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Classical views
- technology is neutral, it's the usage that makes it "good" or bad"
- a technological object embed a usage that is "good" or "bad" thus making technology non-neutral
Thesis
Technology is not neutral but yet it doesn't decide the final usage that will be made out of it because of subversion/détournement. A tool is not limited by the initial intent of the original designer and very often radical innovation are realized precisely by mashing up usages and existing technology.
Examples
- control technologies used by the opposite side (password cracking)
Schema
Classical path of a technology
(:pmgraphviz --
digraph {
"need" -> "existing technologies" [label="search"];
"existing technologies" -> "need" [label="nothing appropriate"];
"need" -> "new technology" [label="design with intended usage"];
"new technology" -> "existing technologies" [label="integrating\nunpredictable mashups"];
"new technology" -> "intended usage" [label="early usage\nin classical circles",color=green];
"new technology" -> "unintended usage" [label="later usage\nin alternative circles",color=red,style=dashed];
}
:)
Key concepts
- The purpose of a system is what it does (POSIWID)
- alienation
- autonomy/independence
- assembly line
- subversion/détournement
- initially art but also in the Do It Yourself movement
- see also legislative counters
- DMCA against reverse engineering
- Intellectual Property and the patent system
- Public relation and protection of the image of a corporation (lawsuit on image ground of a branch)
- control
- means of production
- Proactionary Principle vs Precautionary Principle
- Productivism the belief that measurable economic productivity and growth is the purpose of human organization (e.g., work), and that "more production is necessarily good".
Why this new technology will never give you a free lunch
"Quand cette technologie sera développée, on peut imaginer de nombreuses applications au quotidien, le rêve des fainéants... " (cf the inspirational article from Lactu à la loupe)
according to the history of economy and technology the opposite sounds true. The Wikipedia:Red Queen
principle even stipulate that for every compatitive advantage gained by a large enough population, the race starts to gain a new one.
Also it became a classical argument "technology X va rendre tlm heureux et riche" for every single technology advertised as revolutioanry while in fact a smart entrepreneur monitoring those trends while secure (thanks to barriers to entry, IP, ...) this technology in order to capture value
- en informatique genre... Bill Gates a la base les logiciels s'echangeait gratuitement, il n'y avait pas de droits de copie, mais il a instaure ca (enfin ca commencait quand meme a etre la tendance de toutes facons) et jackpot...
- en agronomie tu as eu la promesse OGM et la "revolution verte" mais pareil, Monsanto et quelques autres ont tout capture
- etc...
et en soit ca n'a rien de "mechant", c'est completement logique dans un systeme capitaliste.
Ceux qui auront pris le temps de se donner les compétences et les moyens d'en profiter qui pourront vraiment exploiter ce genre de chose (comme les hackers)
je pense que dans quelques décennies, les mecs qui auront des corps pleinement "augmentés" et qui en feront bon usage auront lutté dès maintenant, et même avant
en faisant des roadmap, en lisant, en pensant, en planifiant des stratégies
entrepreneuriales
en tissant des réseaux concrets type HackerSpaces
il faut se preparer, on ne subit une revolution technologique, politique et economique que si on ne s'est pas prepare
ca n'a rien d'elitiste de dire ca, c'est un simple constat
Inspired by
Discussion on irc://irc.freenode.net/hplusfrance with Kusanageek (02/04/2010) based on L’homme augmenté : quand la science-fiction devient réalité, Lactu à la loupe
See also
Resources
- Stop Working for Technology - Make It Work For You Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Corner Office, BNET July 2009
- Philosophie : travail by Raphaël Enthoven and Michela Marzano, Arte 2009
- Projects: The Church of Nano Bio Info Cogno by Praba Pilar 2006-2009
- Ars Industrialis' manifesto
- debate on La tyrannie technologique with Guillaume Carnino
- Rage against the machines article on Luddisme and Neo-luddism
- Anthropologie des techniques with a dedicated section on André Leroi-Gourhan
- Angry Luddites Attack Google Street-View Car in the news during early 2009
- "Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate" : A Cultural History of the Punch Card by Steven Lubar, Journal of American Culture
- Why technology sucks (video) by Walter van Host, 25C3 2008
- Technocalyps documentary, 2006
- Unibomber's declaration
- High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power, and Modernity, edited by Hartmut Rosa and William E. Scheuerman, PSU Press, 2008
- Technology and the Problem of Alienation, Wim Bollen, The Ground for the Interdisciplinary Research: Technology, Ethics and Politics 4S-EASST Conference - 26-27-28 August 2004
- Alain Berthoz inviting Atsuo Takanishi for Relations entre la robotique des humanoïdes et la culture et la société au Japon, 2007-2008 colloque au College de France
- based on this specific view from beliefs in Shinto or Ko-Shinto technology itself is part of nature thus there is no competition from tools (even in robotic forms)
- see also the Uncanny valley phenomenon
- Primitivism
- AntiCiv.Net News
- Green Anarchy, the bi-annual publication of radical (as in diggin' at the roots) anti-civilization theory, critique, and action.
- The Green Anarchist Infoshop a website created for those interested in dismantling the matrix of civilization we are trapped in and reawakening the wild within before it's too late.
- Technology Freedom in Open Science Blog, May 2008
- Manufactured Landscapes by Edward Burtynsky, 2006
- Work by David F. Noble critical historian of technology, science and education. He is best known for his seminal work on the social history of automation.
- De-growth
- Sousveillance as the counter-point of surveillance yet, very often based on the same technologies.
- Hacking and power: Social and technological determinism in the digital age by Tim Jordan, First Monday, Volume 14 Number 7 (3 July 2009)
- Réseau québécois pour la simplicité volontaire (RQSV)
- Masterclass des grands penseurs de la technique : Gilbert Simondo EPI - Université Paris 1
- Liberty by Design by Alan Davidson, MIT World November 2009
- Hermitary resources and reflections on hermits and solitude
- A Hacker’s Utopia : What's There and What's Missing by Sandro Gaycken, 26th Chaos Communication Congress : Here be dragons (26C3)
- extracts from Le bluff technologique by Jacques Ellul, Hachette 1988
- Leveraging Technology to Better Society World Economic Forum 2010
- Philosophie - Technique Caterina Zanfi, Arte April 2010
- mention of Bergson, Gilbert Simondon
- Appropedia collaborative approaches to sustainability, poverty reduction and international development.
To do
- find the table published in Journal de la Decroissance (or maybe IEESDS) that classified according to different criteria (mainly revolving around autonomy)
- put in perspective with my notes on The Mechanical Mind In History
- Technology A World History, Oxford University Press, April 2009
- one can also wonder what are the consequence that each seller of any artifact arguing for the usage of his work as "simplification of life" is actually serving firstly his own interest, and only secondly the interest of the buyer.
- Call for Papers: "Anarchism and Technology", AnarchistNews.org May 2011
