Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.94.961003222823.26035C-100000@acy1.digex.net> Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 22:37:01 -0400 From: Tu and Bob Myers <mailto:tuandbob@ACY.DIGEX.NET> Subject: Re: ideas of "appropriate technology" still respected? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Mr. Berlind,You seem to be confusing technology, the ability to make functional use of theoretical knowledge, with the use of the technology. It's hard to prove a negative, but think of all the ways technology keeps you from getting sick.
Bob
On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, Gary Berlind wrote:
> 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."
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>