The author is worried that not too many people recognize the dark side of technology. He argues that it's gifts come at a heavy cost; that uncontrolled growth of technology "creates a culture without moral foundation" and "undermines social realtions that make human life worth living". While I'm not convinced with the reasoning provided on all aspects, the author does raise some important questions which helps us this more clearly about the far reaching consequences of technology.
Technopoly: Take over of technology without any resistance.
The author is worried that technology can have unintended consqeuences (something which I've been worried about lately independently based on similar ideas); and argue that it's better to err on the side of caution.
People who have control over technology can accumulate power leading to increase inequality in the society. The society might not recognize this clearly because (i) people are high on the gifts that a new revolution can bring in, (ii) it's not clear who the winner are going to be at the beginning.
It is not possible to limit technology to a narrow sphere of human activity. Once it's out, it's going to seep through all industries. An analogy to ecology: "If you remove caterpillars from a habitat, you are not left with an environment without caterpillars-- you have a completely new environment."
Three classes of cultures that use technology:
- Tool-using cultures: the inventions solve specific urgent purposes. they did not impact culture beyond their purpose. Examples: spears, cooking utensils, coal.
- Technocracies: once the tools get much more powerful and can impact some part of culture or ecology. Example: replacement of bow-arrows with rifles led to eradication of entire species.
- Technopolies: tools play a central role in determining culture. the consequence of which tradition, docial mores, myth, politices, rituals and religion have to fight for their lives.
Social instituions ensured that change doesn't take place too quickly. However, in the case of technology, there are no institutions that control progress.
Experts don't acknowledge the limitations of technology or have a nuanced discussion. They only talk about the positive impacts. Even seemingly uncontroversial research areas such as cancer research or indoor farming can have far reaching consequences.
Some examples of technology failing us:
- Carotid endarterectomy -- the risk of the operation are much higher than the benefits. We took long to realize this.
- 1974 senate investigation: 2.4 million unnecessary operations have been performed.
- This is happening everyday in areas such as exercise and food science. Studies are used to justify all kinds of diets. But no on clear acknowledges that the discussion is much more complicated; that everybody is different and there's no one-size fits all.
Our most serious problems are not technical, nor do they arise from lack of information. Examples: nuclear catastrophe, starvation, education, crime, child abuse, divorce rates, etc., We need to remind ourselves that a lot of these problems can be solve without technology.
When we think of something that computers can solve, we also have to remind ourselves of everything that is going to be lost in the process.
The scientific view of materialism or the denial of death after life is largely due to the extra trust in technology.
The authors takes a swing at social science and psychology research.
- People run experiments in very controlled settings and make claims about the nature of humans in all settings. And the results highly depend on confunding factors such as how the questions are framed, or how much sugar the participants had in the last hour.
- If some counter evidence comes up, they just move the goal posts to continue justifying their theories. For example, let's take the claim by Stanley Milgram that "in face of what they construe as legitimate authority, most people will do what they are told" by running experiments where the subject needs to give shock to an innocent victim. Firstly, the words are imprecise to clearly understand what is being claimed here. Which makes it easier to move goal posts when new evidence turns up.
- He says that using the word "science" for it is misleading as they make claims which are not falsifyable.
- At best, sociologists use do math to lend credence to their ideas. That doesn't make it sicence
- While some of the criticisms are fair, I think the author is unreasonably harsh on this research. He, at one point claims, "social science never discovers anything".
The author is worried that in a technopoly, people over rely on science. It might not be enough to say we need to eradicate poverty; we instead have to show through stats that people under poverty and hunger do suffer to lend credence to the idea.
The author also takes a swing at mass advertising which doesn't focus on the benefits of the product but the psychological tricks used to exploit human flaws for setting more products.
Technopoly
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While the book has been written in 1992, these ideas seem only more relevant now. With the advent in AI, there can be so many unintended consqeuences.
- Evidence won't be applicable in court.