CS 306 Aug. 25th

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CS 306Aug. 25th 28th

• FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
• ABOUT TECNOLOGICAL CHANGE

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• The human dilemma is as it has always been, and
  it is a delusion to believe that the
  technological changes of our era have rendered
  irrelevant the wisdom of the ages and the sages.

all technological change is a trade-off A
Faustain bargain
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• First Idea Faustain bargain

• Giveth and taketh away
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Examples
• Automobile
• Air Craft/plane
• Medical Technology
• Banks
• Cell phone
• Idea number one, then is that culture always pays
  a price for technology.

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• Second Idea Winners/losers in technological
  changes

• Second Idea is about the distribution
• Advantages and disadvantages of new
  technologies are never distributed evenly among
  population.
• There are always winners and losers in
  technological change.
• Favors some people and harms others

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Second Idea Winners/losers in technological
changes

• Who specifically benefits from the development
  of a new technology?
• Which group,
• what type of person,
• what kind of industry will be favored?

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Second Idea Winners/losers in technological
changes

• And, of course, which groups of people will
  thereby be harmed?
• Winners
• Big businesses and Big Company
• Multi-national corporations
• Name it large-scale organizations like
  military, Govt (tax collection), bank, Medical
  science (researchers) etc.

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Second Idea Winners/losers in technological
changes
And Steel workers, Vegetable store
owner, Automobile mechanic Bakers, bricklayers,
dentists?? lives the computer now
instrudes?
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Second Idea Winners/losers in technological
changes
Intrusion Junk mail from advertising
company Name it MS always encourages (losers
p.4) to be enthusiastic and use or upgrade
their new products What interests you
represent? To whom are you hoping to give power?
From whom will you be witholding power?
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• Third Idea The medium is the message.

• Embedded in every technology there is a powerful
  idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas.
• Hidden
• Abstract nature
• The medium is the message.

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Third Idea The medium is the message.
The consequences of technological change are
always vast, often unpredictable and largely
irreversible.
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• Fourth Idea Technological change is not
  additive it is ecological.

• Capitalism
• Risk takers
• Invention
• Innovation
• Now, is it up Bill Gate?
• Capitalists are, in a word, radicals.

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• Fifth Idea myth
• Refers to a common tendency to think of our
  technology creations as if they were God-given,
  as if they were a part of natural order of things
  
• Roland Barthes

• The best way to view technology is as a strange
  intruder.
• Science can purify religion from error and
  superstition. Religion can purify science from
  idolatry and false absolutes. Pope John Paul
  II
• Capitalism
• Risk takers
• Invention
• Innovation
• Now, is it up Bill Gate?
• Capitalists are, in a word, radicals.