Download - Technologies of control & desire
Technologies of control & desireMathias Klang @klangable
Can you make an ethical choice?
Which choices don’t need to be ethical?
Ethical zones
Ethical choicesEffects on
others
Effects onother
sentientbeings
Effects on non-feelingbeings, ecosystems &culture etc
The non-choice choice: ethics without thought? Why did you drink coffee this morning?
The unreasoned choice
Which reasoning makes a choice ethical?
Ethics:a very very
short version
ethnocentrism
Cultural relativism
Culture
Human Nature
Good Evil
Choice?
Nurture Nature
absolutism
Ethical relativism
Social construct
Social Contract
Rousseau Hobbes
Utilitarianism
Bentham - Happiness
Teleological ethics
Mill - Good
Rule ethics
Kant
Duties – not impulses
Categorical imperative
Rawls
Rule creation
Veil of ignorance
Habermas
Discourse ethics
Virtue ethics
Aristotle’s Golden mean
Where technology?
Technology: techne (art) & logos (discourse)
• T as object– Tools, instruments, machines…
• T as knowledge– How to make and use the objects
• T as activity– Methods, routines & skills
• T as sociotechnical system– Design, development & control
In America I had arranged with a gramophonefirm to make some of my music. This suggested the idea that I should compose something whose length should be determined by the capacity of the record.
Igor Stravinsky (1925)
Technological determinism
determinism Nothing to be done.
Technological determinism: society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values
Hard vs soft deterministsWe role the dice
L. Winner: do artifacts have politics?
Who creates what controls us?
Techno-Love
Euphoric optimism
Techno-Fear
Plato – The Phaedrus (ca 370 bc)
…you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
“The word written on parchment will last a thousand years. The printed word is on paper. How long will it last? The most you can expect a book of paper to survive is two hundred years.” Johannes Trithemius (1494) In Praise of Scribes
Rail travel at high speeds is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia. Dionysius Lardner (1830) The Steam Engine Explained
No one will pay good money to get from Berlin to Potsdam in one hour when he can ride his horse there in one day for free. William I of Prussia (1864), on the invention of trains
Newspapers & Telegraph create nervous disorders by exposing people to "the sorrows of individuals everywhere”
George M Beard (1881)
These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.
John Philip Sousa (1854 – 1932)
Today’s discussion
Blogger 1999Google 1999
Orwell v. Huxley
Destroying Culture & Knowledge
Censorship v. Information overload
Captives v. Trivial
Fear & Pain v. Entertainment & Stimuli
Check out Evgeny Morosov!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU
Optimism!
Mathias Klang [email protected] or @klangable
www.klangable.com
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