ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights that Technical Fouls investigates how modern democratic states govern the development of science and technology and examines especially the dilemmas—"choices or situations involving choices between equally unsatisfactory alternatives"—that daunt citizens and policymakers regarding four vital and frequently interrelated issues: automation, military procurement, genetic engineering, and ecological backlash. The central argument is that technologies, and the criteria by which we evaluate them, are politically shaped in subtle but decisive ways. Although technology emphatically is a "creature of our Art and craft", it also can generate effects that are no part of any conceivable human intention. In each policy area, the book explores differences in the relations of markets, expertise, and democracy. Technology becomes a debilitating process that shrinks the range of human choice by determining the values by which we appraise the world and our own activities in it.
