Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Friday, July 28, 2006
Is technology truly "neutral"?
First, my Astoria blackout story:
I slept on my fire escape one night last week, but it wasn’t due to marital strife or a daredevil spirit. Rather, the sight of yours truly three flights up sporting boxer shorts and a death grip on the bars came courtesy of Con Edison (with a nod to Mayor Bloomberg).
Read the full power outage story here.
Other technology-related crap:
"What we want and what we need/Has been confused, been confused"
—R.E.M. “Finest Worksong”
More from In the Absence of the Sacred:
Jerry Mander sez: “No notion more completely confirms our technological somnambulism than the idea that technology contains no inherent political bias. From the political Right and Left, from the corporate world and the world of community activism, one hears the same homily: ‘The problem is not with technology itself but with how use it, and who controls it.’ This idea would be merely preposterous if it were not so widely accepted, and so dangerous. In believing this, however, we allow technology to develop without analyzing its actual bias. And then we are surprised when certain technologies turn out to be useful or beneficial only for certain segments of society ... [But] in the present climate of technological worship, arguing against technology is not popular. Utter the minor criticism of technology and you run the risk of being labeled a ‘Luddite,’ an accusation meant to equate opposition to technology with mindlessness.”
Chellis Glendinning sez: (in 1990): “Neo-Luddites are twentieth century citizens who question the predominant modern worldview, which preaches that unbridled technology represents progress. Neo-Luddites have the courage to gaze at the full catastrophe of our century ... Western societies are out of control and desecrating the fragile fabric of life on Earth. Like the early Luddites, we too are seeking to protect the livelihoods, communities, and families we love ... Stopping the destruction requires not just regulating or eliminating items like pesticides or military weapons. It requires new ways of thinking about humanity and new ways of relating to life. It requires a new worldview.”
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Related:
Captain Paul Watson sez: “Once, on the bottom of the Mediterranean off France, I witnessed a scene that appalled me. The entire bottom was made of plastic. Bottles and plastic bags swaying with the tide, replacing the sea grasses and algae. It was especially sad to see one little fish scurry from behind a white plastic bag to take cover from me in a sunken automobile tire.”
Ralph Nader sez: “A great problem of contemporary life is how to control the power of economic interests which ignore the harmful effects of their applied science and technology.”
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Farley Mowat sez: “Whales never needed a technology.”
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
