Visions Of Technology

Visions Of Technology PDF

Author: Richard Rhodes

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-09-18

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 143912955X

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Technology was the blessing and the bane of the twentieth century. Human life span nearly doubled in the West, but in no century were more human beings killed by new technologies of war. Improvements in agriculture now feed increasing billions, but pesticides and chemicals threaten to poison the earth. Does technology improve us or diminish us? Enslave us or make us free? With this first-ever collection of the essential twentieth-century writings on technology, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes explores the optimism, ambivalence, and wrongheaded judgments with which Americans have faced an ever-shifting world. Visions of Technology collects writings on events from the Great Exposition of 1900 and the invention of the telegraph to the advent of genetic counseling and the defeat of Garry Kasparov by IBM's chess-playing computer, Deep Blue. Its gems of opinion and history include Henry Ford on the horseless carriage, Robert Caro on the transformation of New York City, J. Robert Oppenheimer on science and war, Loretta Lynn on the Pill and much more. Together, they chronicle an unprecedented century of change.

Technological Visions

Technological Visions PDF

Author: Marita Sturken

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9781592132270

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For as long as people have developed new technologies, there has been debate over the purposes, shape, and potential for their use. In this exciting collection, a range of contributors, including Sherry Turkle, Lynn Spigel, John Perry Barlow, Langdon Winner, David Nye, and Lord Asa Briggs, discuss the visions that have shaped "new" technologies and the cultural implications of technological adaptation. Focusing on issues such as the nature of prediction, community, citizenship, consumption, and the nation, as well as the metaphors that have shaped public debates about technology, the authors examine innovations past and present, from the telegraph and the portable television to the Internet, to better understand how our visions and imagination have shaped the meaning and use of technology. Author note: Marita Sturken is Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California and the author of Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering and Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (with Lisa Cartwright). Douglas Thomas is Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He is author of three books, most recently Hacker Culture. Sandra Ball-Rokeach is a Professor and Director of the Communication Technology and Community Program in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. She is author of several books, including Theories of Mass Communication (with M. L. De Fleur).

Technophobia!

Technophobia! PDF

Author: Daniel Dinello

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 0292709862

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Techno-heaven or techno-hell? If you believe many scientists working in the emerging fields of twenty-first-century technology, the future is blissfully bright. Initially, human bodies will be perfected through genetic manipulation and the fusion of human and machine; later, human beings will completely shed the shackles of pain, disease, and even death, as human minds are downloaded into death-free robots whereby they can live forever in a heavenly "posthuman" existence. In this techno-utopian future, humanity will be saved by the godlike power of technology. If you believe the authors of science fiction, however, posthuman evolution marks the beginning of the end of human freedom, values, and identity. Our dark future will be dominated by mad scientists, rampaging robots, killer clones, and uncontrollable viruses. In this timely new book, Daniel Dinello examines "the dramatic conflict between the techno-utopia promised by real-world scientists and the techno-dystopia predicted by science fiction." Organized into chapters devoted to robotics, bionics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other significant scientific advancements, this book summarizes the current state of each technology, while presenting corresponding reactions in science fiction. Dinello draws on a rich range of material, including films, television, books, and computer games, and argues that science fiction functions as a valuable corrective to technological domination, countering techno-hype and reflecting the "weaponized, religiously rationalized, profit-fueled" motives of such science. By imaging a disastrous future of posthuman techno-totalitarianism, science fiction encourages us to construct ways to contain new technology, and asks its audience perhaps the most important question of the twenty-first century: is technology out of control?

Technology and Society

Technology and Society PDF

Author: Deborah G. Johnson

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2008-10-17

Total Pages: 853

ISBN-13: 0262303388

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An anthology of writings by thinkers ranging from Freeman Dyson to Bruno Latour that focuses on the interconnections of technology, society, and values and how these may affect the future. Technological change does not happen in a vacuum; decisions about which technologies to develop, fund, market, and use engage ideas about values as well as calculations of costs and benefits. This anthology focuses on the interconnections of technology, society, and values. It offers writings by authorities as varied as Freeman Dyson, Laurence Lessig, Bruno Latour, and Judy Wajcman that will introduce readers to recent thinking about technology and provide them with conceptual tools, a theoretical framework, and knowledge to help understand how technology shapes society and how society shapes technology. It offers readers a new perspective on such current issues as globalization, the balance between security and privacy, environmental justice, and poverty in the developing world. The careful ordering of the selections and the editors' introductions give Technology and Society a coherence and flow that is unusual in anthologies. The book is suitable for use in undergraduate courses in STS and other disciplines. The selections begin with predictions of the future that range from forecasts of technological utopia to cautionary tales. These are followed by writings that explore the complexity of sociotechnical systems, presenting a picture of how technology and society work in step, shaping and being shaped by one another. Finally, the book goes back to considerations of the future, discussing twenty-first-century challenges that include nanotechnology, the role of citizens in technological decisions, and the technologies of human enhancement.

Vision Assessment: Shaping Technology in 21st Century Society

Vision Assessment: Shaping Technology in 21st Century Society PDF

Author: John Grin

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 3642597025

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One way to shape technology and its embedding in society in the 21st century is through the visions that guide their development, especially concerning the long-term societal perspective. A critical discussion and assessment of these visions is a prerequisite for influencing the course of development. Technology assessment, therefore, has to provide a methodological repertoire for assessing and constructing visions, taking into account the requirements for long-term orientation as well as the need for public legitimation. This volume draws upon insights from technology assessment, political sciences, epistemology, sociology and ethics. It is to contribute to the recent literature in on "shaping technology", taking into account the "co-evolution of technology and society". It connects to that technology assessment literature that emphasises TA's pro-active role and its contribution to political judgement.

Visions of STS

Visions of STS PDF

Author: Stephen H. Cutcliffe

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2001-02-01

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9780791448458

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Maps interconnections between science, technology, and society in order to understand both benefits and costs.

Information and Communication Technologies

Information and Communication Technologies PDF

Author: William H. Dutton

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 9780198774969

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Information and Communication Technologies: Visions and Realities illuminates the social and economic implications of advances in information and communication technologies. It has been written and edited to reach a broad audience across the social sciences interested in constructive ways ofthinking about the social dynamics of the revolution in digital media. Based on a decade of research undertaken by the UK's Programme on Information and Communication Technologies (PICT), this book explains* how social factors influence technological innovation and convergence;* why organizations seek to transform work, services, and management;* ways in which households domesticate new media;* how public policy andregulation shape the impact of technology on employment, media concentration, privacy, and access in an information society.The thirty contributors include leading figures in the field.

Fritz Lang's Metropolis

Fritz Lang's Metropolis PDF

Author: Michael Minden

Publisher: Camden House

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9781571131461

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Providing a broad range of materials and resources for the study of Fritz Lang's classic film Metropolist (1972), this volume includes both standard critical essays and contributions appearing for the first time.

Engineers for Change

Engineers for Change PDF

Author: Matthew Wisnioski

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2012-10-19

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0262304260

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An account of conflicts within engineering in the 1960s that helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history. In the late 1960s an eclectic group of engineers joined the antiwar and civil rights activists of the time in agitating for change. The engineers were fighting to remake their profession, challenging their fellow engineers to embrace a more humane vision of technology. In Engineers for Change, Matthew Wisnioski offers an account of this conflict within engineering, linking it to deep-seated assumptions about technology and American life. The postwar period in America saw a near-utopian belief in technology's beneficence. Beginning in the mid-1960s, however, society—influenced by the antitechnology writings of such thinkers as Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford—began to view technology in a more negative light. Engineers themselves were seen as conformist organization men propping up the military-industrial complex. A dissident minority of engineers offered critiques of their profession that appropriated concepts from technology's critics. These dissidents were criticized in turn by conservatives who regarded them as countercultural Luddites. And yet, as Wisnioski shows, the radical minority spurred the professional elite to promote a new understanding of technology as a rapidly accelerating force that our institutions are ill-equipped to handle. The negative consequences of technology spring from its very nature—and not from engineering's failures. “Sociotechnologists” were recruited to help society adjust to its technology. Wisnioski argues that in responding to the challenges posed by critics within their profession, engineers in the 1960s helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history.

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