Better technology through porn

Topic: Technology Pornography

Cambodia's very own star blogger Tharum has a letter to the editor in today's Cambodia Daily which discusses the recent rash of cell phone porn being traded in Cambodia. He writes

This stuff spreads quicker and easier than any computer viruses... But only when technologies are deployed in an appropriate manner can they bring benefits to the people in general. However, people are indulgent and are willing to pay more for entertainment than for education.

One of the dirty little secrets of technology is that improvements are often driven by pornography. VCRs, video cameras, GUIs, computer video, the Internet, the Web, DVD players in laptops, etc, etc — technology has, over and over again, been used to create and distribute pornography, and the success of a technology often largely derives from its usefulness in that regard. As this article puts it,

Pornography, far from being an evil..., is a positive good that encourages experimentation with new media.

He also makes a case for tracing the popularity of English and Italian in part to pornography.

And in general I agree with that article. Porn purveyors are often early adopters of new technology, and push it to its limits. This drives both improvements in that technology, and the creation of newer, better technologies. Vive le porn!