

Do Artifacts Have Politics? (1980) [pdf] - hownottowrite
http://innovate.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Winner-Do-Artifacts-Have-Politics-1980.pdf

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AngrySkillzz
Yes. In the same way that Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman have described our
media as being or shaping the contents of the messages we send, our
technologies and processes shape the way we live, act, and view the world
around us.

Take military drones, for instance. People are not concerned about drones
because they can be used to kill each other; we have been killing each other
for millennia. What makes drones concerning is the relative ease and safety
with which they allow us to kill each other. We no longer have to risk the
lives of our sons and daughters to wage war in far-off lands; we can do the
same from the comfort and safety of a bunker.

What does this mean? We are risking less when we wage war. Waging war is
easier. This makes us much more likely to be warlike. What we previously may
not have seen as a worthy cause for risking the lives of our troops may yet be
seen as a worthy cause for risking our money, in the form of UAVs, robotics,
ammunition, etc. On the side of the attacker, war becomes more about spending
money than risking lives. That is a big difference.

Moreover, these changes have consequences for the people war is waged against
as well as innocent bystanders. An occupying soldier is less likely to target
and execute a civilian than a soldier piloting a drone from far away.
Innocents are much easier to mistake for insurgents on a computer screen.

The psychic distance between two people is far larger when they are separated
by digital rather than physical space, meaning less empathy is involved. A
reduction in empathy makes it easier to risk the lives of the people you
intend to ignore or protect. This is the same reason people are so mean to
each other on the Internet.

~~~
vanderZwan
Another slightly more recent philosopher who has taken up this discussion is
Peter-Paul Verbeek, with his book "What Things Do." Only "slightly more
recent" because it's already from back in 2005:

[http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02539-5.html](http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02539-5.html)

> _The psychic distance between two people is far larger when they are
> separated by digital rather than physical space, meaning less empathy is
> involved. A reduction in empathy makes it easier to risk the lives of the
> people you intend to ignore or protect. This is the same reason people are
> so mean to each other on the Internet._

I agree, but also think it's kind of a double-edged sword in a way, because
the internet also brings distant people more together. This is nothing new of
course, movies and TV were closing distant gaps long before it: ignoring the
valid criticisms of Live Aid for a second, people got motivated to do
something because they empathised with distant people thanks to this _tele_
-vision.

Similarly the internet has been a boon for niche interest communities that
would have either never gotten off the ground, or in the case of older
traditions died out if the enthusiasts wouldn't have been able to find distant
people with similar interests online. The older mass-medias homogenized
society because they were top-down, but I firmly believe the internet is our
best technological bet for bringing back cultural diversity, paradoxically by
connecting everyone globally.

~~~
huac
A major movement in recent years has been towards an object oriented ontology:
[http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/p/ooo-for-
beginners...](http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/p/ooo-for-
beginners.html)

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jlev
This essay by Langdon Winner is pretty much required reading for technologists
who are interested in real-world uses of our tools and their impact in
society. The idea that technology is apolitical is a common misconception, or
self-delusion, of too many engineers. Our ideas are influenced by the systems
we grew up in, learned our trade in, and benefit from.

For a current example, contrast the products created to solve the problems of
25 year olds with too much money ([https://medium.com/matter/the-shut-in-
economy-ec3ec1294816](https://medium.com/matter/the-shut-in-economy-
ec3ec1294816)), and those for people who have experienced the horrible scale
of mass incarceration ([http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/pigeon-
ly/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/pigeon-ly/)). Both tap potentially huge
markets, but posit very different worlds.

Getting outside of your own experiential bubble can make you a stronger
product designer and user advocate, and potentially a more successful startup
founder.

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mriehl
Take with a grain of salt. Especially the accusations that Moses is a racist
and that his parkways have politics are not only gratuitous but also false.
This makes for a clumsy claim ("Yes, artifacts have politics!").

Robert Moses implemented parkways according to the "spec", and did not spend
actual effort trying to prevent poor people from going there. His wife was
also in charity, IIRC. If you read this then I refer you to "Do Politics have
Artifacts"[1] which, as the name suggests, is a brilliant counterpiece.

TLDR: Don't believe what you read, and don't write down what you believe
without any factual corroboration.

My claim is based on research done by Professor Lutz Prechelt for a course I
can only recommend (slides[2]). It's in german, sadly.

[1]
[http://www.wzb.eu/2000/met/pdf/do_politics.pdf](http://www.wzb.eu/2000/met/pdf/do_politics.pdf)

[2] [http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/inst/ag-
se/teaching/V-AWS-2011/1...](http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/inst/ag-
se/teaching/V-AWS-2011/14_Techniksoziologie.pdf)

~~~
brudgers
The cliché comparison for Robert Moses is the urban planner Edward Logue.
[http://www.edlogue.org/index.html](http://www.edlogue.org/index.html)

My mentor, the late David Crane, FAIA worked for Logue at the BRA. Crane's
opinion of Moses reflected the standard criticisms. His actions over the
course of the time I knew him and the portions of his career about which I am
aware reflected values running opposite to those of attributed to Mr. Moses.
The peers who he associated himself with and the projects he undertook later
in his career did not reflect the values Mr. Moses is accused of having.

None of which is to deny that politics has artefacts. Crane's work on Sadat
city was halted by Sadat's assassination and Mubarek's subsequent rise to
power in Egypt. Logue's work for the BRA likewise reflected political will and
has its own high and low spots.

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quinndupont
A classic in the field. And of course, the reverse, "Do Politics have
Artefacts"
[http://sss.sagepub.com/content/29/3/411.abstract](http://sss.sagepub.com/content/29/3/411.abstract)

