The other two authors would argue that technological fixes are not necessary to solve social problems. In the Johnstone piece he notes that, “The context of rapid innovation has generated widespread appreciation of the potential of technologies to improve modern life and society”. (Johnstone,48). Here he brings up the idea that innovation would become the cure-all for all the social, cultural, and political problems that our society faces today. There is an equation from technology and the improvement of modern life. In the other article, the Huesemann’s show that “one assumption… is the belief that nature can be improved upon or perfected from the benefit of mankind” (Huesemann and Huesemann, 5). The authors note that the society assumes that the problem is within nature rather than in ourselves. Society believes that technology has the ability solve the social problems. However, society needs to take a step back and reflect on its decisions.
Technological fixes to social and environmental systems have negative repercussions because there society is “naively confident about the outcomes of science (“scientistic”) and tending to narrowly define the complexity of problems (“reductionistic”)” (Johnstone, 52). There are heavy expectations of science to fix all of society’s problems society defines that there is a narrowly defined complexity of problems. There is a large assumption within the perception of science, that is the idea that all problems can be fixed by science. The question of whether unintended consequences should prevent us from finding technological solution to the problems is quite interesting. I believe that unintended consequences shouldn’t prevent us from finding solutions, but society should be cautious of scientific achievement. The longevity of the solution should be accounted for when considering the consequences of technological fixes.
Jacob-
Nice blog post! I like that you put this quote into your post, “The authors note that the society assumes that the problem is within nature rather than in ourselves. ” I thought that was a thought-provoking quote that sticks out to me. I agree with you that unintended consequences should not stop our search for new technological fixes all together, but I found it really hard to try to justify who gets to keep pursuing a technological fix, and for what reasons. I think that technology has done a lot of great things for us, and has bettered the lives of many people, but there will always be consequences. How do you think we should decide which technological advancements are “acceptable” and “worth the risk?” Is there really any logical way to make these decisions, or are we just winging it as we go along? Since we really cannot know what consequences will plague us, we can’t really make an accurate decision about what is worth losing or harming.