Chapter 18- A More Personal March of Progress

Summary

Woodhouse uses the final chapter to reimagine the world as it is today by attacking the root of the the problems analyzed in the book: a collective insanity, with sanity being when one is able to understand and anticipate the effects of their actions. He points to how toxic chemicals are released and used widely without knowing their effects, how consumers "continue to purchase microwave popcorn in bags that release PFOAs into our dwelling spaces and bodies" (238), and how current civilizations steal precious resources with disregard for their availability for future generations. Finally he argues a “saner” technosocial future would be one that works for every single person, no ifs ands or buts. There would be basic housing, food, and shelter for everyone as technology works against the distribution problem; work hours would be cut for the overworked and given to the unemployed; undesired or miserable jobs would be split amongst the working population fairly, or provide ample benefit for the unfair work.

Analysis & Synthesis

At the beginning of the final chapter Woodhouse mentions current college students’ generation’s fascination with avatars, fantasy games, and futuristic/sci fi films, books, etc. He wonders "if such extraordinary phenomena may represent [their] intuition that something is missing in everyday life" (233). For me, it is that the world today is impersonal. In taking this class I have realized the many flaws Woodhouse described are rooted in the world not addressing human need and capacity. 

My improved technosocial future would be organized and governed by what the individual human, human society, and humanity need and are capable of on a basic level. This does not mean limiting what humans do or need to a basic level; rather, the pace and type of improvement would be comprehensible and manageable for each person. A society with this mindset and ruling would have thorough Intelligent Trial and Error, as each product would need to be directly addressed in terms of its social contexts and effects and only launched onto the market if it is what society needs or wants. An example would be for a new cereal; if there is already a chocolate kids’ cereal on the market, there is no need for another; if there is no heart-healthy kids’ cereal on the market but only 20% show they would purchase it in testing, it is not ready for the market. Of course there would need to be explicit guidelines for what constitutes a product as different from another and what in testing shows satisfactory need or desire. 

These types of regulations may not be so straight forward in the nitty gritty details but in current society there isn’t any. Guidelines within this mindset would be used for transportation (is it necessary to outsource this to China or would the local community or product benefit from local sourcing?), education, workplace environment (what do humans want and need to work happily at this type of task for however long they are asked to?), working hours, environmental protection, food standards, etc. throughout the global market. This would eliminate overconsumption as products focus on needs and universal desires, slow down the unmanageable pace of innovation too rapid, create more efficient working hours while providing more leisure time, and more. Progress would be entirely tied to human need, social effects, and humanity’s physical/emotional/learning capacities. Innovation would slowly work its way towards being solely beneficial.

Chapter 17- Something More than 24/7

Summary

The amount of leisure time for the average middle-class worker was preconceived to increase with the introduction of technologies that made work more efficient. Chapter 17 of Woodhouse describes how while technologies and activities related to leisure have become more abundant and integrated into daily life, the number of hours spent on leisure have significantly decreased. Woodhouse argues the innovations that made work and chores more efficient have resulted in higher expectations for workers, and a cultural focus on speed of production and constant improvement has led to longer hours. Longer hours, in turn, lead to sleep deprivation, fewer hours spent with family, and unhealthy stress levels. For further evidence of the shift, Woodhouse presents the leisure time of the working class of the late Middle Ages: in England, “about a third of the year; Spanish holidays amounted to about 5 months; and the French did even better in being guaranteed Sundays off all together with 90 other rest days and 38 holidays- 180 days in all!" (230).

Analysis & Synthesis

The long working hours incorporated into American living are the result of legacy thinking from the industrial revolution, where innovation pushed for more stuff faster. Innovations like the assembly line and transportation that allowed 9-5 shifts pulling everyone in and out of the growing cities provided. Now the American economy continues to thrive on this exhausting efficiency, and stuck within legacy thinking, Americans are pushed to work holidays, overnight, provide 24 hour business hours, told they have to be available 24/7" (229), and strive to climb the corporate ladder. The crisis this provides is "a form of relative deprivation… leisure time is steadily shrinking relative to the opportunities to 'spend' it" (228). 

I would argue this is a crisis because of what that leisure time consists of. Time with family not only provides fun and a deeper connection between family members but allows children to learn valuable knowledge, skills, traditions, and abilities of their working parents. This shapes them as a citizen and an innovator, provides a wider view of their world and makes them generally more capable. Other leisurely activities like going to the movies, reading, listening to music, making music, doing puzzles, exercising, going on vacation do the same for workers. They provide creative, statistical, physical, emotional, and rational insight into the world, oneself, and problem solving. Deep involvement and use of these types of activities have shown to fuel genius; all famous intellectual or creative mind has something other than what they are known for that they loved and spent much of their leisure time doing (Frank Lloyd Wright, for example, was an avid botanist and kept a greenhouse where he knew the latin names of every plant). Other activities like seeing friends, sleeping, and exercising provide the emotional and physical upkeep needed to sustain healthy brain and bodily function. Without that, humans can’t even make it to the office.

In staying at the office longer to gain an hour or two more of production, innovators and producers are losing so much more. Organizational models such as the Montessori schools accept this need for leisure and its benefits and have shown extremely positive results. The owners of Google were Montessori students and modeled their business after the Montessori system, and I doubt anyone could say Google is unproductive or inefficient. It doesn’t need to be a jump that far, but emphasis needs to be put on the value of leisure as a crucial and beneficial part of production and innovation. When America makes that shift and finds that careful balance of work time and leisure time, not only will it be the best producer, but its people will love to produce.

Chapter 16- A Destructive Legacy

Summary

Chapter 16 looks at the lack of thought put into military and weapon research and development by American citizens. Woodhouse explains the reason for the ignorance is a nation-wide attempt at "dealing with distant threats over which one has no control" (215). For those in control of the R&D, there are monetary incentives like salary and the act of creating jobs, and moral incentives that the R&D are repelling or defeating danger to citizens. However, Woodhouse’s main argument is that in order to think holistically about innovations in the sector, innovators must realize the downsides and complications that go along with these. First that the world is more complex than being able to defeat or deter enemies; that the development of weaponry makes the world more dangerous for everyone; third that the nature of warfare is constantly changing and weaponry simply cannot keep up; there always will be unintended consequences; someone must make the hard, sometimes catastrophic decisions; finally that humans are inevitably influenced by the potential of what they are given.

Analysis & Synthesis

The complications Woodhouse argues we must take into account when thinking about military research and development showcase the dangers of legacy thinking and technology as legislature. Legacy thinking, “ideas, assumptions, beliefs, values, and ways of thinking inherited from the past rather than thought through for oneself” (254), is why “military R&D is so uncontroversial” (211), the very reason that Woodhouse wrote this chapter. By following the strategies and designs of the past the United States continues to innovate slowly, unable to address the first flaw of R&D: the world being more complex than merely defeating or deterring enemies. In the same way this also leaves the U.S. with the third problem of R&D: the inability to keep up with the constantly and globally changing war environment. This is why even as the U.S. is not at war, there is development of "The F-35 Jet Fighter[, which] may be outdated by the time it is finally delivered starting in 2016 at a total program cost of roughly $400 billion, fifteen years after initial conception" (219).

The idea of technology as legislature says that “as laws (including governmental regulations and court rulings) constrain or encourage certain behaviors, so also with technologies” (256). The more the U.S. contributes to military innovation, the more dangerous technologies are used throughout the world. This is the third problem of R&D: it feeds a greater potential for harmful acts on a global scale, making the world a more dangerous place for everyone. The more direct correlation is the fifth problem: making the hard decisions. The literal legislature of R&D requires a human being make the difficult decisions to harm, control, or kill other human beings. Once they make the decision, the 3rd problem comes into play: unintended consequences. Unintended consequences inevitably legislate the political relations between countries, branches in government, the scientific and military communities, the public and political bodies. If something catastrophic happens someone must be to blame, and all other associated parties will be aggressively pointing fingers and taking action against the guilty. The final problem with R&D is the definition of technology as legislature: human beings are inevitably influenced by the potential of what is available to them. If more dangerous technology is made available, those in power are more likely to use it. 

These are cyclical systems of harm and the buildup of harmful potential. Yet, these same systems can be seen in the public world of rapidly advancing technology. Technology as legislation is why “military innovation often drives civilian innovation” (211), and vice versa. It is both surprising and unsurprising based on this that "there is a sense in which you and I do not really understand weaponry and war" (217). As citizens in America we are part of weaponry and war on a daily basis, and it is a part of us, fueling the technologies we use every day and vice versa.

Chapter 15- No Retaliation Without Causation: Human Enhancement for People

Summary

Chapter 15 describes the 5 categories of human enhancement, how they have been used in the past and currently, and their future potential. First and second involve the least risk: enhancement to rid human DNA of inheritable diseases, and enhancement to assist the handicapped. The third type of enhancement is for improving ordinary performance in "relatively linear, modest, and predictable ways-- [for] better memory and better health" (198). Fourth is enhancements that would intensify the advantage of certain people over others, what Woodhouse calls “winners versus losers”. The final type of enhancement is about “changing what it means to be human” by melding human biology with technology, or transhumanism. Woodhouse argues that a lot of the violations of fairness, a lack of intelligent trial and error, and controversy seen for technologies in previous chapters can be seen in human enhancement technologies. He asks whether this technoscience will truly be for the people as they cry ‘no taxation without representation!’;  "If the American Revolution were occurring today, would forefront technoscientists be the allies or the adversaries of the common people?" (210)

Analysis & Synthesis

At the end of the chapter, Woodhouse describes human enhancement in society today as violating "many of the requirements for intelligent governance of technological innovation” (208), and that "the speed at which enhancements are proceeding clearly violates the requirements for intelligent trial-and-error learning from experience" (209). He argues these are the downfalls of this form of technoscience and asks the final question of whether they currently truly are “allies or the adversaries of the common people?” (210). I wanted to go through how exactly the enhancements embody these two faults and what those involved would need to do to keep them as a technology by the people, for the people.

I took Woodhouse’s claim of violation of intelligent governance in regard to Chapter 12 on the political activities of engineering, where politics is partially defined as “the struggle for who gets what, when, and how” (148). Here a lack of intelligent governance of basic technologies like cars, electricity and dams has led to pollution, controversy, public unrest, inefficiencies, dangers to citizens, and class division. Generally, any kind of “mild enhancement capacities tend to flow towards those already advantaged in money, education, militarization, or other attributes conducive to understanding, purchasing, and utilizing the new potentials" (204). While great funding and publicity go towards extra testing for the upper class’s pregnant women, sickle cell anemia remains mostly ignored; ”that it mostly afflicts African-Americans arguably is one reason for the slow progress" (200). The greatest need is not being addressed first, causing unfairness, controversy, and inefficiency. The answer to intelligent governance lies in "that limited resources can go to the highest priority needs rather than to the niftiest forefronts of innovation" (203). Energy and funding needs not to be aimed at military or biological prowess, but rather an ”alternative version of how widespread suffering theoretically could be erased" (208).

Under this governance, Woodhouse argues that ”most generally, engineers as a whole have contributed to a pace of innovation that pretty clearly is ill-suited to the relatively slow pace of human learning and adaptation" (156). The way innovators can create effective technology that works with the pace of the human race is described in Chapter 6 as intelligent trial and error. A lack of this is clear in the controversy of military R&D for human enhancement, where fears of unintended consequences of nano science and terrorist intentions/capacities cause skepticism and mistrust from the public. Tax money is contributed toward projects without informing the public; any advancement or research in related technology inevitably feeds enhancement technology, such as immune system, neural pathway, image processing and other biomedical work. Implants and vitamin regimes are being advertised and used on a daily basis without knowing the long-term effects. People are potentially being put in danger for years in the future, and currently the public is working against attempts to implement enhancement technologies. Further R&D with intelligent trial and error would allow the public to be informed on the known and unknown consequences and current uses of enhancement innovations before being implemented into daily life, ridding them of the uncertainty and misguidance. In turn, this would allow the innovations to be more effective, supported, and desired.

All of the change must come from politics, as good versus bad innovation "depends in part on how those with greatest influence approach their tasks" (69). Fair and public-centered governance will produce and encourage intelligent trial and error as it seeks to create the most safe, effective products possible. All of this change is not easy, as described in previous posts in detail, because of pressures in all directions for innovators to do otherwise. Only when the U.S. has a new cycle that perpetually encourages this type of innovation would citizens be able to say human enhancement is an ally. Under current conditions, while it may offer certain benefits to certain people, it is currently perpetuating the harm and unfairness in the U.S.’s system of innovation— an adversary of the common people.

Chapter 14- Gentrification and Entropy: a Question of Fairness

Summary

In Chapter 14 Woodhouse describes unfairness as it exists within technoscience today. It is most prevalent in 3 ways. First, the distribution of funding, which is mainly towards causes that benefit the affluent. Second, the availability and usage of produced innovations, such as vaccines made available mainly to the most healthy part of the global population. Finally, in unforeseen consequences of innovations, like the pollution and health damages inflicted upon those who work with coal to generate energy. Woodhouse proposes the way to redistribute benefits and level the playing field for those who cannot access benefits is to reprioritize globally. There needs to be a refocusing on the public good rather than on profit, and innovations that look at the whole picture so as much of the population can benefit. 

Analysis & Synthesis

Looking at unfairness generally, from a moral standpoint, it doesn’t make sense to me why any innovation should ever focus on private cause. After all, if all innovation sought to improve the world for everyone in it, those private causes would benefit too. This separation and bias is something that has been deeply engrained in societies around the world for centuries. Most obviously seen in the use of slaves, there is a long-standing idea that some people are more deserving or in need than others. In my Public Internship course we studied gentrification, which is generally speaking the displacement of native people against their will. In the United States today it often refers to the process of a poor, predominantly black neighborhood rejuvenating itself via community gardens and other community-culture-building programs, and then eventually being driven out by the white upper class who move in to the now desired neighborhood. The new white population doesn’t see a problem with this on the idea that, if I can afford it, I deserve to have it, it’s not my fault they can no longer afford the high taxes!, which Woodhouse describes in technoscience as: ”the scientific community generally seems rather complacent about who gets what from science-- so long as funding keeps increasing for their labs, equipment, graduate students, technicians, postdocs, and conference travel" (186)— I’m doing valuable research, so I deserve to get valuable things from it, who cares about anyone else in the line. 

This brings up the most interesting question for me about fairness, at least within the U.S.’s cultural/economic/political system. Is it useless to try to change the system in a world of entropy? Would we cycle back into unfairness, disorder, no matter what? As described in previous entries and chapters, it’s the U.S.’s hierarchical system that allows for such unfairness, but the market that lets the country tick needs businesses to lose, a certain number of people to be unemployed, a limited number of people with higher education degrees in order for others to succeed. To allow the poor to afford technologies by lowering the price would require docking someone’s pay; to make it affordable by increasing low-income families’ pay would increase innovations’ prices. To put more money and time into sending vaccines and medicine overseas will cost the health of America’s citizens. It’s impossible for everybody to win. It’s inevitable; if you make the neighborhood nice, the rich will come. I don’t see a way within our current system to redistribute the wealth without costing someone. However, the only reason I say that is because I am exactly like the white-upper-class moving in to fixed neighborhoods: I work hard and pay taxes to my country, why shouldn’t my country’s focus be on taking care of me? It’s natural to worry about oneself, but it’s not helpful to just think about helping others. What will change things is thinking about oneself as one of those far less fortunate others.