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This article represents the core issue of "technology vs. luddites" in our current society, which is that technological change, no matter whether it's positive,

This article represents the core issue of "technology vs. luddites" in our current society, which is that technological change, no matter whether it's positive, negative, or neutral, is almost always decried by whatever group might be affected in a negative way, even if over all results are highly positive to society. The main, insoluble problem being that we take everyone who complains seriously, and genuinely don't want to disenfranchise people, but it's impossible to create change in society without at least one person being affected. And since the voice that complains is always the loudest one in the room, this can shut down whatever progress was supposed to happen.

elliekelly 8y ago
I also think the political process just doesn't work well with the iterative process necessary to adopt new technology. Politics is so focused on immediate results and sound bites and whether it fixes a problem immediately. Implementing any new technology just doesn't happen right the first time. It's a learning process. You forgot to consider XYZ so you had to go back and add some new features. A feature might not work as expected and another might have had some unintended consequences. It happens. It gets fixed. The technology gets better. Not in spite of these challenges, but because of them. Politics, on the other hand, is all-or-nothing. They didn't go back and reconsider the algorithm or the weights or discuss why certain factors were assigned certain weights. It was either implement the algorithm or don't. They balanced progress with political reputation and when "too many" voters voiced displeasure they abandoned ship for fear of a day or two of bad PR. That's not a recipe for success when it comes to technological change, it's a recipe for disaster.
- topkai22 8y ago
  The techlogical change here wasn’t iterative, it was an immediate Big Bang shock to the existing system. I’m surprised the school board even proposed it after seeing it. It sounds like they completely ignored their own knowledge of political realities and tried to rely on saying “the machine told us so” would insulate them from criticism. My mom spent a little time on this issue (bus schedules) in high school. Our district officials were extremely aware of the pushback they would get to almost any significant change in busing and school start times, no matter what direction. People don’t like their cheese moved.

elliekelly 8y ago

I also think the political process just doesn't work well with the iterative process necessary to adopt new technology. Politics is so focused on immediate results and sound bites and whether it fixes a problem immediately. Implementing any new technology just doesn't happen right the first time. It's a learning process. You forgot to consider XYZ so you had to go back and add some new features. A feature might not work as expected and another might have had some unintended consequences. It happens. It gets fixed. The technology gets better. Not in spite of these challenges, but because of them. Politics, on the other hand, is all-or-nothing. They didn't go back and reconsider the algorithm or the weights or discuss why certain factors were assigned certain weights. It was either implement the algorithm or don't. They balanced progress with political reputation and when "too many" voters voiced displeasure they abandoned ship for fear of a day or two of bad PR. That's not a recipe for success when it comes to technological change, it's a recipe for disaster.

topkai22 8y ago
The techlogical change here wasn’t iterative, it was an immediate Big Bang shock to the existing system. I’m surprised the school board even proposed it after seeing it. It sounds like they completely ignored their own knowledge of political realities and tried to rely on saying “the machine told us so” would insulate them from criticism. My mom spent a little time on this issue (bus schedules) in high school. Our district officials were extremely aware of the pushback they would get to almost any significant change in busing and school start times, no matter what direction. People don’t like their cheese moved.