Destruction of nature

Growth of technology

Image source: http://pundita.blogspot.com/2017/02/nature-vs-technology.html

CHRISTOPHER POTTER, How To Make A Human Being
Morton Winston, Children of Invention Revisited
“Coupled with our needs and desires, which provide
the motives that propel us to discover and invent,
our scientific and technological creativity has guided
the development of civilization through the
development of theories, tools, inventions, and
technologies that have transformed the ways that
we live and work.”

Morton Winston, Children of Invention Revisited

 ► The rational process of creating means to order and
transform matter, energy, and information to realize certain
valued ends.

► The set of means (tools, devices, systems, methods,

procedures) created by the technological process.

► The knowledge that makes the technological process

possible. It consists of the facts and procedures necessary to
order and manipulate matter, energy, and information, as well as
Technology can be defined five ways how to discover new means for such transformations.

► A subset of related technological objects and knowledge.

► The system consisting of the technological process,

technological objects, technological knowledge, developers of
technological objects, users of technological objects, and the
worldview that has emerged from and drives the technological
process. This is referred to as the technological system.

Source: oregonstate.edu
skills, techniques, human activity-forms, or sociotechnical practices;

resources, tools, and materials;

technological products, or artifacts;

ends, intentions, or functions;

background knowledge;

the social contexts in which the technology is designed, developed, used, and disposed of.
To summarize
…
technological systems as the complex of
techniques, knowledge, and resources that
are employed by human beings in the
creation of material and social artifacts that
typically serve certain functions perceived
as useful or desirable in relation to human
interests in various social contexts.
 Allowed settled, communities (civilization)

►ADVANTAGES ►DISADVANTAGES

• More food, so greater • More work to maintain

population density higher, more complex
• Greater population density standard of living
allowed for coordinated
efforts and specialized skills
• No need for portability

Emergence of morality, law, religion, records,

Image Source: (Top) https://wchristina2512.medium.com/gmo-brings-forth-
mathematics, astronomy, class structures, patriarchy an-agricultural-revolution-950eb25cfa74
(Bottom) https://stravaganzastravaganza.blogspot.com/2017/06/agricultural-
revolution.html
► Steam engine, then ► More specialized ► Less expensive ► Infrastructure for
gasoline-driven division of labor and of goods, so increased transportation
combustion engine knowledge — each standard of living
worker needed fewer
skills

Image Source: https://www.britannica.com/event/Industrial-Revolution

 English workers in 1811-1816, protested the
changes of the Industrial Revolution that they felt
threatened their jobs.

The word ‘Luddites’ refers to British weavers and

textile workers who objected to the introduction of
mechanized looms and knitting frames. As highly
trained artisans, the new machinery posed a
threat to their livelihood and after receiving no
support from government, they took matters into
their own hands.

Image source: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-Luddites/ Source: www.historic-uk.com


Man who destroyed two large stocking-
frames that produced inexpensive
stockings undercutting those produced
by skilled knitters. Because he was
feeble-minded, he was not prosecuted.
Also known as "King Ludd” and
“General Ludd” referred to by luddites
He was said to be a young apprentice who
took matters into his own hands and
destroyed textile apparatus in 1779.
Source: www.historic-uk.com
A poster of 1811:
WHEREAS,
several EVIL-MINDED PERSONS have assembled together
in riotous Manner, and DESTROYED a NUMBER of
FRAMES,
In different Parts of the Country:
THIS IS
TO GIVE NOTICE,
That any Person who will give Information of any Person or
Persons thus wickedly
BREAKING THE FRAMES,
Shall, upon CONVICTION, receive
50 GUINEAS
REWARD.
And any Person who was actively engaged in RIOTING, who
will impeach his Accomplices, shall, upon CONVICTION,
receive the same Reward, and every Effort made to procure
his Pardon.
Information to be given to Messrs. COLDHAM and ENFIELD.
The man that the world would eventually know
as Theodore Kaczynski came to our attention in
1978 with the explosion of his first, primitive
homemade bomb at a Chicago university.

Over the next 17 years, he mailed or hand delivered a series of

increasingly sophisticated bombs that killed three Americans
and injured nearly two dozen more. Along the way, he sowed
fear and panic, even threatening to blow up airliners in flight.

Source: https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/unabomber
Image Source: (Top) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-
and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/
(Bottom) https://www.ajc.com/news/national/serial-bomber-ted-kaczynski-kept-
investigators-bay-for-years-before-capture/E2yKEkJx8xbCBOhbdudLHN/
 to The New York
Times and The Washington Post by
the person who calls himself “FC,”
identified by the FBI as the
Unabomber, whom authorities have
implicated in three murders and 16
bombings. The author threatened to
send a bomb to an unspecified
destination “with intent to kill” unless
one of the newspapers published this
manuscript. The Attorney General
and the Director of the FBI
recommended publication.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

Image Source: (https://www.ajc.com/resizer/ZhK5cj0P1J35pk-cZf-yuxs-OKk=/800x0/cloudfront-us-east-

1.images.arcpublishing.com/ajc/BG7XV6X5QQPDF66A7IUVOGB754.jpg
 HIGHLIGHTS FROM

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human
race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in
“advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling,
have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological
suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe
damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen
the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict
greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption
and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in
“advanced” countries.

Read the full text here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

 HIGHLIGHTS FROM

The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives,

it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but
only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at
the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to
engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the
system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming
or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and
autonomy.

Read the full text here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

 HIGHLIGHTS FROM

If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger
the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is
to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

Read the full text here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

 HIGHLIGHTS FROM

We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution

may or may not make use of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a relatively
gradual process spanning a few decades. We can’t predict any of that. But we do
outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial
system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of
society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not
governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society.

Read the full text here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

 THREE POSSIBILITIES

“The human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of
such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical
choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. As society and
the problems that face it become more and more complex and
machines become more and more intelligent, people will let
machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because
machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made
ones. Eventually, a stage may be reached at which the decisions
necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human
beings will be incapable of making them intelligently.”
 THREE POSSIBILITIES

A tiny elite will eliminate the rest of humanity.

A tiny elite will engineer a purposeless and therefore

harmless humanity, like domesticated animals.
►New jobs are on a higher ► Need a viable alternative
level and increasingly to the nightmare envisioned
involved with education by luddites such as
Kaczynski

► Can’t drop technology: ► Education will reach a

“there is too little nature human limit, but human
left to return to” competence will be
extended by merging with
the technology

Read the article here: http://www.csun.edu/~vcspc00g/454/joyfuture.html#1

Machines have made jobs
obsolete for centuries. The
spinning jenny replaced weavers,
buttons displaced elevator
operators, and the Internet drove
travel agencies out of business.
One study estimates that about
400,000 jobs were lost to
automation in U.S. factories from
1990 to 2007. But the drive to
replace humans with machinery
is accelerating as companies
struggle to avoid workplace
infections of COVID-19 and to
keep operating costs low.
WRITTEN BY ALANA SEMUELS
AUGUST 6, 2020
Analysis of the poll results shows a mixed
response, with 41% of the respondents
believing that technology could perform
more than 60% of their job. While 24%
opined that technology could perform
81%-100% of their job, 17% believe that
it could perform 61% to 80% of their job.

A lesser 15% opined that 41%-60% of

their job could be done by technology.
Technology could do up to 40% of their
job according to 43% of the respondents,
including 29% who believe that up to 20%
of their job could be done and 14% who
opined that 21%-40% of their job could be
done by technology.
https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/poll-on-technology-
replacing-human-jobs-invokes-mixed-response/
Augmented intelligence, as the third type
of AI, is the step forward to the future of
intelligent work. The future of work is a
concept used to indicate the growth of
employees and their performance in more
efficient ways…

An essential element of a truly intelligent type

of future of work, however, means that we do
expand the workforce where both humans
and machine will be part of, but with the aim
to improve humanity and well-being while also
being more efficient in the execution of our
jobs. So, augmented intelligence is indeed
collaborative in nature, but it’s also clear that it
represents a collaborative effort in service of
humans.
https://hbr.org/2021/03/ai-should-augment-human-intelligence-not-
replace-it
► Better record ► Flexible ► Better scheduling ► Increased need
keeping and programmable tools and inventory control for specialized
communication allow more provides basis for education
customized short geographically
production runs, so distributed production
supply can more systems
accurately follow (globalization)
demand
► Different forms of value and relations
to intrinsic (essential) value reveal how
complicated it is to assess the value of
technology (e.g. stem cell technology)

► These distinctions may nevertheless

help clarify the conflicts among the
various costs and benefits of
technology.
sci·​en·​tism | \ ˈsī-ən-ˌti-zəm \

https://www.merriam-webster.com/
►Science is an activity that
seeks to explore the natural
world using well-established,
clearly-delineated methods.
Empirical, Quantifiable, Falsifiable
Once meant “systematized knowledge.”
Narrowed meaning to just “sciences” in
the 19th century. Usually divided into
natural and social sciences
► The effort to use the
method of science to explain
and control every part of
human life.
A philosophical position which proposes
that legitimate knowledge about reality
can be attained solely through the
scientific method.
They claimed that not only could
science enhance the quality of human
life, but it could also even promote
moral improvement.

Many of the French philosophers even

claimed that science could be a
substitute for religion.
 Positivism (also) argues that sociology should concern itself only
with what can be observed with the senses and that theories of social
life should be built in a rigid, linear, and methodical way on a base of
verifiable fact.*

THE LAW OF THREE STAGES

The philosophy of science according to

which theoretical concepts are admissible if
they are tied to the observable world
through operational definition.

*From: https://www.thoughtco.com/positivism-sociology-3026456
 FAMOUS WRITERS AND THE DARK SIDE OF S&T PROGRESS

Clive Staples Lewis Eric Arthur Blair a.k.a

Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1898–1963) George Orwell
(1874-1936)
(1903-1950)
: Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you? : Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain
: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. : Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain
 Can give you a In modern world, people
sense of meaning. will believe almost
anything if it’s dressed
up in the name of
science
Most dangerous aspect
of science's similarity to
magic. At end of day,
magic doesn’t work
whereas modern science
can control and
manipulate people.

“The new oligarchy must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists until in
the end the politicians become merely the scientists’ puppets.” – CS Lewis
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▼ ►The ironic thing is that scientism is not a scientific
claim. It is a philosophical claim—epistemological to be
precise.

►"Rational Inquiry" is the study of how people do that: how

they come to have reliable knowledge about the world they
live in.

►It proposed a vastly narrower range of which human

activities were considered worthwhile.
CARL SAGAN BERTRAND RUSSELL
The cosmos is all that is or ever was or Whatever knowledge is attainable, must
ever will be. be attained by scientific methods; and
what science cannot discover, mankind
cannot know.

STEPHEN HAWKING E.O. WILSON

What is the nature of reality? Where did all this We can be proud as a species
come from? Did the universe need a creator? ... because, having discovered that we are
Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, alone, we owe the gods very little.
but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept
up with modern developments in science,
particularly physics. Scientists have become the
bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for
knowledge.
GEC 17: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY