Mixed feelings

TEXT Martin Kaluza

People respond enthusiastically to some innovations and very cautiously to others. But why?

The American sociologist Everett Rogers (1931–2004) spent a lifetime investigating this very question. When a new hybrid seed for corn became available in the 1930s, not all the farmers in Iowa were thrilled. Rogers’ father was among them: he was open-minded about new farm equipment, but took a dim view of biochemical innovations. The drought of 1936 changed his mind: his neighbors who had sown the new seeds were suffering much fewer crop failures than he was. In 1962 his son Everett, who was only five years old when the drought struck, described in his “diffusion of innovations” theory how new inventions catch on. He coined the expression “early adopters” for people who embrace innovations early and used “laggards” to describe those who joined the game late. When it came to farm equipment, his father was an early adopter; with regard to new seeds, he was a laggard.

The top seven innovations, some of which were greeted with euphoria and others eyed with stern skepticism, provide insights into evolving mindsets over the ages.

1 Railway: Insanity and the technology from hell

Europe owes much of its industrialization to the railways. That said, they got off to a slow start. Before the first train line in Germany opened in 1835 – the Nuremberg to Fürth route – the pastor of the local town of Schwabach issued a stark warning: “The railway comes from Hell. And anyone riding it is heading straight back through its gates!” Doctors expressed concern that people traveling at such high speeds were risking brain damage and pneumonia. The first trains had started running ten years earlier in England. But in the 1860s, there were mounting cases of ostensibly innocuous passengers suddenly freaking out – at least as long as the wheels were turning beneath them. Their erratic behavior subsided whenever the trains stopped. But none of that slowed the spread of the railway: by 1885, 30,000 kilometers of track had been laid in England and 40,000 in Germany.

2 X-rays: See-through people

Seeing inside someone’s body without cutting it open? That really was novel. The accidental breakthrough made by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895 met with great enthusiasm. While working in his laboratory, the physicist had found that cathode rays made crystals glow – even when he blocked them with cardboard. The X-rays, as he called them, penetrated wood, water, and even the human body. The first object X-rayed by Roentgen was his wife’s hand. The invention helped diagnose fractured bones and skeletal diseases. Soon people could get themselves X-rayed at funfairs. Shops checked to see if their shoes were a good fit for customers’ feet. Roentgen deliberately refrained from patenting his invention and received the first Nobel Prize in Physics for it in 1901. Enthusiasm soon waned, however, when it emerged that the rays caused cancer. Since 1941, the technology has only been used under tight restrictions – by trained personnel and chiefly for medical purposes.

3 Mandatory seatbelts: threat or savior?

The obligation to buckle up numbers among the world’s unloved innovations. And that despite the fact that the benefits of seat belts were undisputed even before their introduction. In Austria and Germany, they became mandatory in 1976, following a fierce public debate the previous year. Opponents pointed out that they restricted movement, predicting that passengers would be unable to escape if the car caught fire or became submerged in water. A contemporary study found that seat belts were “mainly associated with the dangers and consequences of accidents, and only secondarily with the function of protecting passengers from them.”

4 Women’s suffrage: the battle against inequality

Liberty, equality, fraternity! The French Revolution’s mantra did not extend explicitly to all French citizens: brothers may have gained the vote, but their sisters remained disenfranchised. In 1791, two years after the overthrow of the monarchy, women’s rights activist Olympe de Gouges demanded parity in her Declaration

of the Rights of Woman. De Gouges paid the ultimate price for her campaign: during Robespierre’s reign of terror, she was sentenced to death for allegedly being a royalist and ultimately met her end under the guillotine. Politics was still considered a male preserve. In Europe and beyond, women fought for over a century to secure the right to vote and stand for election. Vélez in northern Colombia was the first city in the world to allow women to vote, with the majority of European countries doing so within two years of the First World War. In 1918, Azerbaijan became the first Muslim-majority nation to approve equal political rights for women and men – a year before the United States. Italy and the African countries under French rule followed suit in 1946. Switzerland, however, lagged well behind, with women being disenfranchised until 1971. Women enfranchised until 1971. And in the Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden, the menfolk considered equality a male privilege for even longer – a huge liberty that denied women suffrage until 1990.

5 Talkies: The scourge of silence

“You ain’t heard nothing yet!” Those were the opening words in “The Jazz Singer” of 1928. It is often considered the first sound movie ever, but that isn’t strictly true: three years earlier, the German production company UFA had released a short film based on Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Little Match Girl”. Unfortunately, the sound failed at its premiere. While talkies revolutionized the film industry, not everybody greeted them with enthusiasm. The studios hesitated: after all, they were much more complicated to produce. Microphones were needed to capture the actors’ voices. The movies could no longer be sold abroad because of the built-in language barrier. Established actors disappeared from the silver screen if their voices weren’t up to scratch. And they weren’t the only victims. The stage musicians who had traditionally provided the musical backdrop to silent movies also became redundant. In Berlin alone, hundreds lost their jobs and livelihoods. By contrast, there were very few complaints from audiences about the new technology.

6 Smartphones: Ignored by consumers

During the past decade, smartphones have conquered the world. The idea is not new, but there was hardly any interest in the first devices. Despite boasting a touchscreen, the IBM Simon proved a flop. Weighing in at half a kilogram and measuring 23 centimeters in length, it was quite compact. That said, to send e-mails and faxes, users had to access a server via a wired internet connection. After a year, IBM abandoned the project. Ten years later, Sony Ericsson launched its P800, the first cellphone with a color touchscreen. It even recognized handwriting – but owners had to use the companion pen; as a result, it remained a niche product. Apple finally made the breakthrough in 2007 with its iPhone.

7 Soccer: Contempt for the “English

disease” “An English disease of the foot!” “An unnatural game inspired by people kicking dogs! It degrades men to monkeys!” The first soccer match in Germany took place in 1874, and as late as 1898 the high school teacher Karl Planck published a diatribe entitled “Uncouth Footplay.” Gymnastics instructors led the defamation campaign, condemning the new sport as “insufficiently German.” The new pastime from England nonetheless continued its triumphal march to global supremacy. In 1867, English expats established Argentina’s first soccer club. The Swiss were more open-minded than the Germans. In 1870, the first teams in continental Europe were formed near Lake Geneva. And it was Swiss immigrants who founded Barcelona and Inter Milan, two of the world’s most successful soccer clubs ever.

Martin Kaluza, born in 1971, works as a journalist in Berlin. He was no early adopter of the Internet. When his father ordered a computer-based videotext system in the late 1980s, and looked up train times on its green screen, he doubted the benefits of the new technology. After all, that same information was available by phone from your local station.

Der Mars ist der neue Mond. Der Mars ist das wichtigste Ziel der internationalen Raumfahrt – zumindest, wenn es um existierendes oder ausgestorbenes Leben auf einem anderen Himmelskörper des Sonnensystems geht. Bisher war es jedoch noch nicht möglich, bemannte Missionen auf den Roten Planeten zu schicken. Für diesen großen Schritt wird aber in irdischen Missionen unter möglichst realen Mars-Bedingungen geprobt, zum Beispiel schickt das österreichische Weltraumforum im nächsten Jahr ein internationales Team in die israelische Wüste, mit logistischer Unterstützung von Gebrüder Weiss.

Mars is the new Moon.

Mars has become the top destination in international space travel – at least when it comes to finding evidence of life in other parts of our solar system. Until now, however, manned missions to the red planet have been impossible. To prepare for this next giant leap, rehearsals are taking place on earth – under as realistic conditions as possible. Next year, for example, the Austrian Space Forum is dispatching an international team to the deserts of Israel – with logistics support from Gebrüder Weiss.