"To invent something is to invent an accident. To invent the ship is to invent the shipwreck; the space shuttle, the explosion. And to invent the electronic superhighway or the Internet is to invent a major risk that is not easily spotted because it does not produce fatalities like a shipwreck or a mid-air explosion. The information accident is, sadly, not very visible. It is immaterial like the waves that carry information."
I'm not fan of academic theoriticians of technology though, because they are complacent and thinks that there is a way to reform, there is none.
Or the human agency do something or there will be no humanity left, simple as.
This is stimulating. Design and Technology are often lumped together, but it is useful to tease them apart.
By the way, I also listened to that podcast and found TC's position on social media utterly baffling. The stuff about AI summarising your Tweets and Tiktoks as a way of reducing social pressures was incredibly wrongheaded.
Wessie, nicely done! I often tell my CS friends they are a commodity -- the vast majority of computer science is an effort to make money, usually by establishing some sort of monopoly, or (like so much technology) driven by security concerns. They don't like it. But the design process, while often bespoke, is about solving things. Certain moral blinders, as Oppenheimer admitted to. I tried to talk about ethics in the design context in the inaugural podcast of the Center for Cybersocial Dynamics at the University of Kansas. Spoiler: Gatling, of Gatling gun fame, was a pretty ethical guy.
With regard to Cowan's weird faith that technology will be good, it's baked into the economist worldview. Invisible hand and all that. It's a sort of primitive, secularized, Christianity (without the fall, without sin). Mary Harrington has a nice piece on tech progress, especially in the US, as a sublimated Christian discourse.
A classic from P. Virilio:
"To invent something is to invent an accident. To invent the ship is to invent the shipwreck; the space shuttle, the explosion. And to invent the electronic superhighway or the Internet is to invent a major risk that is not easily spotted because it does not produce fatalities like a shipwreck or a mid-air explosion. The information accident is, sadly, not very visible. It is immaterial like the waves that carry information."
I'm not fan of academic theoriticians of technology though, because they are complacent and thinks that there is a way to reform, there is none.
Or the human agency do something or there will be no humanity left, simple as.
This is stimulating. Design and Technology are often lumped together, but it is useful to tease them apart.
By the way, I also listened to that podcast and found TC's position on social media utterly baffling. The stuff about AI summarising your Tweets and Tiktoks as a way of reducing social pressures was incredibly wrongheaded.
There's some good reactions on his blog: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/04/my-contentious-conversation-with-jonathan-haidt.html#comments
Wessie, nicely done! I often tell my CS friends they are a commodity -- the vast majority of computer science is an effort to make money, usually by establishing some sort of monopoly, or (like so much technology) driven by security concerns. They don't like it. But the design process, while often bespoke, is about solving things. Certain moral blinders, as Oppenheimer admitted to. I tried to talk about ethics in the design context in the inaugural podcast of the Center for Cybersocial Dynamics at the University of Kansas. Spoiler: Gatling, of Gatling gun fame, was a pretty ethical guy.
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/center-for-cyber/center-for-cyber-social-ngvpPyBQ61O/
With regard to Cowan's weird faith that technology will be good, it's baked into the economist worldview. Invisible hand and all that. It's a sort of primitive, secularized, Christianity (without the fall, without sin). Mary Harrington has a nice piece on tech progress, especially in the US, as a sublimated Christian discourse.
https://reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/p/immanentising-the-eschaton?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Keep up the excellent work. "Designs" indeed!