Flawed thinking

[Brett Shand <brett@earthlight.co.nz>]

Here's one starting point.  Everytning shoud be read as being preface
with "in my opinion", I'm not trying to be didactic here :)

The issue of "flawed thinking" goes back a long long way, way before
the advent of computers or anything to do with them.

For example at some point as we crowded into towns, the diseases of
urban dwelling appeared - cholera, typhus etc - we as humans, did not
say to ourselves (bear with me, I'm making a point!) "This was a bad
choice, let's move out of the towns again".  We found solutions to the
difficulties. Prayers, talismans, herbs and finally soap, clean water,
sewerage disposal. To name but a few.  We managed our urban
environment using technological solutions in order that we can live in
our towns.

This displays a certain attitude to our world and the way we want to
live in it.  We have, of course, moved considerably along that path.
Evolved if you will, from soap to nuclear weapons.

There has always been an intertwining of science, philosophy and
theology (spirituality) and our attitudes to our world have changed
dramatically over the centuries depending on how we saw our
relationship with God (or the gods), what we saw as being subject and
what object and the relationship between the two (the ongoing debate
of western philosophy) and what we were capable of changing (how we
used science).

I think it doesn't help too much to see technology _per se_ as being
evil or bad, it seems more productive to just assume it's neutral.
But what we as humans have *done* with our technological prowess is
another thing altogether.

There is nothing wrong with soap and clean water, but we are dependent
on them.  Take away both and watch what would happen to any urban
environment. The "flawed thinking" seems to be not that we invented
soap and water reticulation, but that we adopted both uncritically.
We never at any point seemed to have stopped and seriously considered
"What will be effect on the community that I love of allowing most
members to have a T-Model Ford." Before we know it our social groups
are affected, or work place is affected and we are importing oil.

The Amish are I understand, unfairly characterised as being Luddites
or technophobes.  It seems more that they consider every technological
innovation (for them) very carefully from the point of view benefit or
harm to the Amish community, before allowing it into their world.

As our dependency on technology increases, there comes a point where
the technology itself is beginning to generate problems which
themselves need other technological solutions to fix.  At this point
we are really in a jam, because we have become the servant (at the
mercy of) of the technology and the machine has become the master.
Subject and object are reversed, if you like.

[A question: Is it unhelpful/inaccurate to equate in this context,
'machine' and 'technology', as I have just done?]

The problem is that the machine is most unforgiving (GIGO), and so our
human functioning is increasingly demanded to be perfect to match the
perfection of the masterful machine.  It is here that "efficiency"
(another technological solution, by the way) becomes demanded and our
humanity begins to erode.

Jaques Ellul's ["La Techinque ou l'enjeu du siecle" (English title -
"The Technological Society", 1954] contention was that this "sacred
ensemble of technique" as he called it, and at which we have come to
worship has made us servants of the machine, and that those very
things that make us human have been circumscribed in the name of
efficiency.  Ellul says that technique has triumphed "... to the
exclusion of moral judgement, true democracy, spiritual awareness,
gratuitous or ineffective ares of life, passion, and human
personality."  He also says that it is our duty not to oppose
technology (which he liked) but "to be aware".

Without this awareness our technology has "escaped", like tetraploid
rhododendrons from quiet English gardens into the hills of Wales! (Why
*did* they become tetraploid anyway?)

Y2K problems are largely a result of this lack of awareness.  How do
we develop it and give it teeth so that we can seriously consider the
effects? How do we develop the tools to be able to assess the effects?

Brett

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