ABSTRACT
The modernist belief that technology is neutral has been so discounted that it seems almost unnecessary to reiterate it. We know the design of a technology has consequences that go well beyond the explicit “functions” the tool is expected to perform. It seems like ages, though it’s been only a few decades, since anyone could have asked, “in view of the simplicity of technological engineering, and the complexity of social engineering, to what extent can social problems be circumvented by reducing them to technological problems? Can we identify Quick Technological Fixes for profound and almost infinitely complicated social problems, ‘fixes’ that are within the grasp of modern technology, and which would either eliminate the original social problem without requiring a change in the individual’s social attitudes, or would so alter the problem as to make its resolution more feasible?” 1 We’re now amused, or a bit shocked, by the naïveté of Alvin Weinberg’s tragically optimistic question—not to mention that his answer was a qualified “yes,” pointing to, of all things, the hydrogen bomb as a successful technological fix for the problem of war.
