Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 14:45:20 EDT
From: ma-AT-dsd.camb.inmet.com (Malgosia Askanas)
To: technology-AT-world.std.com
Subject: Re: recapitulation


Erik wrote:

> That posting also had an assertion in it which both confused and 
> interested me: "if one wants to maintain the position that one's humanity 
> is indeed to some extent one's own project, then one must separate oneself 
> radically from the forces which govern the development of technology". 
> [...]
> But from where I am it's not obvious why one 
> wouldn't wish to involve oneself intimately with the development of 
> technology; it's my own (perhaps naive) opinion that if more people were 
> meaningfully involved in it the results might serve a somewhat broader 
> range of interests than at present.

Here is what (I think) I meant.  The development of technology is 
effected in such a way that it is not at all clear what position one 
would need to occupy so as to be "meaningfully involved in it".  We have
a certain, albeit partly illusory, understanding of how political
decisions are made, and certain modes of thought and action have been
developed with respect to the political involvement of individuals.
I don't believe there is anything analogous in the area of "the
technological", although its effects are as (if not more) powerful as 
the effects of what is classically regarded as politics.  Specific 
political developments are not typically thought of as "inevitable"; 
technological developments are treated that way all the time.  
They are described and analyzed more as if they were forces of nature 
than results of human endeavors, and they induce a similar feeling of
helplessness (over which David, via Project Mind, strives to leapfrog).


- malgosia