Week 12
In response to Winner on the political qualities of things...I ask myself, how does this laptop embody “specific form of power and authority”? Mumford’s model presents an entry point, albeit anachronistically binary―this is either an authoritarian laptop or a democratic laptop. On a more serious note, we can consider nuclear power, or solar energy. Is this an authoritarian nuclear power? Denis Hayes affirms: “the increased deployment of nuclear power facilities must lead society toward authoritarianism.” Is this a democratic solar energy? Hayes affirms: “dispersed solar sources are more compatible [...] with social equity, freedom and cultural pluralism.” I am tempted to describe technology as “democratizing, liberating,” however, I know that it is NOT a thing. Technology can no longer be described as “steel, plastic, transistors, integrated circuits, and chemicals.” Technology lives, it comprises Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Algorithmic systems, Transgenics...This does not point us back to Husserl’s things themselves.
[1] Winner, Langdon. "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" Daedalus 109, no. 1 (1980): 121-36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024652.







