tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post4217794589196801020..comments2024-01-05T20:26:44.857-08:00Comments on Thinking Again: Technology: From Worst to Firstmark wallacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-82683685573888289322008-08-09T11:26:00.000-07:002008-08-09T11:26:00.000-07:00What about olive oil? And coffee? And coffee machi...What about olive oil? And coffee? And coffee machines? What would my life be without pasta?Johanneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05337336796472940625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-36478952978442672742008-08-08T05:32:00.000-07:002008-08-08T05:32:00.000-07:00What about print? Consider the printed book as a p...What about print? <BR/>Consider the printed book as a piece of technology, & other printed materials including pamphlets, propaganda, magazines, advertisements, religious texts, et cetera. Surely the technology of print —though it is so familiar/antiquated now could it even be considered a technology on your list? — has caused a good deal of terrible & good events.silverlinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02624620418836007855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-81058592037981629312008-08-07T08:21:00.000-07:002008-08-07T08:21:00.000-07:00Electricity, man, is dooming us. But I believe tha...Electricity, man, is dooming us. But I believe that we need machine guns, tanks, artillery, and airplanes in order to rid ourselves of electricity. Then we will need something to rid ourselves of machine guns, tanks, artillery, and airplanes. We could call in the snake. Then we would need something to rid us of the snake. We could call in the mongoose. You see where I'm going. But then who, pray tell, or what, pray tell, would rid us of the mongoose? I can't even begin to begin to imagine. ----BADAN / DANIEL GUTSTEINhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11440571794661801261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-85981195350078837992008-08-05T09:47:00.000-07:002008-08-05T09:47:00.000-07:00I'm having trouble ranking this. I want to just sa...I'm having trouble ranking this. I want to just say that cars and machine guns are the worst: cars for the way they lead to suburban infrastructures that don't encourage walking or public interaction and machine guns for leading the charge in ever-bloodier forms of warfare and violence around the world.K. Lorraine Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03974374662095094031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-19719157357301073362008-08-04T10:43:00.000-07:002008-08-04T10:43:00.000-07:00A most thought-provoking post, Mark. I thank you ...A most thought-provoking post, Mark. I thank you for introducing me to Raymond Williams, a man whose work I should be acquainted with but who so far had escaped my attention. Lynn White said something quite similar in 1962: "a new device merely opens a door; it does not compel one to enter" (Medieval Technology and Social Change). In both versions the claim is open to doubt; give steel knives to a tribe that has only stone and some effects will be predictable to a degree of confidence that would be the envy of any social scientist. As to the evaluation of these effects, Melvin Kranzberg's self-styled "law" may apply here: "Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral."<BR/> Yes, lists do carry more than a trace of the absurd, but all investigation must begin with speculation and all speculation begins with oversimplification. And what better simplification tool than a list?<BR/> This particular sort of list, however, is devilishly tricky, in part because the desirable technologies are inevitably close cousins of the undesirable ones, and also because the very power that a technology confers is itself a power for both good and ill. Take the machine gun (please!). If we have cheap steel, nitrocellulose, and brass shell casings, we have the essential ingredients of a machine gun, and if we shun the gun without shunning them, we will leave others all they need to make machine guns and unleash all the horror we hoped to avoid. Thus if we wish to shun the machine gun we must shun the cheap steel on which railroads depend, the nitrocellulose on which film photography depended for its formative decades (until circa 1950), and the electrolytic extraction of of copper (with zinc, for brass shell casings) on which the circuits in the refrigerator depend. And even considering machine guns only as devices, and not as systems, should we nevertheless be grateful for the machine guns in the Spitfires and Hurricanes of 1940, since each Heinkel and Dornier they destroyed saved children and their parents on the ground? I wonder how many thousands of wonderful people are walking the streets of London right now because their parents' lives were saved in this way.<BR/> Yes, machine guns have killed about 100x as many people as nuclear weapons. But do we take into account the nature of the victims? Probably at least half of those killed by machine guns would have been called "combatants," while almost none of the victims of atomic weapons were such (though the attempt to so designate them was made). Or is "combatant" a convenient fiction invented by generals and statesmen too old to fight?<BR/> I would suggest that medical technologies do belong on any such list. The 20th was the first century when most people could realistically expect to see their small children as grown ups. It's likely that sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics have saved your life and mine. Sewers alone save many thousands of lives daily. Then there's chlorination of drinking water (but if we embrace chlorine, we have embraced the first gas warfare agent). Or antisepsis, which saves lives at minimum cost. Yet the first medical antiseptic (phenol), became (when nitrated) picric acid, the first military high explosive (and high explosives killed millions in World War I).<BR/> I am tempted to attempt a list of my own, but I feel thwarted. Whenever I think of a wonderfully beneficial technology, I find it hopelessly intertwined in horror or ruin. I sense you judge the extrication of related destructive and benevolent devices possible, but I would disagree; their a package deal (like cars and paved roads). I would, however, venture the bicycle, at least, as exceptional in its benevolence. But the bicycle depends for its existence on the cheap steel that gave us--at precisely the same historical moment (1880s)--the machine gun.<BR/>With thanks for this and other stimulating posts,<BR/>P NortonymousAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com