ENGR 482 Lecture 14

« previous | Monday, October 14, 2013 | next »

Benefits of Technology

• Convenience
• Comfort
• Cost
• Efficiency
• Novelty
• Speed
• Availability
• Longer/Better Life
• Simplicity
• Connectivity

Critiques

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1751)

Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

Sciences, letters, and arts . . . spread garlands of flowers over iron chains with which men are burdened, stifle in them hte sense of that original liberty for which they seem to have been born, make them love their slavery, and turn them into what is called civilized peoples.

Romano Guardini's Letters from Lake Como (1923)

The cost of the mastery is vitality.

Heidegger's The question Concerning Technology (1954)

→ Why doesn't he just tell me what I need to know? → "enframing"

Primitive and Modern Technology

Primitive Technologies:

• Rocks
• Bow and Arrow
• Wheel
• Abacus

Modern Technologies:

• Computers
• Phones

Differences:

• Complexity
• Precision
• Time and Expertise Required
• Responisibility and Risk?

Borgmann's Answer

"Modern Technology Enlarges power, depth, temporal extent, and spacial extent"

"Heuristics of Fear

• Commodification:
  • drawing something from outside the market into it
  • Breaking social, temporal, and spatial bonds
  • A thing (may have di) compared to a device (supposed to do the same thing everywhere)
  • (WTF)²? (Where's the Food without the farmer)