STS09: Technology, Human Values, Scientism Flashcards
What are the 2 Modern Phenomenas?
- Destruction of NATURE
- Growth of TECHNOLOGY
“If necessity is the mother of invention,
who is the father, and who, or what, are invention’s children?”
Morton Winston, Children of Invention Revisited
What made us ascend from the stone age to our present global technological civilization?
SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE
“Coupled with our needs and desires, which provide the motives that propel us to discover and invent, our scientific and technological creativity has guided the development of civilization through the development of theories, tools, inventions, and technologies that have transformed the ways that we live and work.”
“techne”
meaning art, craft or skill
What are the 5 ways technology can be defined?
- The rational process of creating means to order and transform matter, energy, and information to realize certain alued ends
- The set of means (tools, devices, systems, methods, procedures) created by technological process
-
The knowledge that makes the technological process
possible. It consists of the facts and procedures necessary to
order and manipulate matter, energy, and information, as well as
how to discover new means for such transformations. - A subset of related technological objects and knowledge
What are the 6 ASPECTS of Technology?
- skills, techniques, human activity-forms, or sociotechnical practices;
- resources, tools, and materials;
- technological products, or artifacts;
- ends, intentions, or functions;
- background knowledge;
- the social contexts in which the technology is designed, developed, used, and disposed of.
the SUMMARIZE definition of technology
We can define technological
systems as the complex of techniques,
knowledge, and resources that are
employed by human beings in the creation
of material and social artifacts that typically
serve certain functions perceived as useful
or desirable in relation to human interests in
various social contexts.
What are the 3 technological revolution?
- Agricultural Revolution 8000BC
- Industrial Revolution 1700s
- Knowledge Revolution 20th century
Allowed settled, communities (civilization)
AGRICULTURAL
REVOLUTION
Emergence of morality, law, religion, records,
mathematics, astronomy, class structures, patriarchy
AGRICULTURAL
REVOLUTION
AGRICULTURAL
REVOLUTION: Advantages
- More food, so greater
population density - Greater population density
allowed for coordinated
efforts and specialized skills - No need for portability
AGRICULTURAL
REVOLUTION: Disadvantages
- More work to maintain
higher, more complex
standard of living
Steam engine, then gasoline-driven combustion engine
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
More specialized division of labor and of knowledge–each worker needed fewer skills
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
Less expensive goods, so increased in standard living
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
Infrastructure for
transportation
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
‘Luddites’
‘Luddites’ refers to British weavers and
textile workers who objected to the introduction of
mechanised looms and knitting frames. As highly
trained artisans, the new machinery posed a
threat to their livelihood and after receiving no
support from government, they took matters into
their own hands.
English workers in 1811-1816, protested the
changes of the Industrial Revolution that they felt threatened their jobs.
LUDDITES: Standard View
Also known as “King Ludd” and
“General Ludd” referred to by luddites
Man who destroyed two large stocking-
frames that produced inexpensive
stockings undercutting those produced
by skilled knitters. Because he was
feeble-minded, he was not prosecuted.
1978 with the explosion of his first, primitive
homemade bomb at a Chicago university.
Over the next 17 years, he mailed or hand delivered a series of
increasingly sophisticated bombs that killed three Americans
and injured nearly two dozen more. Along the way, he sowed
fear and panic, even threatening to blow up airliners in flight.
Theodore Kaczynski
The text was sent in June 1995
to The New York Times and The
Washington Post by the person who
calls himself “FC,” identified by the
FBI as the Unabomber, whom
authorities have implicated in three
murders and 16 bombings. The author
threatened to send a bomb to an
unspecified destination “with intent to
kill” unless one of the newspapers
published this manuscript. The
Attorney General and the Director of
the FBI recommended publication.
KACZYNSKI
MANIFESTO
KACZYNSKIMANIFESTO
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human
race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in
“advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling,
have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological
suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe
damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen
the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict
greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption
and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in
“advanced” countries.
What are the 3 possibilities of KACZNSKI MANIFESTO
- “The human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of
such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical
choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. As society and
the problems that face it become more and more complex and
machines become more and more intelligent, people will let
machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because
machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made
ones. Eventually, a stage may be reached at which the decisions
necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human
beings will be incapable of making them intelligently.” - A tiny elite will eliminate the rest of humanity.
- A tiny elite will engineer a purposeless and therefore
THE NEW LUDDITE
CHALLENGE
BY RAY KURZWEIL
- New jobs are on a higher level and increasingly involved w/ education
- Can’t drop technology: “there is too little nature to return to”
- need viable alternative to the nightmare envisioned by luddites such as Kacynzski
- Education will reach human limit but human competence will be extended by merging w/ technology
Machines have made jobs
obsolete for centuries.
Increased need for specialized education
KNOWLEDGE
REVOLUTION
Better scheduling and inventory control provides basis for geographically distributed production systems (globalization)
KNOWLEDGE
REVOLUTION
Flexible programmable tools allow more customized short production runs, so supply can more accurately follow demand
KNOWLEDGE
REVOLUTION
better record keeping and communication
KNOWLEDGE
REVOLUTION
► Different forms of value and relations
to intrinsic (essential) value reveal how
complicated it is to assess the value of
technology (e.g. stem cell technology)
► These distinctions may nevertheless
help clarify the conflicts among the
various costs and benefits of
technology.
Evaluating Technology
1: methods and attitudes typical of or attributed
to the natural scientist
2: an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the
methods of natural science applied to all areas of
investigation (as in philosophy, the social
sciences, and the humanities)
Scientism
SCIENTISM
The effort to use the
method of science to explain
and control every part of
human life.
A philosophical position which proposes
that legitimate knowledge about reality
can be attained solely through the
scientific method.
►Science is an activity that
seeks to explore the natural
world using well-established,
clearly-delineated methods.
Empirical, Quantifiable, Falsifiable
Once meant “systematized knowledge.”
Narrowed meaning to just “sciences” in
the 19th century. Usually divided into
natural and social sciences
SCIENCE
