Technology Processes of Assessment and Choice (1969) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Chapter III
Chapter III
Pages 29-42
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 29... ...
Almost without exception, technological developments will affect some people or interests adversely and others beneficially, and there simply is no agreed-upon algebra by which one can nearly subtract the pains from the pleasu res in order to arrive at a net index of social desirability (Zl)
|
From page 30... ...
How are the desires of conservation ists and the "aesthetic minority" to be balanced against the economic needs of local industry? As in any problem calling for evaluation of a proposed resource allocation or distribution, the assessment of a contemplated tech nological development raises vexing issues of welfare economics, political theory, and ethics.
|
From page 31... ...
Because we have a great many values other than eco nomic efficiency, and no transactions in them that confront buyers and sellers, the idea of attempting to compute "net social benefits and costs" makes sense only as a very rough first approach. Ordinarily involved is a complex transfer of welfare from one group to another, or perhaps from one country to another, or even from one time to another-and we evaluate the desirability of such a transfer through various institutionalized forms of collective judgment-political, judicial, or economic .
|
From page 32... ...
THE PRESERVATION OF OPTIONS In part because we possess no precise calculus of current costs and benefits ; in part because future alternatives, needs, and values cannot be known with certainty ; and in part because flexibility is among the most widely shared goals, a basic principle of decision-making should be to maintain the greatest practicable latitude for future action. Other things being equal, those tech nological proj ects or developments should be favored that leave maximum room for maneuver in the future.
|
From page 33... ...
Although this report obviously cannot propose precise ways of ascribing a quantitative value to the preservation of options, it can stress the importance of continued research as the basis for reason able attributions of value to future opportunity and the need for continued effort aimed at enhancing the weight of future concerns in cost-benefit calculations. In a less affluent and technologically sophisticated society than ours, it is occasionally necessary to discount the future rather heavily in order simply to survive in the present.
|
From page 34... ...
Should there not be some limits on the extent to which any maj or technology is allowed to proliferate (or, conversely, to stagnate) without the gathering of fairly definite evidence, either by the developers themselves or by some public agency, as to the character and extent of possible harmful effects and the relative merits or dangers of various.
|
From page 35... ...
" There are growing reasons to suspect carcinogenic effects, complex interactions in the human system with sex hormones and barbiturates, and even long-term genetic damage-but there is little or no positive proof one way or the other. Very little is known about individual idiosyn crasies in human reaction to pesticides or about syn ergistic effects involving drugs and food additives.
|
From page 36... ...
Now that knowledge has advanced so far that one can study, in anticipation, at least some of the ecological effects of constructing another Aswan Dam or of opening a sea level canal ; or the effects of paving and housing upon the reflectivity of developed regions of the earth's surface ; or the effects of high-altitude aircraft exhaust upon the radiation of the atmosphere ; or the broad systems effects of other massive alterations of our natural or social surroundings, the panel believes that there is an obliga tion to undertake the necessary research and monitoring at the earliest possible stages in the developmental process. But the difficulty of identifying those stages and then of undertaking the needed studies should not be underestimated.
|
From page 37... ...
It may well be that, in particular cases, sensitizing developers to deleterious side-effects will not suffice that, in some areas, it may prove necessary either to extend public funds to stimulate specific alternatives that are deemed preferable to the technological trends supported by the priv,ate sector or, conversely, to extend precise regulatory authority in such a way that particular technological applications cannot be widely introduced in the private sector until their advocates have successfully demonstrated to an appropriate govern mental institution that only acceptably low damage will ensue. Indeed, in several areas-most importantly, drugs and nuclear reactors-congress has either sub sidized new technologies or has resolved that certain kinds of deleterious consequences cannot be relegated to the category of uncertain "side-effects," but must be thoroughly assessed in advance.
|
From page 38... ...
. Whenever it is possible, therefore, to induce the pro moter of technology himself to anticipate and reduce deleterious consequences while seeking out and maxi mizing socially useful applications, su�h a course is vastly preferable to one that either harnesses his energies and resources to the achievement of a governmentally prescribed technological plan or compels him to submit the products of his innovative activity to prior clearance by a governmental agency.
|
From page 39... ...
Or, with respect to the preservation of options, the failure to assign sufficient cost to the foreclosing of opportunities can be ascribed to how difficult it is for organized voices speaking for the future to penetrate the decision-making process continuously, comprehen sively, and systematically. Finally, with respect to the burden of uncertainty, the habitual tendency to presume technological trends harmless until proven otherwise can be explained by the absence of any group or institution whose function it is to marshal the strongest possible case against a particular trend before it has become en veloped by massive vested interest or political or psy chological commitment.
|
From page 40... ...
When a new and more flexible teaching device would threaten existing patterns of bureaucratic behavior, for example, one can usually count on the opposition of certain school officials, but not on organized advocacy by parents and children. When a new and less costly building technique would disrupt the con struction industry, one can rely on the opposition of those building interests that would be disadvantaged, but not on organized advocacy by residents of the ghetto who might benefit from cheaper housing.
|
From page 41... ...
The costs of overcoming uncer tainties with respect to deleterious side-effects and the costs of avoiding or alleviating such effects, for example, ought to be alllocated in such a way tha t similar pos tures are assumed with respect to competing activities. To give one illustration, if we adopt safety standards with respect to the exploitation of oil resources significantly less rigid than our standards for the exploitation of nuclear-energy sources, we might arbitrarily bias in vestment away from nuclear power and accelerate environmental pollution by conventional plants, or un wittingly encourage accidents such as the recent leaking of oil into the Santa Barbara channel.
|
From page 42... ...
and often unw1se allocations of resources that do not reflect real cost differentials. Similarly, if a segment of the environment-the sea, for instance-is subject to particularly lax quality stand ards with respect to technological exploitation of its assimilative capacity, the underprotected environmental segment tends naturally to be treated as a prime dumping ground.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.