Abstract
It is argued that the question “Can we trust technology?” is unanswerable because it is open-ended. Only questions about specific issues that can have specific answers should be entertained. It is further argued that the reason the question cannot be answered is that there is no such thing as Technology simpliciter. Fundamentally, the question comes down to trusting people and even then, the question has to be specific about trusting a person to do this or that.
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Notes
And the sad fact is that the divorce rate suggests that 50% of Americans don’t understand what it is to take a vow or make a promise.
See my discussion of the Challenger incident in Thinking About Technology; see also Diane Vaughan’s excellent The Challenger Launch Decision.
Ashley Shew has argued in her MS thesis (Shew 2007) and continues to argue in her doctoral dissertation that certain members of the natural world other than humans also create technologies. Clearly, we disagree—but as a passing shot, I would note that were there no humans, whatever it is that animals and insects do could not be classified as technology.
See Langdon Winner’s “Do Artifacts have Politics?” (1989).
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Pitt, J.C. It’s Not About Technology. Know Techn Pol 23, 445–454 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-010-9125-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12130-010-9125-5