

What Technology Values - younata
http://al3x.net/2011/02/21/technology-and-values.html

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prodigal_erik
Flagged for being vacuous. The author is misusing a word as an excuse to claim
everyone is making false assertions about referents they didn't even have in
mind. Technology is the study of tools and techniques, not anything else
("dehumanization"? seriously?) on his laundry list.

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younata
You bring up a good point. However, because of its use as a political buzz-
word, 'technology' has connotations that go far beyond it's original meaning.

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rbarooah
Nicely written, and an important point. Technologies are developed by people
to make something easier or to make something harder (or some combination of
the two). This is never going to be value neutral.

Developing weapons technology is making killing easier. Developing
communications technologies is making communications easier. Developing
systems that collect personal data is making surveillance easier. All
technology choices are value choices.

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derleth
> Developing weapons technology is making killing easier.

Not universally a bad thing, as it helps in self-defense.

> Developing communications technologies is making communications easier.

Not universally a good thing, as it aids in the commission of crimes and, as
we've seen, makes it increasingly easy to commit crimes that are both very
hard to prosecute and, due to that, very good excuses for taking down walls
that on the whole protect liberty.

> Developing systems that collect personal data is making surveillance easier.

Not universally a bad thing, if it helps stop serious crimes.

I admit to guessing at which statements you expected me to go "Yay!" or "Boo!"
at. My point isn't so much that the fault is not in our microchips but in
ourselves, but that it's surprisingly difficult to imagine a technology, or
even a use for a technology, that really has no potential to be genuinely
positive.

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rbarooah
I didn't actually expect people to go 'yay' or 'boo' at any statement in
particular. The point is that there are value judgements associated with each
one - trade offs. They are not neutral.

I have to disagree with you about the fault being not in our technology. I'd
say the faults are in both. The technology is an embodiment of our flawed
judgement, but is real nonetheless. We make choices about what technology to
create, but once we have created it we have to live in the new environment we
have made. Technology reifies our ideas. That environment affects us. Some
environments bring out more positive traits in us, and some bring out more
negative ones. We do have the capacity to design for the positive.

I agree that we can imagine a potentially positive use for almost anything.
But we can equally well imagine a world with unicorns and fairies. What
matters is the effects technologies actually have in the real world.

Our technology can never be separated from ourselves.

