Date: Mon, 3 Apr 1995 01:22:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: hammers and cyborgs




On Sun, 2 Apr 1995, Patrick Hopkins wrote:

> 
> I certainly wouldn't claim that we should call the body technology, because
> I'm not sure what that would mean  (here we get into defining tech, is it
> use or properties? or?).  But I'm curious about some things in your response.
> Is the fetishization of technology a bad thing because it distracts us from
> what we should be doing like massing a global action against poverty and
> injustice?  If this is the case then it seems like we are supposed to wait  
> until we get this other stuff right (global justice) before we get into
> things like nano.  

It's bad only because at times it loops back into itself, with no way 
out; as Brad pointed out a long time ago, fetishizing computer/tech leads 
to a kind of isolation - it doesn't need to, but this seems to be the result.
> 
> But here a whole bunch of problems crop up.  I am certainly
> aware of the criticisms of the "technological fix", but there are people who
> think that it is impossible (practically, not logically) to solve the global
> economic justice problems we have right now because 1) there simply are not 
> enough resources to go around without drastically lowering the living standard
> of developed nations, 2) attempts at curbing the population explosion through
> prophylactic education necessitates cultural colonialism, 3) even if 
> capitalism is unjust, it is still continuing to demonstrate that it is 
> vitally (and perhaps virally) powerful, able to insinuate/regulate 
> everything it touches.  For some the (and I don't know where I fit here
> yet), the only real hope for curbing starvation and disease, etc, is 
> developing the right kinds of technology--immune techs, crop superstrains,
> etc.  Very speculatively, things like nanotechnology could turn sand into 
> food and cold fusion could turn water into electricity.  We might also use
> nano, like we currently use vaccinations, to make the body more resistant to
> the damage imposed by the environment it is in.

I doubt personally whether all this will be possible with nano; I have 
more hope in miniaturized neural networks without the mechanism. But this 
is just speculation (again) on my part. Further, cultural colonialism 
need not be bad - a whole other discussion ranging from issues of nazism 
through North African clitorectomy to curtailing the use of crack in the 
United States. I don't think there's any definitive answer here.
> 
> Isn't is possible that thinking ethics through the body could rationally 
> lead to the conclusion that, given the right technology, the most morally
> and practically effective action would be to change the constraints of the 
> human body to decrease starvation and disease?  Right now, our relief actions
> are mostly palliative, at least on the community/regional level.

Yes, but if we don't also reduce population, the planet will be 
uninhabitable in a while...

Alan

> 
> 
>      --- from list technology-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 


     --- from list technology-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------