Questioning Technology
Peter
Fitzgerald-Moore
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT SPECIFIC TECHNOLOGIES
(Version 6)
(Many of the items in the following list have been
derived from works by Corlann Gee Bush, G.M.Fourez, Jerry
Mander, Marshall & Eric McLuhan, Langdon Winner and John
Zerzan &Alice Carnes)
THE DEVELOPMENTAL CONTEXT
- What tasks are performed and or specific problems
solved by this technology?
- What has been the developmental trajectory of the
technology?
- What existing technology(ies) did it replace or push
aside?*
- What are the principles of science and mechanics
applied by the tool or technique?
- What specific resources, tools, processes, and
systems were employed to develop it or are involved in
its production?
- What recurrence or retrieval of earlier actions or
services is brought into play simultaneously by the new
form?*
- How is this technology functionally integrated with
other parts of the technological system?
- Does this technology represent a qualitative change
in the general development of technics?
- Is it incremental, radical, or systemic in its
influence?
- At what stage, if at all, did, or may, this
technology get "locked in"?
- What other bifurcations/decision points are expected
on the trajectory of this technology?
THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT
- What benefits are sought or claimed for this
technology?
- Which social groups, sex or individuals benefit (in
terms of welfare or status) from this technology and its
consequences ?
- Which social groups, sex or individuals lose or
suffer disbenefits as a consequence of this
technology?
- What are or may be the indirect consequences in the
wider society?
- Does it serve democracy or not?
- Specifically, does the new technology tend to
concentrate or equalize power and wealth in our
system?
- What institutional or cultural social structures may
have their stability threatened by this technology?
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXT
- How does this technology affect the human conceptual
framework (what we think, how we think, what we know and
what we can know)?
- How does it affect the way we view ourselves our
relationship to each other to the planet to other living
creatures?
- Does this new technology further reinforce
technological domination over the individual?
THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT
- What will be the ecological effect (impact on human
and planetary health) of accepting this technology versus
the consequences of continuing current techniques?
- This question should address the conditions of
manufacture as well as the conditions of use.
- What are the risks and what are the exposures to
harmful effects?
CONCLUSIONS
- What kind of a world are we making?
- What is the potential for the new form, when pushed
to its limits, to reverse what had been its original
characteristics ?*
- To what extent are the consequences of this
technology dependent on the bias of the culture in which
it is embedded and to what extent on the intrinsic bias
of the technology?
- All things considered, is it better or worse for the
new technology to be introduced?
- If we were able to control it, what scale of
operations would we consider to be optimal?
REFLEXIVITY
In what way may your own interests, bias or lack of
information have influenced your conclusions?
Peter Fitzgerald-Moore
Faculty of General Studies
(Science Technology And Society)
U. Calgary T2N 1N4 Canada
pfitzger@acs.ucalgary.ca (403)244 2841/220
7775
Email sent to: sci-tech-studies@UCSD.EDU, Date: Wed, 11
Jan 95 10:33:02 MST
Responses from the Discussion
List
From: Eric Tachibana
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 14:45:31 -0500 (EST)
Other important question might be:
- How does the technology change existing social
institutions? ...more than just "threaten".
- Which avenues does the technology open up for the
future and which does it deny.
From: Mary Lee
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 95 13:48:00 -0600
Gentle STSers:
In response to Peter Fitzgerald-Moore's posted "questions
to ask about technology, I suggest that much about the
developmental, socio-cultural, psycological, and
environmental affects and effects of a particular technology
can be learned by asking variants of the questions:
- What specific resources does/will this technology
depend upon to continue being utilized/produced and who
produces/utilizes those "downstream" resources?
- For what/whom will be/is this technology a
"downstream" resource?
(Give "resource" an abstract definition: Anything
tangible or intangible that sustains interaction between two
or more entities, e.g., knowledge claims, trees, money,
electricity).
Regards, M.Lee
If you trace such resource dependency "chains", much can
be learned about the
technological/social/economic/political/environmental
origins and effects of a specific technology.
THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT
- Which social groups, sex or individuals benefit (in
terms of welfare or status) from this technology and its
consequences ?
- Which social groups, sex or individuals lose or
suffer disbenefits as a consequence of this
technology?
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXT
- How does this technology affect the human conceptual
framework (what we think, how we think, what we know and
what we can know)?
THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT
- To what extent are the consequences of this
technology dependent on the bias of the culture in which
it is embedded and to what extent on the intrinsic bias
of the technology?
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