7 June 2007

NET12 Technology & Politics

Langdon Winner. " Do Artifacts Have Politics?" The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.) pp. 19-39

"The things we call technologies are ways of building order in our world."
- (Mumford) two types of technologies: one authoritarian, the other democratic
- structuring decisions are made either consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or inadvertently
- different people are situated differently and possess unequal levels of power/awareness
- choices quickly become firmly fixed in material equipment, economic investment, social habit

Some light reading: Who Woulda Thought. Famous last quotes about technology!

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