[ELECTRON] GLASGOW STUDENTS AGAINST CUTS: Monday 29th November: New Glasgow-wide day of education/planning against cuts and for resistance

[Thomas Coles]

In my opinion:

Technologies are tools designed to manipulate our environments, they change
one thing into another thing.

The end for which they are designed, when political, makes the tool
political. A microchip is a tool to process information more quickly - it
usurps human minds and human abilities. When we have reached a stage where
we can no longer write or design computer (machine) code directly, when we
have programming 'languages', we have reached a stage where the vocabulary
is more important than the tool. The very idea of repetition, of loops, of
unending sequences, of the continual increase in complexity of knowledge and
possibility, the computers' cold equivalence of data types.

For me all these things are political, they mediate our understanding of the
world and our understanding of each other. The fact that we have the luxury
of these technologies, and others don't (that we have drones that can
kill-at-distance with no risk) is political. Can we have iPods and Macs
without the suicides at Foxcom? Computers are going to become more expensive
due to Chinese embargos on rare-earth metals. In the end these tools do not
exist in a vacuum, someone made them, someone designed them. If we use the
Internet without remembering that it is a cold-war outgrowth, don't we risk
buying into ideas we might not be aware of?

The politics is contextual of course, but not only this, the types of tools
available emerge from needs and ideas not necessarily our own. When
Microsoft releases Genuine Advantage, or refuses to allow DVDs to play on
their software due to copyright, these things are no longer tools, but also
have inbuilt promotion of certain ideologies.

Tom

On 30 November 2010 14:57, Ben Dembroski <ben at dembroski.net> wrote:

> The can be, but it certainly resides on a sliding scale with a huge
> range.
>
> The use of Twitter by Iranian protesters is more political than me
> deciding to use an Arduino over a Basic Stamp to automate the watering
> of my house plants.  There's nothing inherently political about
> technology.  IMHO, politics enter the equation when the tech is used,
> consumed or referenced within the wider context of human interactions
> and power relationships.
>
> I would hope that any of these topics would equally welcome on this
> list.
>
> Equally important is the distinction that not everything "political" has
> a significant element of "technology" to it.
>
> --
> Ben
>
>
> On Tue, 2010-11-30 at 11:01 +0000, M.Hersh wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I would also point out that technology itself and its uses are political.
> > Marion
>
>
>
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