Beach Haven

Bibliography
​Edgerton, David. 2007. The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
 
Review by Michael Beach

The essence of David Edgerton’s treatise is how “…our future-oriented rhetoric has underestimated the past, and overestimated the power of the present” (Edgerton 2007, 206). The book is full of examples where later technology proves either less effective or more detrimental than earlier versions. He pulls examples from war, economics, national relations, and other fields of technological implementation. He compares outcomes in such areas as the effects of time, production requirements, and maintenance needs.

Edgerton also examines the methods of invention. Like many scholars, he rejects the image of the lone scientist or engineer in a basement or garage toiling away until one day, eureka!, some grand new thing emerges. In reality, invention is a group effort in some social setting. Even the likes of Edison, Jobs, and Gates had colluders and predecessors they gained insights and direct help from. The flood of tech that evolves from ‘break through discoveries’ may bring into question if they make life better or not. For example, are we better off with 24/7 connectivity? Are we more informed through the social media of our day than our parents were reading newspapers or watching the evening news? For those of us who have to go to work at a specific place, has life improved in our daily commutes on an ever more congested roadway? With our new approach to remote work and its loss of work-related in-person community, are we not now feeling more isolated?

There are movements for a return to old tech. Things we think of as modern have been around for a long time. We certainly put more value on some things like wood furniture that are individually created by a craftsman than we do on the same thing mass produced. By putting more value on it, I mean we pay more for it. Food seems to taste better when it’s locally provided straight from the farm as opposed to frozen and shipped in from a distance. The caution is to judge carefully the right tool for the job. For example, do we really have to get a new phone every time there is an update? How many landfills are now burgeoning with the hazardous materials included with the millions of perfectly functioning discarded phones? We should all consider when simpler and older is better, or at least good enough.
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Bibliography
​Cronon, W. (1991). Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company.
 
In this work, William Cronon examines various boundary topics between human environments and ‘nature’. In reality, what today many people think of as natural spaces are really a human-made environments that differ from other human-made environments. For Cronon, Chicago and its markets, driven by the farms of the Midwest and transportation networks formed between them, are simply parts of a larger socio-economic system. “Although this book takes Chicago and the Great West as its immediate focus, its broader ambition is to explore century-old economic and ecological transformations that have continued to affect all of North America and the rest of the world besides” (Cronon, 1991, p. xvi).

The initial incentive to ‘tame’ the land through displacement of indigenous flora, fauna, and people in favor of European style farming was for local economic value. As Chicago began to transform first it’s ports, then the rivers through canal creation, and finally overland transport through a network of railroads, its leaders also increased a financial hold over farmers and competing cities through a number of cooperatives. The Chicago Board of Trade helped solidify definitions of grain quality types and associated monetary values. Similar pricing and quality controls expanded to beef and pork. By becoming the de facto ‘middle man’ between farmers and large markets along the east coast of the US, many of Chicago’s business leaders, and seedier elements as well, grew very wealthy. Tactics such as downgrading quality ratings when paying farmers, then mixing grains to claim higher quality when selling to large markets were common place.

​William Cronon’s work is a story of boundary definition. Wilderness and farm, rural and urban, buyer and seller, controller and controlled, these are the sort of boundaries explored in the book. In each case, human invention (technical or sociological) define the metamorphosis from what one might call ‘nature’ to what today is more about ‘human nature’. Cronon calls the former ‘first nature’ and the human created version ‘second nature’. 

BibliographyHughes, T. P. (1983). Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930. Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
 
Electrical power and ‘modern’ society are often linked in many ways. Areas of the world not using electricity may be seen as ‘backward’. Even in the U.S. these days there is much debate about movement from fossil fuels to sustainable electricity for more parts of technology. Many Americans would be lost if they had to go 24 hours without access to their electrically powered cell phones and computers. There are plenty who might argue the opposite, that ever-changing technology, at least communications technology, tends to isolate us more than bring us together. Where electricity prevails, time has less meaning. Any activity can be lighted at any time of the day. Sleep patterns also tend to be altered in societies with electrification. For example, despite changing daylight hours throughout the year people will likely keep the same work schedule. Students may be accustomed to all-night cramming sessions the night before a big test. Many people fall asleep to the musings of late-night comics. Before electrification, circadian rhythms tended to be primarily timed with the rising and setting of the sun.

In this work, Thomas Hughes shares historical events as electrical power was harnessed from the early days of Edison and Tesla. He pays attention to expansion of electrical technology within the United State, particularly in Chicago and California. He further reviews electrification in London and Berlin. Hughes also comments on how electricity and society affected each other in these four cities. Students of technology and society will recognize these topics. Technology transfer refers to the spread of ideas and invention beyond national borders. He looks at critical problems in advancing technology, sometimes referred to as reverse salients. Hughes examines social conflict and its affect on electrification. This includes personal rivalries among inventors, as well as companies attempting to grow within each of the cities examined. Technological momentum and the effects of World War I (both advancing and inhibiting electrical growth) offer an interesting take. Many scientists and technologists continued to share information despite the war, though others were prohibited. Berlin, for example, was somewhat isolated from others during the war, but war needs caused the German government to channel funds into electrical power for manufacturing of weapons and munitions. Unlike World War II, there was little air bombardment beyond the front lines, so industry by and large remained intact.

Thomas Hughes does not discuss electrification in eastern or southern societies. Perhaps this is a function of scale. One can only put so much into a book. Perhaps it is because he feels these particular cities are similar enough to point to socio-technical trends that perhaps would be different in other societies. Even among the focus histories he has included, there are significant differences as noted in his work. For example, each of the histories show different political and economic contexts. As a result, electrical power generation and transmission grew in very different ways. Standardization was difficult in some locations and centrally managed in others. By looking at the growth of a single technology, Hughes is able to expose the co-production (even co-dependence) of these societies and electricity.
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Bibliography:

Sarewitz, Daniel. 1996. Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press.

Review by Michael Beach

Vannevar Bush was the head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development for presidents Roosevelt and Truman. He was charged to write a vision for the United States of post World War II science and technology. There had been debate over how much or little US government and military participation (read funding and oversight) was necessary in the pending peace time. The result was a report published under the name Science, the Endless Frontier. The report made a number of overarching suggestions. These assertions included that science brings ‘indefinite benefit', and that research is best left ‘unfettered’. Bush also argued that the scientific community holds itself accountable given it’s processes, and such accountability then gives science trusted authoritativeness. He concludes that if all this effort were sufficiently funded and left alone, that knowledge produced through science represents a form of endless frontier that is ever-advancing.

Daniel Sarewitz wrote the book referenced in this review as a sort of critique to the Bush report. He frames each of Bush’s major points as ‘myths’. He links them with Thomas Kuhn's 'paradigm' concept. From that perspective, those engaged in 'normal science’ would naturally question those seeking to overthrow that paradigm. After arguing against each Bush-myth, Sarewitz proposes in several chapters that science is a sort of marketplace and a “surrogate for social action” (Sarewitz 1996, 141). He finished the book making the case for a “new mythology” (Sarewitz 1996, 169). In his version of science, he stresses five ‘policy suggestions’ in lieu of Vannevar Bush’s policies. Sarewitz calls for expanding diversity among the ranks of scientists and an integration of what he calls “the human element” (Sarewitz 1996, 173). He goes on to suggest the need for more “honest brokers” (Sarewitz 1996) in science as described by Roger Pielke in his book by that name.

Here’s a link to my review of Pielke’s book:
http://bhaven.org/reviews/the-honest-broker

Sarewitz completes his policy suggestions by advocating a sort of scientific democracy that includes a worldwide R&D community. Bush might have found Sarewitz heretical to put social science on par with 'hard' science in terms of priority. Yet, what part of science does not involve the social? I assert that one can understand neither except in light of the other.

Bibliography

• Jasanoff, Sheila. 2008. "Speaking Honestly to Power." Amercian Scientist 96 (3): 240-243.
• Pielke, Jr., Roger A. 2007. The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 
Review by Michael Beach
 
Roger Pielke reviews some of the various roles in which scientific and technical advisers place themselves when involved in the policy process. It really doesn’t matter the policy or governing body involved (political, corporate, religious, etc.). For Pielke, there essentially four ‘idealized’ roles. The pure scientist has “no interest in… the decision-making process” (Pielke, Jr. 2007, 1). Pielke’s science arbiter is someone who “serves as a resource for the decision-maker, standing ready to answer factual questions” (Ibid., 2). An issue advocate looks to limit the scope of choice, perhaps even getting someone to believe there is really only one good choice. The books namesake, an honest broker, is generally not a single expert, but more likely a panel of them representing some larger group such as an association of experts. This broker group helps to fully vet a topic to give the best consensus on a given scientific or technology topic. For Pielke, individual experts choose how they will add to a policy discussion, and decision-makers seek out different sorts of experts in these various roles. Pielke admits there may be other descriptors, and a person may act in more than one of these categories on different topics, or even within the same policy research concern.

In several areas, Sheila Jasanoff asserts conclusions that are directly opposite those of Roger Pielke as he expresses in his book The Honest Broker. For example, Pielke makes the argument that too much dependency on the linear model may in fact have the effect of politicizing science which is the opposite of what proponents of the framework claim. In his definition, Pielke asserts politicization of science involves advocacy which he defines as seeking to constrict policy options. In fact, advocacy seeks to narrow options to essentially one alternative cloaked as the natural outcome of scientific knowledge. He says this is a false notion that scientific knowledge compels a specific outcome.

In her review of his book, Jasanoff conversely argues that Pielke depends too much on a simplistic quadrant diagram of his own making. She notes how STS scholars have argued that forms of political engagement are not fixed in advance. It continually shifts. Where Pielke argues that the best role of science is to widen the number of the scope of policy alternatives. Jasanoff points out how widening the scope of choice does not always serve public interest. “Negotiated, knowledge-based consensus that compels a particular policy may depoliticize value conflicts” (Jasanoff 2008, 242).
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Perhaps the two authors can find common ground. Jasaoff sees a problematic tendency in scientists to naturalize values and social preferences that are embedded in science itself. Speaking about the idea of honest brokers in the form of panels in his final chapter, Pielke notes how scientists are humans and citizens. They have personal and professional values and views. It seems to me, if scientists can acknowledge their personal and professional values and how their perspective may be affected by them, the idea of honest brokers in the form of professional groups may be possible. As a typical STS argument, Jasanoff points out that the scientific process itself is value-laden. One conclusion to this typical STS position is how noting personal and professional values not only effect knowledge on policy evaluation, but effect knowledge creation as well, can ultimately help decision-makers to qualify scientific perspective as one of many considerations in creating policy. Understanding these human limits on objectivity would influence policy-makers not to discredit scientific advice, but also not to overweight it.

Vasquez, Robinson. 2021. Prepare My People for the Singularity: Surviving the Dark Side of the Artificial Intelligence Revolution. Monee, IL: Robinson Vasquez.

Review by Michael Beach
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I struggle with this particular review. This is because I actually know the author. The base assumption to the work is that the singularity is inevitable and will happen soon. The idea of ‘singularity’ refers to the point at which artificial intelligence (AI) systems become sentient and begin to act independent of programming created by humans. Most of the first half of the book makes a case for these two premises in a largely technological determinism argument. The literature and thought of most who study socio-technical issues have left technological determinism behind for several decades now. It’s simply not true that technology advances independent of human choice. It’s not clear that ‘advances’ is even accurate. It seems clear there is technological change over time, but advancement assumes the change is toward some desired outcome. The very linking of change with human goals shows that technical change will follow an inevitable path.

Later in the book, Vasquez makes a shift. He starts discussing how people can avoid a malignant outcome of the singularity. This would put into question his earlier arguments in favor of determinism. Vasquez also speaks to how ‘governments’, ‘corporations’, and ‘churches’ make decisions or could intervene. Such organizations are not independent entities any more than AI is. Organizations are groups of people who interact with each other in a prescribed way. Corporations don’t decide things, rather people within a corporation decide.

Robinson Vasquez even begins linking AI singularity with Christian views of the second coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He wonders if Christ might even come in the form of an AI, or at least communicate with humans through an AI. He finishes the work advocating for ‘prepper’ actions such as hoarding supplies and obtaining remote property to which one might retreat as AI attacks human civilization. In deed, many arguments he makes are direct references to science fiction works and sees dystopian versions as predictive.

The first half and second half of the book would seem to disagree with each other. I find the idea of a singularity and of its inevitability as unfounded. There are certainly many who have made these arguments, and some of them very highly visible proponents. There is a famous example when an AI invented a unique language in order to carry out its programming in a more efficient way. None of these examples make a sure argument. Many others working in the field of AI make arguments against the idea of a singularity. Although there are some interesting ideas in this book, they are just that… ideas. Much of the logic is muddled. 

Phillips, Whitney. 2015. This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. Cambridge, London: The MIT Press.
 
In her ethnography focused on Internet trolling, Whitney Phillips seeks to understand motivations and tools within this group she often refers to as a subculture. Through her research journey, she comes to see the group not as a group so much as a continuum of people of all sorts with varying and changing perspectives. Working through a form of history, Phillips shows how the term ‘troll’ has evolved to mean different things to different people. Early examples included an ethic of exposing what trolls deemed as hypocrisy in any dominant culture. Some trolls’ antics gained notoriety in society outside their fellow trolls. This became a form of currency, called lulz, and was a prime motivation for many.

Over time, trolling behavior became personified in the form of a movement referred to as Anonymous. Factions within the trolling community and within Anonymous splintered, attacking each other at times. For example, Phillips describes two Anonymous groups. She calls the politically motivated faction as “Big-A Anonymous” who are also sometimes called ‘hacktivists’. The other portion of Anonymous she refers to as “little-a anonymous” who are primarily those still interested in lulz, or ‘lulz-ists’.

In terms of her ethnographic approach, Whitney Phillips lines out her process primarily in chapter 3. She defines her work as “a qualitative, mixed methods study” (Phillips 2015, 37). She describes conducting “dozens of online interviews with twenty-five trolls” and exchanging large numbers of emails and private messages with her “trolling collaborators” using the snowball approach to adding “research recruits” (Ibid.). Phillips acknowledges how during her research the platforms used by trolling communities and the community itself (its ranks and ideological stance) shifted and splintered. Perhaps her largest challenge was the insistence of anonymity by all the self-identified trolls willing to work with her. Over her time of participant observation, she could begin to identify individuals, even when their online names changed, through their messaging, language, and when conducting audio-only interviews, by their voices.
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She breaks up the chapter on methodology into each of the difficult research functions using section headings, including: Establishing Borders, Navigating Platforms, The Problem of Anonymity, Moving Targets, and Putting the “I” in Troll. In each of these sections Phillips discusses the barriers to research and how she approached overcoming them. For example, the last section is about how she needed to ‘out’ herself to a group of so-called ‘RIP trolls’. This sort of troll would seek out public online memorials for people who had recently died. They would then provoke family members and others through uploaded images or jokes about the person who died, or their family. Phillips had been invited to speak on a TV talk show about the issue. Feeling she had gained their trust, yet wondering if her public appearance would make her a troll target, she reached out to some of her collaborators. After several conversations she notes how one of them replied to her saying, “It’s not your job to defend us” (Phillips 2015, 46).

Foucault, Michel. 1975. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Random House, Inc.
 
The work creates a link between the perspectives of a given historical social milieu in France and the choices French society made (and makes) about how to conduct judicial and penal activities. Foucault makes the argument how in feudal France, judicial proceedings were largely closed to the public, and the execution of sentence was the opposite. Punishment was all about the spectacle. As French society morphed to more democratic morays, the opposite happened. In contemporary France trials are open to the public, and sentences are largely away from the public gaze.

The author asserts much of the shift is a function of accountability and power. Public display of brutal executions helped keep others in check, at least so the theory goes. Yet crime still happened so one could question the effectiveness of public executions. Foucault points to a balancing act by despots to allow enough public spectacle to instill fear without going so far as to seem unfair, inspiring general insurrection. In the days of kingship, the people were accountable to power. In more modern democratic societies, leadership is more accountable to the people. Many argue if this is really true, but Foucault makes the point of the technology of evermore specific legal codes which in many ways proscribe judges from arbitrariness.

A key point Michel Foucault makes is how punishment has shifted from the specific punishment to fit the crime, to generic punishment for any crime. For example, in feudal France, it would be common for a thief to have his hand(s) cut off. Today, all go to some form of prison and the only variation is the length of stay. The one modern exception to prison sentences is use of the death penalty, yet there are many legal ways to make actual execution a reality for most convicts. Likewise, all forms of execution are the same, not varied based on the specifics of the crime.

On last point I’ll share relates to the intent of punishment. In early France, motive was not considered. Crime x received punishment y. Punishment was to the body with the hopes of creating repentance within the assumed criminal. Because the spectacle was as much for the observers as for the convicted, it was not unusual for penalties to continue post-mortem. For example, a person may be strangled unto death, then disemboweled, drawn and quartered, and body parts put on public display. In such an example, the prisoner is dead after step one yet the punishment went on. Pre-execution torture was intended to extract a confession, but Foucault notes how it was understood such confessions could be false, so other forms of evidence were required for conviction. Confession would not lessen the punishment as it was only one form of evidence, and was more intended to help the sinner repent than it was for proof of culpability.

In modern times, intent or sanity are important parts of sentencing. Just as the old way was to help reform the sinner in the next life, in modern times we look to help heal the soul in this life. In this way we have adopted sentences that involve confinement in mental institutions for example. Foucault sees psychiatric efforts to confirm the accused mental state at the time of the crime, or their ability to stand trial as modern-day technologies of the court system.

The final section of the book focuses on the technology of a panoptic physical prison and the psychological effects such an experiment had on prisoners. I wrote a blog post early about panopticism. Here is the link:

http://bhaven.org/blog/the-modern-virtual-global-panopticon

​One final comment. Michel Foucault links many of the disciplinary processes and attitudes used in the penal system with those used in hospitals, the military, and schools. Each of these have a need for regimentation and hierarchy on a large scale. All claim their effort to be for the public good. 

Caldwell, Taylor. 1946. This Side of Innocence. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
 
On the surface this is a period romance, however there are underlying themes that relate to technology and society. The romance portion revolves around the Lindsey family. They include an aging grandfather William, a spinster daughter Dorothea, and a derelict son Jerome. As children, the siblings were joined by their cousin Alfred. Dorothea had long term designs on her cousin who became adopted by the widower patriarch. William was a banker. He retired and while Jerome was off sewing wild oats, Alfred was the steadfast bank manager. Alfred married, fathered a crippled son Phillip.

Alfred’s first wife passed away. Instead of acting on the obvious (for the time period) choice of his cousin Dorothea, Alfred used his influence and money to connect with a questionable younger lady of the area, Amalie. Jerome gets low on money and fears Alfred will step in with his betrothed and take over the family fortune so he returns to the family mansion.

Intrigue surrounds the family. Jerome and Alfred both work at the bank with rivalrous philosophies of how to manage affairs. Amalie marries Alfred, but later Jerome and she have a tryst while Alfred is away on business. Alfred assaults Jerome and nearly kills him. He then divorces Amalie and moves out of the family home along with his son. Dorothea moves away with him as well, though they never marry or even have any sort of romantic relationship. Jerome and Amalie eventually marry and have two children together. For nineteen years there is animosity between the two homes. All the stress causes the death of the patriarch William.

It is the next generation stirs up the hatred as Phillip becomes a trusted partner to Jerome. The older child to Jerome and Amalie is Mary. She and Phillip eventually fall in love and want to marry. That brings the old hatred out again. Alfred has softened from the conservative business man to a benefactor of the community. He only does so through persuasion of Phillip. Jerome has been in favor of using the bank to improve living standards in the community all along, so he and Phillip work together to make improvements to Rivers End. When he and Mary announce their desire to marry, all are supportive except Jerome who flies into a rage. On the way home from a confrontation with Alfred and Jerome he softens, then dies as the carriage he was riding in overturns in a bad winter storm.

The family journey is about greed, betrayal, remorse and eventually some reconciliation, though not complete. The technology and social aspects are interesting. In a number of places in the book there are philosophical arguments about the best way to use the finances of the bank and prominent citizens. Alfred is about investing conservatively and maintaining an agrarian society with money controlled by wealthy landholders. Jerome wants to invest in factories and housing for the workers. He wants each worker to have a small plot of land of their own to raise their own food, or created marketable crops as they see fit. Phillip agrees with Jerome and together they turn the investors locally and with Jerome’s connections in New York from his profligate past.

The technology comes from the arguments around how building factories and creating a more industrial society would take people away from the land. Acquisition of things become the pursuit as people become more materialistic. Education is also an argument in the story as to whether it would cause workers to become less satisfied, or help them improve their lives. There were also debates around who should lead society. Alfred favored the cold businessman. Phillip was more about educated social science minded people. Jerome argued for a mix of STEM and social sciences. Both Jerome and Phillip agreed that leaders should come from all walks of life and they established scholarships to help make that happen. Secretly, Alfred joined their cause with the persuasion of Phillip over years. Jerome never knew this was the case.

In chapter fifty-five Amalie argues that those building society like Jerome and Phillip were really doing it for selfish reasons. She postulates that people build walls out of fear, and creating a happy community at Rivers End was really just Jerome’s way of building a wall. By placating the people he would have a buffer around himself. She herself had married Alfred for his access to money, then began to feel more respect for him as she got to know him. Despite this, she allowed her feelings for Jerome to overcome her and they had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy. If one follows her own logic, it could be said that marrying Alfred and later Jerome for money and perhaps some form of love was her way of building a wall out of fear as well.

In general I’m not a romance fan. I got this book among a bunch of older ones from various library sales. I guess the STS (science, technology, and society) scholar in me latched on to the tech and society implications in the book. Perhaps Caldwell was trying to make social statements and used the family story as a way to contextualize her thoughts.
 

Nye, David E. 2007. Technology Matters: Questions to Live With. Cambridge & London: The MIT Press.

As the subtitle suggests, David Nye poses a series of philosophical questions focused on ideas related to technology. Perhaps the first is the biggest; what is technology? Regardless how one approaches this question the answers are essentially ambiguous. Important arguments throughout the work confirm that humans, humanity, and technology are inextricably connected.

Here is a list of the other big questions Nye pursues, each as individual chapters. Does technology control us? Is technology predictable? How do historians understand technology? Does technology inspire cultural uniformity or diversity? Does technology contribute to sustainable abundance or ecological crisis? How does technology affect how we work (do we work more, less, better or worse)? Should ‘the market’ select technologies? Does technology bring more security or escalate danger? Through technology do we expand consciousness or encapsulate it? Will technology lead to an inevitable future, or are there many potential outcomes?

All of these questions have many-sided arguments, and all the arguments have a number of proponents offering nuanced perspectives. In this work, David Nye brings out good representation of the many camps addressing the questions. Nye offers a philosophical examination of how technology and humanity interact and influence each other. As one might guess about a philosophy-focused treatise, there are no real final answers, and plenty of opportunity for the reader to take sides.