From: hank@well.sf.ca.us (Hank Roberts)
Subject: Re: Reflections on "Defending Technology"
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 00:56:02 GMT

I'm crossposting this to alt.co-evolution because of the Whole
Earth Review article mentioned in it; folks interested in the thread
might want to follow it in the     alt.amateur.comp    newsgroup


In <1ac5b3INNhob@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> as569@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Darek Brzeski) writes:


>Just finished reading "Defending Technology Part 1" and I have to say
>that although I view technological progress as mostly beneficial (to us
>humans at least :) ) I still found Whole Earth Review's "Questioning
>Technology"  issue to be much more wider in scope and at the same time
>more objective as it for most part considered not only the harm that
>technology causes but some of the benefits as well.  I understand
>that the authors of "Questioning Technology" having typed/written their
>articles using industrial products such as pens, typewritters,
>computers etc and having distributed their ideas to readers with
>the help of the publishing industry had no other choice but to admit
>that technology isn't purely one of humanity's blunders.  Anything else
>would be hipocrytical.  Authors of the "Defending Technology" on the
>other hand employing the same technology they defend to distribute
>their ideas had more of a choice (which was almost ethical one) as to either
>write a complete praise of technology and disregard all of it's
>"side effects" on humans and the environment or to reply to "Questioning
>Technology" by showing  that the benefit of the "Arte" outweighs its harm.
>And having had that choice they took the easy way out by not even admitting
>that any harm exists at all.

>"Defending Technology" mentions how in land based, pre-industrial
>societies tyranny was a norm.  While reading this I just couldn't help
>thinking that today it is the technology that is a sort of a "gentle tyranny".
>The parallel between the traditional tyrant and technology being that in
>both cases many of their subjects/users felt such a blind gratitude for
>protection and ability to advance(here the difference between the two
>being that technology offers a chance for larger percent of population
>to advance)  that they would completely blackout all the negative
>aspects and would consider all criticism a heresy.  Here I have to pay
>my homage to this maybe-not-so-wonderful technology since it at least
>multiplied channels of communications to such a magnitude that
>it no longer is feasible to persecute someone who voices such a heresy
>because obviously human nature hasn't changed a bit so if there
>existed some form of an ultimate Zap command on the net I'm sure
>few of us would be gone after our next message.  Here it is
>important to remember that everything has to be done so such
>a command never exists since if it ever did, technology
>would make a high tech form of tyranny extremely           \ | /
>efficient and easZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPP--------------->  -- o --
>                                                           / | \








>       least :) )
>
Xref: sparky alt.amateur-comp:72 comp.misc:3891