5 Reasons Why Technology Can Never Be Neutral (Mickey Z.)

[Tace]

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

Mar. 27, 2011 -- It's repeated so often that few of us even stop to question its validity: "Technology is neutral. It's only as good or as bad as those using it."

Here are 5 reasons why this is far from true:

1. Technology Devours Nature http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/eastern-lowland-gorilla.html

Thanks to the automobile culture, for example, in the 20th century, an area equal to all the arable land in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania was paved in the United States. This means highways, off-ramps, parking lots, etc. -- each replacing countless eco-systems.

2. Technology Leaves Behind Lots of Toxic Waste http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/e-waste.htm

Three million tons of household electronics tossed by Americans in 2006. There are 300 million obsolete computers in the United States today and only 50 percent of a computer is recycled. The non-recyclable components of a single computer may contain almost two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of lead. Seventy percent of the entire toxic waste stream of landfills is e-waste.

3. Technology Spawns Alienation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3HyRtdu1o0

more

http://worldnewstrust.com/all-content/5-reasons-why-technology-can-never-be-neutral-mickey-z.html

[Buzz Clik]

1. How do you spell Luddite?

I have no quarrel that a lot of technological advances have devoured nature, left behind toxic waste, and alienated people. However, it is trivial to find hundreds of examples of technology that have sought to blend with nature, leave zero waste, and brought people together. Recycling of aluminum is one example.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. You missed the big one...

Technology disrupts established social structures. That is not always evil, but it is the biggest thing technology does to society

[yurbud]

3. the counter argument is Marxist: technology reduces the amount of work that needs to be done

So that if wages kept track with productivity, we could all support ourselves with a couple of hours of work a week.

Instead, the excess wealth we create is skimmed off the top as profit to make a handful of wealthy individuals ever more wealthy.

[Igel]

4. He really can't reason well, can he?

One could possess a technology. It's neutral. One could then use the technology. That wouldn't be neutral.

Let's examine the three cases you posted.

One could easily develop internal-combustion technology, asphalt, pumps, etc. One could then decide that the technology is going to be used very sparingly. We've had the same basic technology for over a hundred years. The paving over of all the land was not required by the mere existence of the technology; it was required by the use that we, collectively, decided on.

We have the technology to produce some nifty electronics. We have the technology to recycle said electronics. To argue that the existence of the first technology requires that we all immediately have a lot of pre-toxic-waste on our desktops should lead, inexorably, to the conclusion that the second technology requires that we all immediately recycle. In other words, he wants to argue that the technology itself leaves behind waste; but the technology itself cannot find a way of recycling the waste. Yet he provides no principle, at the same level of reasoning. Instead, for the one it's the case that technology is harmful, not dependent on human use and application; in the latter it's neutral, dependent entirely on human use and application.

Technology spawns alienation. On the other hand, cultural mixing can also spawn alienation and doesn't require technology. Many first-generation children of immigrants are culturally alienated from their parents' culture as they make their own or adopt the pre-existing local culture. The introduction of a foreign music or food, of foreign customs and habits, can produce alienation. Many a new religious convert finds himself alienated from the dominant culture, whether Xian or Muslim or Buddhist. The writer wants to argue that technology produces alienation when, in fact, alienation is often the product of the introduction of a new element into a person's culture or viewpoint. The new element can be technological; on the other hand, it can be otherwise. The culture can also ignore technology that it founds useless or not desirable. If technology is inherently harmful, then this state of affairs is predicted to be impossible.

[Demeter]

5. Oh, Please!

CULTURE is not neutral: the author mentions the "auto culture" (a CORPORATE CREATION, by the way), but blames technology?

And then, the author describes "planned obsolescence", the throw-away Corporate-Designed culture, and blames technology? My father put himself through school fixing vacuum-tube TVs and Radios, in the days before things were designed to be unfixable, so that the CORPORATIONS could sell repeat customers more crap that breaks before its time and cannot be repaired, because they won't permit designers to do better.

Technology does not spawn alienation. Technology makes alienation a whole lot more bearable for people who don't "fit in" to the MSM-SPAWNED AND PROPAGATED CULTURE--enabling people like us at DU to find kinship with others of similar interests and standards.

Technology is not available to everyone? This is Technology's fault? It is the CORPORATE CAPITALIST CULTURE that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing that decides these things.

Technology results in "environmental racism"? Nope. THE POWERS THAT BE use technology in such a way as to disadvantage their chosen pariah groups...technology IS NEUTRAL in this.

I've read a lot of crap, but this really takes the cake.
If you're going to point fingers, point them at something that makes the real difference.

[CanSocDem]

6. OK...at your pleasure.

"...the days before things were designed to be unfixable...because they won't permit designers to do better.

I believe that is the OP's point. The nature of a technological society is that it DOES NOT serve the public interest.

Even the grand technological advancement that you value and worry that you would die without has a negative impact on the public consciousness. Those of us old enough to have experienced a non-technological life can see the difference.

We didn't even have television growing up.

.

[Demeter]

7. It's NOT a Technological Society

It's a Greedy Capitalist, looting the people one.

If you think I'm the only engineer/designer who HATES how the field is abused by everyone, you are sadly mistaken. This has been a problem since the 70's, and it's only going to get worse, until Capitalism eats itself and dies a painful, and hopefully permanent death.

Agriculture, tool-making, language...just how far back to nature are you planning on going, when you abandon technology?