Message-ID: <199610032228.AA08877@mail.crl.com> Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 15:27:14 -0800 From: Gary Berlind <mailto:gberlind@CRL.COM> Subject: Re: ideas of "appropriate technology" still respected? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Tu and Bob Myers wrote (Bob only)>On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, William J. Walker, Jr. wrote:
>
>> Technology is only the knowledge and resources to make or do
> ÿ>something.
>
>> Let's stop blaming the technology for what people do with it.
>
>Amen! Thank you Mr. Walker.
>
>Technology is no more bad/inappropriate or good/appropriate than
>automobiles, baseball bats, alcohol or guns.
>
>Automobiles and alcohol are involved in killing and maiming more people
>than baseball bats and guns. Does that mean that automobiles and alcohol
>are less appropriate than baseball bats and guns?
>
>Isn't it curious that there one "good" and one "bad" thing in the
>"inappropriate" and "appropriate" categories?
>
>Bob (only)
>(Don't blame my co account holder for this post.)
***Hasn't anybody read Jerry Mander's "In the Absence of the Sacred"??? Some technologies are very very very very very bad......not so much in that they are all bad, but in terms that the cost of using them far far far far exceeds the good. It's a benefits/disadvantages kind of tradeoff.
For example: Sure, computers are great for doing a lot of things. Word processors make it much easier to compose text, the internet allows me to communicate globablly, etc. But look at some of the disadvantages of computers: their manufacture pollutes the envirnment three times as much as any other kinds of manufacturing process, they allow companies to grow to much greater extent than would otherwise be possible, hence creating global international entities that are beyond the control of any individual governments, that rape and pillage the whole damn globe, ruining the quality of life for most people while at the same time shamelessly promoting themselves as Saviours of Humanity, etc., etc., etc.
And the list goes on and on and on...
The same is true of cars. They help me get around better, but they also pollute the air, require enormous megatechnological infrastructures to support them, increase the cost of living, kill zillions of people on the highways, result in burning up of natural resources at insane rates, lead to wars for scarce petroleum resources, etc. etc. etc.
Bottom line for me is, if I had a choice, I'd have opted not to have had any of these wonderful conveniences of modern technology. They price we pay as a society is too damn high!!!!
Can't we at least agree somewhere along the line on that????
---------------------------------------------------------------- Gary Berlind (Berkeley, CA) mailto:gberlind@crl.com Q: "Why was the Creator able to build the Universe in only six days?" A: "Because he didn't have an installed base." ----------------------------------------------------------------