• it isn't simply that the best technology wins
• which technology is successful depends on what people want (consumers, corporate leaders...)
• which is the best technology depends on what is the goal people choose
• which technology is better is not a fact
• this suggests that there are many questions that don't have a simple objective answer
• facts are often complicated
• what is right/best often depends on your goals, what is wrong/doesn't work is often much clearer
• three kinds of facts:
• things that happen, often failures are clearer than successes
• there is some disagreement but the people in that field overwhelmingly agree
• some facts depend on your goals and values
  

Nye is going to introduce us to several theories used by historians of technology:

• social construction
• technological momentum
• contextualists vs. internalists

What is theory for historians?

• patterns that repeat
• if what happens isn't inevitable then what causes one technology to win out and another to go nowhere?
  
• what are the factors that shape what happens?
• this isn't easy to figure out because the best technology doesn't always win
• competing interest groups determine which technology succeeds?
• the values of a society determine which technology wins?
• historical theory helps us decide what is most important to look at
  

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Social Construction is one way of understanding which technologies come into use:

• is it because the better technology wins out?
• who defines better?
• there are plenty of cases where a technology that is arguably technically worse won out
• better business strategy wins out
• Technologies are social constructions--society (particularly consumers) decides which technology succeeds

What does it mean to say that technologies are socially constructed?

• which technology wins is determined by a negotiation or competition between groups with different ideas about what that technology should do
  
• groups of people with different ideas work on a technology to bring it into use--the shape of the technology is the result of their interactions.  Would automobiles look different if women played a larger role in their design?
  
• what determines whether a technology is successful is not how well it works (there isn't a single standard to measure this by), but what its role is in society (how it works given the particular expectations people have of it)

What is the opposite of social construction, the theory that some people reject in favor of social construction?

• the elementary school idea of the scientific method--the laws of nature are facts out there in nature waiting to be discovered, and the method of hypothesis and test will always reveal them (other methods will not work)
• science is objective and it always leads us closer and closer to truth (if you aren't objective or don't use the scientific method that is bad science and won't lead towards truth)
• the objectively better technology will always win out
  

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Consider the bicycle:

• High wheel bicycles came from England to America in the 1870s--very much a macho sport, limited appeal.  They were custom built and expensive (and had no gears).  Can you imagine riding across the United States on one of these things?  How to ride
  
• the Chicago Daily News of July 5, 1884 expressed the following view of cyclist Stevens' arrival from San Francisco. "When it takes a bicyclist seventy-two days to wheel from San Francisco to Chicago we are inclined to the opinion that he has more time on his hands than wit in his head. This man's experience does not demonstrate that the bicycle has any advantage over a first-class ox team on such a trip."
  

 1896 Ladies Bicycle

• Safety bicycle introduced in 1887--once the technology stabilized, bicycling became a major fad.
  • Business expanded wildly--in the mid-1890s the industry produced 1.2 million machines annually (an important source of demand for good roads, which made the automobile practical, and of the idea of independent travel).
  • many gun and sewing machine manufacturers went into the bicycle production business.  The fad for bicycling ended in 1897, bringing the industry to an abrupt end.
• An example of new products and the interlocking of industries in the American System of Manufacture:
•  Pope Manufacturing Company started bicycle manufacture in a sewing machine factory owned by the Weed Sewing Machine Company, which before it had its own factory had contracted the production of its sewing machines to the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company (in fact the sewing machine company eventually bought the rifle company's factory).  Pope was successful by advertising, particularly through posters and a magazine he owned, and by buying patents until he had a near monopoly that lasted until 1886.
• Bicycles went from being a way for men to show off to a way for women to find more freedom
• today enthusiasts for recumbent bicycles think the current design of road bikes is silly, but recumbents aren't allowed in racing (because they have less wind resistance so are faster) so show no sign of catching on in a big way, even though they are supposedly more comfortable
  

• Once a technology gets established it can be hard to change
  
• Sometimes we stick with one technological approach when a better one is possible: QWERTY keyboard
  
• The course of technological progress is not inevitable, but once we get committed to one system it is hard to change over to a different one
• it isn't inevitable that any given system will be successful, but once it is it builds up momentum which makes it harder to change
• consider how Europe and the U.S. have different electrical outlets and voltages, different cell phone systems, and different videotape formats.  It seems silly to not be able to use the same devices in different countries, but it would be extremely expensive for either side to change
• it would be hard to change a city like Atlanta from automobile dependence to heavy use of mass transit because the layout of the city is based on the automobile, not on mass transit
• a lot of competition for advantage goes into the process of deciding on standards, eg. Blueray vs. HD-DVD.  Once a standard wins out then it develops momentum and is hard to change
• we can change technological momentum, it is just hard
• discovered in 1980s that the ozone layer that protects us from UV radiation was thinning and getting patchy
• manmade CFCs were a major cause of this, used in almost all refrigerators and air conditioners and spray cans
  
• government and international commitment to stop using CFCs
• chemists went out and invented alternatives but you couldn't just substitute, you needed to change the machines
• CFCs are now almost completely out of use
• ozone layer is recovering
  

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Contextualists vs. internalists (two theories)

• internalists look at the line of development from one machine to the next (written from "the point of view of an insider who looks over an inventor's shoulder" p. 57)
  
• internalist approach looks at the technical merits of alternative solutions to a problem and at cases where no solution is successful
• a contextual approach looks at all the different things that people considered in making technological choices, many of which are not technical (eg. if a Volvo will last twice as long as most other cars, why don't more people buy them?)
• social construction is one example of a contextualist approach
  

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Example: which will be successful, steam or gasoline automobiles?

• internal factors: people were more familiar with steam technology, and problems like slow starting were being solved (that one by the Stanley Steamer, above)
• internal combustion engines were noisy, gasoline was hard to get, and they were hard to start--but they had the theoretical advantage was the best power to weight ratio
• contextual factors: good steam cars were expensive because the manufacturers focused on quality, not making low priced cars
• Ford won the battle for the gasoline engine by designing a practical low cost car--Ford wanted to make a car for farmers and the weight-power ratio mattered most in rural areas where roads could be muddy
• would history have been different if a steam automobile manufacturer had focused on making a low cost car?
  
• another story Nye doesn't tell but could have (another source):
  
• steam automobiles had to refill water more often than fuel--the convenient way to do this was at horse watering troughs
• when an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease occurred in New England in 1914 public watering troughs were closed and steam cars became much less practical because of the problem of running out of water
  
• we only think the success of gasoline automobiles was inevitable because of hindsight

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As an example of social construction, consider the question: Should electric power systems be owned by government or private industry?  It depends on what we understand to be the social function of electric power systems (what is our measure of success).

• Is electric power more like sewer systems (government owned) or cable television (private industry)?
  
• in the early years of building electric light and power systems the private companies concentrated on the most profitable markets in big cities
• many cities in South Carolina founded municipal electrical systems, thinking of electricity as a utility like water or sewers
• Anderson SC was the first city in the South to have AC electric power
  • a civil engineer who had grown up in Anderson, William Church Whitner, designed a municipal electrical system in 1890.
  • Whitner interviewed Nicola Tesla in 1891 and persuaded the city of Anderson to buy an experimental 5,000 volt AC generator for a dam at High Shoals on the Seneca river
  • when this generator came on line in 1895 it was the largest one in the world and the successful transmission of power the six miles from the dam to the city was a breakthrough
• after 1900 private utilities tended to modernize more quickly than publicly-owned systems and be able to offer lower prices, so municipal utilities began buying electricity rather than generating their own or sold out entirely to private companies
• then in the 1930s the government stepped in again: 

• Rural Electrification Authority established in 1935 to organize locally owned co-ops to provide electric service in areas where the farms were too far apart to make it profitable for private companies to set up systems. 
  
• In 1935 only 10% of farms had power from a network (some generated their own electricity). 
  
• Part of the idea was to improve rural life so people would stay on farms instead of moving to cities to look for work.
• The argument was sometimes made that people had a right to electricity
• the goal of the technology is different in different people's eyes
  

Should the internet infrastructure be subsidized by the federal government or run as a business (in which case email will probably no longer be free)?

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