Software, the Tough Tomato Principle, and the Great Weirdening of the World
Marshall McLuhan’s theory that “the medium is the message” famously describes how media are not neutral. Rather, a medium’s nature has a deep impact on the very content of its messages.
One misunderstood aspect of the theory is that it applies to all technology, not just media: any “message” (in the broadest sense of the term) ends up changing so it fits better the system surrounding it. One example is how researchers re-engineered tomatoes so they fit mechanical harvesters better. From Seeing Like a State:
Spurred by the wartime shortage of field labor, researchers set about inventing a mechanical harvester and breeding the tomato that would accommodate it. The tomato plants eventually bred for the job were hybrids of low stature and uniform maturity that produced similarly sized fruits with thick walls, firm flesh, and no cracks; the fruits were picked green in order to avoid being bruised by the grasp of the machinery and were artificially ripened by ethylene gas during transport. The results were the small, uniform winter tomatoes, sold four to a package, which dominated supermarket shelves for several decades. Taste and nutritional quality were secondary to machine compatibility.
This is counter intuitive. Most people think of tools as designed around their material, not materials around their tools. But in practice, tools and materials are constantly reshaping each other.
