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Whether pro or anti nuclear, one paper I feel every engineer should read is “Do Artifacts have Politics” that asks the question “divorced from creator or user i

Whether pro or anti nuclear, one paper I feel every engineer should read is “Do Artifacts have Politics” that asks the question “divorced from creator or user intent, do inventions/technologies/artifacts contain and/or promote a political will”. Here’s a link https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/Winner.pdf https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/Winner.pdf (hint, the answer is “yes” but the journey is more important than the destination). It’s a surprisingly easy read too. More like a long blog post than a dry paper. One of the examples in there is nuclear technologies, which is what brings this up for me.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
I submitted a thread for the paper you recommended: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39811287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39811287
coxmi 3y ago
Great paper, thanks for posting. It reminded me of a lot of themes present in my design education, of political downstream effects created by apparently neutral technical decisions, and therefore the inherent responsibility of creators when putting something into the world. Not just standard economic externalities but consequences for human interaction. A nice flashback to university, so thanks!
Terr_ 3y ago
I'm trying to imagine artifacts that demonstrate/embed a set of politics and values in a blatant way (i.e. appalling the reader) just to prove the point that such things are possible. For example, a whip specially-designed for the convenience of some humans to inflict coercive pain on others who can't fight back. Or for a more sci-fi bent, imagine an array of mass-produced devices which can reduce a planetary ecosystem into decaying goo while simultaneously reporting on buried ore veins. It tells you something about the likely values and activities of those who would create and use it.
makeitdouble 3y ago
This indeed felt like a excelent overview of many deeper wells that engineers are bound to have to dive into. That could be the best explaination of why we fundamentally don't solve social issues with purely technical solutions, they're always intertwined. Robert Mose is mentionned midway, so I'd point out that the 99 percent invisible podcast is currently doing a book club on "The Power Broker" [0]. A lot of the issues touched here are inherently design issues, and I think the whole podcast would be a feast for anyone interested. [0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/power-broker-01-robert-caro/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/power-broker-01-rober...
api 3y ago
I don’t agree that artifacts have politics the way magical objects in Toklien’s world are imbued with meaning or will. I do however agree that some technologies tend to encourage certain politics. It’s always been puzzling to me that so many libertarian types love nuclear, which is a technology that tends to encourage big centralized systems and therefore big centralized powers (for many reasons). Solar and wind are much more amenable to decentralized voluntary fluid modes of social organization. I guess small modular nukes would be better this way, but they still require a lot of security and life cycle management that tends to encourage large centralized administrative power.
- ctrw 3y ago
  Yes, they are fighting a war of survival against the Zerg.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

I submitted a thread for the paper you recommended: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39811287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39811287

coxmi 3y ago

Great paper, thanks for posting. It reminded me of a lot of themes present in my design education, of political downstream effects created by apparently neutral technical decisions, and therefore the inherent responsibility of creators when putting something into the world. Not just standard economic externalities but consequences for human interaction. A nice flashback to university, so thanks!

Terr_ 3y ago

I'm trying to imagine artifacts that demonstrate/embed a set of politics and values in a blatant way (i.e. appalling the reader) just to prove the point that such things are possible. For example, a whip specially-designed for the convenience of some humans to inflict coercive pain on others who can't fight back. Or for a more sci-fi bent, imagine an array of mass-produced devices which can reduce a planetary ecosystem into decaying goo while simultaneously reporting on buried ore veins. It tells you something about the likely values and activities of those who would create and use it.

makeitdouble 3y ago

This indeed felt like a excelent overview of many deeper wells that engineers are bound to have to dive into. That could be the best explaination of why we fundamentally don't solve social issues with purely technical solutions, they're always intertwined. Robert Mose is mentionned midway, so I'd point out that the 99 percent invisible podcast is currently doing a book club on "The Power Broker" [0]. A lot of the issues touched here are inherently design issues, and I think the whole podcast would be a feast for anyone interested. [0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/power-broker-01-robert-caro/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/power-broker-01-rober...

api 3y ago

I don’t agree that artifacts have politics the way magical objects in Toklien’s world are imbued with meaning or will. I do however agree that some technologies tend to encourage certain politics. It’s always been puzzling to me that so many libertarian types love nuclear, which is a technology that tends to encourage big centralized systems and therefore big centralized powers (for many reasons). Solar and wind are much more amenable to decentralized voluntary fluid modes of social organization. I guess small modular nukes would be better this way, but they still require a lot of security and life cycle management that tends to encourage large centralized administrative power.

ctrw 3y ago
Yes, they are fighting a war of survival against the Zerg.