learn
how to drive a car, but cars are expensive, and the government can always revoke
a user’s driving privileges, even after the privileges have been earned
through a demonstration of driving skill. Moreover, revocation is not an abstract
threat because effective enforcement is not prohibitively expensive. Measured
by the same factors, scooters and bicycles are more accessible, while
snowplows are less so. Standard PCs are very accessible; they come in a wide
range of prices, and in a few keystrokes or mouse-clicks one can be ready to
write new code for them. On the other hand, specialized PC modes—like
those found in “kiosk mode” at a store cycling through slides—cannot have
their given task interrupted or changed, and they are not accessible.
Transferability: Transferability indicates how easily changes in the technology
can be conveyed to others. With fully transferable technology, the fruits of
skilled users’ adaptations can be easily conveyed to less-skilled others. The PC
and the Internet together possess very strong transferability: a program written
in one place can be shared with, and replicated by, tens of millions of other machines
in a matter of moments. By contrast, a new appliance made out of a
75-in-1 Electronic Project Kit is not easily transferable because the modifier’s
changes cannot be easily conveyed to another kit. Achieving the same result requires
manually wiring a new kit to look like the old one, which makes the
project kit less generative.
GENERATIVE AND NON-GENERATIVE SYSTEMS COMPARED
Generative tools are not inherently better than their non-generative (“sterile”)
counterparts. Appliances are often easier to master for particular uses, and because
their design often anticipates uses and abuses, they can be safer and more
effective. For example, on camping trips, Swiss Army knives are ideal. Luggage
space is often at a premium, and such a tool will be useful in a range of expected
and even unexpected situations. In situations when versatility and
space constraints are less important, however, a Swiss Army knife is comparatively
a fairly poor knife—and an equally awkward magnifying glass, saw, and
scissors.