Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 23:33:17 -0500 (CDT)
From: Erik J Tielking <tiel0001-AT-gold.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Recapitulation
To: technology-AT-world.std.com


If what Malgosia wishes to deal with is not technology in general but
particular "developments...potentially demanding a change in the way I
construct myself in the world", then maybe it makes more sense to do what
has been suggested by others on this list: deal with the particular
technologies rather than the overarching category.  One wouldn't want to
overlook interactions between different systems (the meaning of one set of
practices probably has a lot to do with how it fits into certain other
sets of practices), but that's different from trying to address a sort of
Heideggerian question concerning technology.

	I suspect it is no more possible to be 'meaningfully involved' in
the development of technology in general than it is to be meaningfully
involved in politics in general.  Even professional politicians are
individually involved in only a certain range of issues, not the entire
operations of the state machinery.  Similarly individuals in position
to make decisions concerning the development and use of some
emerging technology aren't in a position to influence other technologies. 
In that sense I agree with what Malgosia said on the subject.

	I suppose that when I wrote of the possiblilty of meaningful
involvement in the development of technology(ies) I had in mind the sorts
of ways we try to be involved in the economic and political forces that
Malgosia says interact with invention in the development of technology. 
People who are not happy about rBGH try to influence federal labelling
requirements on milk, and try to get the substance regulated in ways that
would make it easier for processors to tell which farmers use it and which do
not; this seems to fall into a recognizable paradigm of political action. 
They may also switch to organic milk & milk products, which again looks like
garden-variety economic activity; if they try to get other consumers to do
the same it starts to look like the familiar boycott.  Obviously, all this
may well fail; when I write to Borden and a couple of local dairy
companies to ask them what their policy on rBGH is it probably has about
as much effect as when I write a letter to my elected representative
(maybe even less).  I guess I can't think of ways radically different from
these in which a non-engineer could be meaningfully involved in the
development and use of a technology.  Are these systematically insufficient? 
(Maybe our ability to be meaningfully invoved in politics is simply
insufficient.)

	I realize that the sorts of things I just
wrote all have to do with reacting to technologies that have already begun
to emerge; maybe part of the problem is that proactive measures are harder
to even imagine.  It ought to be possible to organize in such a way as to
influence the relevant economic and political forces in advance of the
development of particular technologies in order to get results closer to
those desired, but I must admit I'm not sure how that would work in
practice.  (Maybe in fact I'm wrong, and there's no way to do it, either
because Americans can't be organized on a large scale for that sort of
thing or because such an effort would require something logically
impossible such as the ability to see into the future.)  

						Erik Tielking