Technology for Sustainability Between Euphoria and Suspicion

1
Technology for SustainabilityBetween Euphoria
and Suspicion

• Ralf Brand, Ph.D.

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Structure

• The Structure of the SD Discourse
• Technophilia
• Technophobia
• Crossing the Divide
• Reasons for the Continuance of the Split
• Truth Claims
• Institutions
• Money
• Demand
• What to do?

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Structure of the SD Discourse
Aim of the United Nations Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development (2005-2014) to bring
about behavioural changes

• Technophilia
• Tacit efficiency
• Prescription
• Win-Win-Win
• Technophobia
• Carrots and Sticks
• Truer pleasures
• Rational arguments

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Crossing the Divide I

• STS findings
• STS theory
• SD Hidden superiority claims
• Prescription
• Education
• Additive logic
• Missed potentials

The automobile as the result and shaper of social
practices. (Akrich)
Seamless web (Hughes)
The technical and the social always come in a
package. (?)
The arms race between spam authors and spam
filters. (Everyone)
Cardinal del Monte
Neither structure nor agency take primacy
(Giddens)
Paul Reitan
Increasing inkjet performance and social
expectations (Everyone)
Movens motumque (Brand)
Most legislative assemblies
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Crossing the Divide II

• Proactive, strategic, collaborative, synergistic,
  coordinated synchronisation of technical and
  social change
• Make use of enabling artefacts (Latour)
• Anticipate re-re-re-actions through dialogue
• Synchronic preadaption (Rohracher)
• Appoint users as co-designers

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Reasons for the Continuance of the Split

• Truth claims
• Institutions
• Money
• Demand

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Reasons for the Continuance of the Split

• Truth claims
• Technophilia Modernism
• Technophobia Anti-Modernism
• Modernists Teleological mission
• Modernists Universal certainty
• Anti-modernists Denial of absolute Truth
• Anti-modernists Fear of Faustian technologies
• ? Polemical allegations

The uniqueness of science grants natural
scientists and engineers a continued privileged
status in the quest for uncovering the scientific
aspects for sustainability (Bäckstrand)
Frantic, self-righteous calls by neurotic
dropouts to give up soap and hot water and live
in teepees are not likely to have wide appeal.
(Bisk)
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Reasons for the Continuance of the Split

• Institutions
• Natural sciences versus Social sciences
• Civil engineers versus Social workers
• RAEs Units of Assessment
• UK Research Councils
• Journal missions peer-review process
• Groomed solipsism

Arts Humanities Economic Social Res.
Engineering Physical Sc. Natural Environment
Res.
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Reasons for the Continuance of the Split

• Money
• Commodification of solutions
• Return for RD
• Rage for the new (Cohen)
• User Innovator trend (still 1st-order learning)
• Facilitation of dialogue costs money
• Long-term savings as sufficient argument?

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Reasons for the Continuance of the Split

• Demand
• Simple solutions are easier to sell
• Contrasts attract attention
• Synchronisation has a lower slogan-value
• More action Fewer words
• Compatible with call for participation?
• ? Educate participants Who decides what to
  teach?

Some environmentalists expect enlightened
dictators to bite the bullet of technological
reform if a greedy populace shirks its duty"
(Feenberg)
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What to do?

• Change
• truth claims
• institutions
• funding schemes
• demand
• Improve communicatability
• New techniques and tools

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What to do?

• The nature of the problem

problem
Seamless web (Hughes) Tennis court metaphor
(Latour) Technological drama (Pfaffenberger) Cy
borg (Haraway) Movens motumque
(Brand) Technizen" (Brand)

• The nature of the solution

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What to do?

• The nature of the solution

• The nature of the solution

A story of Asterix, not of Hercules
(Kemp) Ulysses approach to sustainability
(Brand) Co-evolution of the technical and the
social (Guy Shove) Alignment of the technical
and the social (Many) Software and hardware
analogy Socio-technical dialectic Stereolopment
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What to do?

• New techniques and tools
• Funding?

Constructive Technology Assessment (Rip, Misa
Schot) (Others) Strategic Niche Management
(Rip) (Others) ...........
15
Technology for SustainabilityBetween Euphoria
and Suspicion

• Ralf Brand, Ph.D.