when you add the different approaches of these three different books together, what do you get?

• watch out for is this the author's perspective or is the author describing someone else's opinion
• what does this author want the reader to get?
  
• STS: interrelationship between technology and society
• technology has changed many aspects of society
• example: how has technology changed work?
• does technology change history?
• consider both the impact of technology on society and the impact of society on technology
  
• what is the role of values in shaping technology
• the choices that the developers of a technology make
• the choices that consumers make about whether and how to use a new technology
• how the basics of human life change:
• work
• family
• structure of community, political system
• food, housing, clothing
• greater health and safety in many cases
  
• what extra technology gives us
• ability to communicate with people all over the world
• many more choices, other kinds of freedom?
• better quality of life (beyond what you can buy)
• (assuming technology is not deterministic) what shapes these changes?
• capitalism--the search for ways to make more money
• what consumers want
• governments seeking power: imperialism weaves together power and wealth
• how do we come together to do things for the public good
  

use past examples to help us understand present day issues

• who chooses/how do we choose which technologies will will grow and which will fail?
• what questions might we ask about a technology to decide whether we want it or not?
• technologies have unexpected consequences
• use historical analogies, eg. the internet is like the interstate highway system or telegraph
  
• role of government in promoting and regulating technology
• role of consumers in setting the direction of technology
  

all history involves different perspectives
what are the differences in what each book thinks is important?

Hobsbawm:

• how the history of England shaped the industrial revolution
• how does technological change affect economic patterns affect people
  
• what technologies helped cause the industrial revolution and in what ways were new technologies effects of the IR?
• effects of the industrial revolution on workers
• the role of a particular kind of capitalism in the industrial revolution
• economics and technology
  

Lienhard:

• technology and the modern era
  
• How ideas change and interrelate with technology and society
• what kinds of ideas?
• science
• art
• values--what do we value most deeply, including things that aren't measurable, such as community, character, freedom...
  
• worldview (eg. rejecting tradition)
  
• How society affects what technology is developed
• modern--throw out tradition, find new and better ways of doing things
  
• assumptions about the world changed, in part caused by science and technology, and affected how technology developed
• where does new technology come from?
• how is it used in accordance with our values
  

Nye:

• Nye discusses the perspective of various people who have written about technology
• we need to be careful about how we think about technology (eg. is it deterministic, what is progress)
  
• Separate out his opinion:  we do have choices and should choose technologies according to what will give us a better life (not just make us richer)
  
• technology isn't inevitable, people have the final say
• is he pro or anti-technology, or what is his perspective?
• maybe the balance is between enthusiasm and caution
  
• presents both sides, the goal is to ask better questions about technology
  
• he argues that technology is something that can bring benefits but we need to be concerned about it and manage it better
• sometimes the decision is to accept or reject a new technology but more often the decision is about which version of the technology we should choose
  
• he considers what we need to look at and understand in order to do this
• learn how to ask good questions
• what are the mechanisms/systems for making choices about technology and can we improve them
• consumer choice and public opinion
• government can make choices in at least two ways
• regulation
• research funding
• subsidies and tax benefits (credits and deductions)
  
• corporations, government and the general public
  
• look back to Fri. notes for more on his central ideas
  

What do you get when you put these together:

• effect of technology on workers
  
• does technology support or undermine our values
• do we use technology to reinforce values or to change them?
• who makes choices and how?
  
• what do we get from technological progress and what are the risks?
• what accelerated the speed of technological progress
  
• changing attitudes towards progress:
  
• the modern era assumed progress was always good
• today we both believe that and are more cautious at the same time
• progress in which direction?
  
• the human element to technology
• what are the unintended consequences (unexpected effects) of technology?  (we think technology will give us ..., but instead...)
• where technology has harmful effects, how best to control them?  Are the only answers government regulation or unions?
• government regulation that use the market (eg. tradeable credits) is one way to compromise
• focus on what social institutions can be used to direct technology
  
• technologies are shaped by their context
• national context--how was BIR uniquely British, how how was the automobile shaped by the American context
• what's going on in history is shaped by and shapes technological progress
  
• cause and effect is tricky--is modernism/BIR/the development of suburbs an effect or a cause of new technology?
  
• different question: how did the automobile shape America? (be careful which the question asks)
• does technology reduce or increase our freedom?

Speed of technological change:

• number of patents
• how fast new technologies come into use
• how radical are the changes in people's lives
  

How do we think about the role of technology in our world?

• technologies are stories (narratives)--to understand what we have we need to look into how it came to be
• the development of technologies have patterns
• what changes in education, economics... speed up the progress of technology?
  
• technologies have meanings--what meanings we give them (what values we associate with them) affect their direction and use
• Kranzberg: technology is neither good nor bad nor is it neutral
  
• technology affects key issues of what we want out of life--freedom, privacy, work, family
  
• do we like what technology does for us?
• but not if it goes too far
• we ask this question historically--what were the benefits and what were the costs and what was done to alleviate the costs
• where do we want to go in the future and should we be careful of in order to get
  
• technology is something where we have choices--as citizens, as consumers--if we think about those choices
• the more powerful our technology gets the more cautious we need to be--think about the consequences before we go forward
• but by being more thoughtful about technology we can use it more for good
  

What should you get from history:

• by what path did we get to the present situation and how does that shape our choices now
• analogies between the past and the present
• history helps you imagine that things could be different
  

Pet Peeve: the books we read for this course are non-fiction.  It is an error to call them novels; the word novel is used only for fiction.