A recent Guardian article by Moira Weigel nails one-half of the central problem in American politics: The belief by both left and right that they are not doing politics. Leftists tend to belief that they are led to their own political positions by a more astute knowledge of "the facts." For rightists, "the facts" is replaced by "common sense." Unless remedied, this widespread deficit in political self-awareness will continue to stymie any effort to realize more deliberative and non-pathological forms of politics.
Both sides seem to believe that they are guided by one thing: the truth. For instance, many conservatives rarely begin to consider how free market health care might inevitably disadvantage particular groups of people - those with chronic ailments, low to middle class households, etc. Eliminating government's role simply restores the proper (small government) order to the world, what they see as a commonsensical truth. Similarly, many mainstream liberals point to scientific studies to back up their positions on a range of issues - from climate change to abortion - ignoring how their own particular worldview - an understanding of rights and values - shapes their receptiveness to (i.e., level of skepticism of) those facts. Any attempt to reframe a response to climate change in a way that is more amenable to non-liberals is not even considered; a leftist approach is framed as the only rational approach to the facts. Major segments of the left and right, as a result, increasingly retreat into the alluring safety of ostensibly non-political discourses for what are inexorably political problems. The widespread denial that one's beliefs are political stands in the way of the kinds of political talk that underlies democratic deliberation - or at least compromise and concession. Neither is possible if participants are absolutely convinced that they are uniquely in possession of inerrant truth - rather than guided by some mixture of values, observation, and reflective thought colored by a range of personal and cultural biases. Depriving themselves of the cognitive and linguistic tools that could be used to sway others, the only remaining option is fanaticism: a stark division of the political world into friends and enemies. For Trump voters, leftists become idiots - individuals whose cognitive capacities are so twisted by their college degrees that they are now bereft of common sense. For some leftists, Trump voters have become rabid racists that are not worth the trouble of engagement. While fanatical modes of politics has its place, it also has its downsides - especially if one's enemy can easily marshal more allies. Perhaps I am being overly idealistic or naive, but I think that we should be striving for another kind of political correctness in our language - one in which speakers are forced to admit and take responsibility for the values undergirding their speech. Hiding behind allusions to "the facts" and "common sense" is as disingenous as it is destructive, as egotistical as it is belittling. Money spent on efforts to develop citizens' political self-awareness are likely to pay bigger dividends in improving American politics than any program to grow the public's scientific literacy - even though science gurus like Bill Nye and Neil Degrasse-Tyson seem to think otherwise. Unless we do so, and soon, I doubt that we will get to enjoy a less pathological political system anytime in the near future. After Sanders failed to win California or significantly shrink the delegate gap with Hillary Clinton, many of the latter’s supporters were unequivocal: “Your side lost. Join us so we can defeat Donald Trump.” Indeed, those identifying themselves as “Bernie or Bust” have been derided as childish by those now turning out for Clinton. However, I think such claims are not merely premature but politically naïve. If Sanders supporters are to be at all effective as political actors they will not simply resign themselves to voting for Clinton but force her to earn their votes.
That many progressives are so adamant that the left should simply unite behind Hillary Clinton is in some ways understandable. Even though, if they get their way, Americans are once again stuck choosing the lesser of two evils – between an economically conservative, hawkish democratic candidate and an ostensible megalomaniac – many of these progressives find the idea of a Donald Trump presidency to be truly frightening. Unless there is a change in the balance of power in Congress, Americans would be looking at a number of extremely conservative nominations to the Supreme Court – to take one example. At the same time, it is important to remember that a president’s power is always circumscribed. Just look at Barack Obama’s eight years of paltry progress. Similarly, although often retold as if it were the dark ages, the younger George Bush’s years in office could only swing the country so far to the right. Even when he did enact non-progressive measures, such as going to war with Iraq, he relied on the consent of ostensibly liberal democrats. In any case, my real quarrel with the demand that Bernie supporters immediately give up and throw their weight behind the Clinton campaign is that it fundamentally misunderstands politics. It is built upon a grade school level of comprehension of civics: It confuses politics with voting. Those demanding that Sanders supporters switch their allegiance seem to be implying that Bernites' opportunity to be political was over the day after the final primary election and that their next chance to enact their political values is on November 2nd. In actuality, voting is one of the most insignificant forms of political action one can perform when compared to more influential activities such as lobbying, grassroots social movements, and directly contacting political officials. This misunderstanding of politics is especially visible in the condescending claim that “being an adult” means compromising one’s values by immediately promising to vote for Clinton four months from now. While the argument might seem reasonable, it is misleading and perhaps dishonest. Of course politics – like adulthood – entails compromises, but Hillary supporters making this argument have either failed to understand that now is the best time for Bernites to seek out compromises or are disingenuously trying to prevent them realizing that they still have some political capital left. Although she has the lead in the delegate count, Hillary Clinton has failed to achieve a resounding defeat of Sanders. Rather than “compromise” their political values and simply accept the Clinton platform – something that would represent a huge shift to the right for most Bernites – Sanders supporters have recognized that they are in a good position to force Clinton to compromise: “Move to the left or forget about getting our votes.” Given what the Sanders campaign has managed to accomplish, it would be irrationally defeatist to simply fade into the background. Sanders supporters can make their impact be felt long after the primary is over. Shrill, patronizing calls for Sanders supporters to “be adults” and fall in line behind Clinton aim to dupe Bernites into failing to take advantage of what political capital they still have. Furthermore, the argument mobilized by Clinton supporters throughout the primary – that citizens must inevitably concede their strong political interests in choosing someone who represents them – incorrectly locates where compromise actually occurs in the political process. The United States is a pluralist democracy. Compromise and concession happens not in the process of citizens choosing those who represent and advocate for their interests but in the dealings between those representatives and advocates. Environmentalists do not send their money to special interest groups whose mission statements say, “Changes to environmental policy are hard. Therefore, we advocate that industrialists keep polluting away while we research small changes that they will also approve of.” No, they send their money to organizations like Greenpeace. A wishy-washy environmentalist group would only be able to elicit the most meager of concessions from their political opponents. In the current political system, the only way that any political demographic – whether the LGBT community, gun-rights advocates, or progressives – get at least some of what they want is by choosing representatives and advocates who will fight viciously for them. Despite all the ire directed at Tea Party conservatives, they clearly understand this facet of politics far better than most: Their impact on policy has been significant. In any case, the "compromise" argument for Hillary Clinton has always been rooted in a dubious grasp of politics. Nevertheless, do not Sanders supporters risk causing a lot of harm in fighting hard to get their way? Of course they do, but they are no different from anyone else in that regard. So is politics. Even Clinton supporters are little different. Throwing one’s energy behind mostly maintaining the highly unequal and socially unjust status quo in order to be absolutely sure it does not get too much worse will probably mean another four to eight years without a saner and more humane way of funding the American health care system, four to eight years without improved checks against the misdeeds of Wall Street and large corporations, and four to eight years with a reasonable risk of once again going to war. It is not at all clear how the harms risked by more adamantly trying to imprint one’s political values onto the world are automatically any worse than the sins of omission caused by a political strategy of extreme risk aversion. Regardless, we are still months away from the general election. Given that Trump, in the eyes of some, makes Barry Goldwater look like a paragon of level-headed thinking and has only the tepid support of the GOP rank and file, this may not end up being a close election. There is a good chance that moderate republicans will even vote for Clinton. If this comes to pass, the most stubborn Bernites will be able to not vote for Clinton with a clear conscience, maybe helping someone like Jill Stein of the green party hit the 5% mark needed for federal support in the next election cycle. In any case, there is still a lot of politicking that can be done before November. Sanders supporters would be unwise to forgo the opportunity. When reading some observer's diagnoses of what ails the United States, one can get the impression that Americans are living in an unprecedented age of public scientific ignorance. There is reason, however, to wonder if people today are really any more ignorant of facts like water boiling at lower temperatures at higher altitudes or if any more people believe in astrology than in the past. According to some studies, Americans have never been more scientifically literate. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of hand-wringing about the remaining degree of public scientific illiteracy and what it might mean for the future of the United States and American democracy. Indeed, scientific illiteracy is targeted as the cause of the anti-vaccination movement as well as opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and nuclear power. However, I think such arguments misunderstand the issue. If America has a problem with regard to science, it is not due to a dearth of scientific literacy but a decline in science's public legitimacy.
The thinking underlying worries about widespread scientific illiteracy is rooted in what is called the “deficit model.” In the deficit model, the cause of the discrepancy between the beliefs of scientists and those are the public is, in the words of Dietram Scheufele and Matthew Nisbet, a “failure in transmission.” That is, it is believed that negligence of the media to dutifully report the “objective” facts or the inability of an irrational public to correctly receive those facts prevents the public from having the “right” beliefs regarding issues like science funding or the desirability of technologies like genetically modified organisms. Indeed, a blogger for Scientific American blames the opposition of liberals to nuclear power on “ignorance” and “bad psychological connections.” It is perhaps only a slight exaggeration to say that the deficit model depicts anyone who is not a technological enthusiast as uninformed, if not idiotic. Regardless of whether or not the facts regarding these issues are actually “objective” or totally certain (both sides dispute the validity of each other’s arguments on scientific grounds), it remains odd that deficit model commentators view the discrepancy between scientists’ and the public’s views on GMOs and other issues as a problem for democracy. Certainly they are correct that it is preferable to have a populace that can think critically and suffers from few cognitive impairments to inquiry when it comes to wise public decision making. Yet, the idea that, when properly “informed” of the relevant facts, scientifically literate citizens would immediately agree with experts is profoundly undemocratic: It belittles and erases all the relevant disagreements about values and rights. Such a view ignores, for instance, the fact that the dispute over GMO labeling has as much to do with ideas about citizens’ right to know and desire for transparency as the putative safety of GMOs. By acting as if such concerns do not matter – that only the outcome of recent safety studies do – the people sharing those concerns are deprived of a voice. The deficit model inexorably excludes those not working within a scientistic framework from democratic decision making. Given the deficit model’s democratic deficits as well as the lack of any evidence that scientific illiteracy is actually increasing, advocates of GMOs and other potentially risky instances of technoscience ought to look elsewhere for the sources of public scientific controversy. If anything has changed in the last decades it is that science and technology have less legitimacy. Indeed, science writers could better grasp this point by reading one of their own. Former Discover writer Robert Pool notes that the point of legal and regulatory challenges to new technoscience is not simply to render it safer but also more acceptable to citizens. Whether or not citizens accept a new technology depends upon the level of trust they have of technical experts (and the firms they work for). Opposition to GMOs, for instance, is partly rooted in the belief that private firms such as Monsanto cannot be trusted to adequately test their products and that the FDA and EPA are too toothless (or captured by industry interests) to hold such companies to a high enough standard. Technoscientists and cheerleading science writers are probably oblivious to the workings and requirements for earning public trust because they are usually biased to seeing new technologies as already (if not inherently) legitimate. Those deriding the public for failing to recognize the supposedly objective desirability of potentially risky technology, moreover, have fatally misunderstood the relationship between expertise, knowledge, and legitimacy. It is unreasonable to expect members of the public to somehow find the time (or perhaps even the interest) to learn about the nuances of genetic transmission or nuclear safety systems. Such expectations place a unique and unfair burden on lay citizens. Many technical experts, for instance, might be found to be equally ignorant of elementary distinctions in the social sciences or philosophy. Yet, few seem to consider such illiteracies to be equally worrisome barriers to a well-functioning democracy. In any case, as political scientists Joseph Morone and Edward Woodhouse argue, the position of the public is not to evaluate complex or arcane technoscientific problems directly but to decide which experts to trust to do so. Citizens, according to Morone and Woodhouse, were quite reasonable to turn against nuclear power when overoptimistic safety estimates were proven wrong by a series of public blunders, including accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, as well as increasing levels of disagreement among experts. Citizens’ lack of understanding of nuclear physics was beside the point: The technology was oversold and overhyped. The public now had good grounds to believe that experts were not approaching nuclear energy or their risk assessments responsibly. Contrary to the assumptions of deficit modelers, legitimacy is not earned simply through technical expertise but via sociopolitical demonstrations of trustworthiness. If technoscientific experts were to really care about democracy, they would think more deeply about how they could better earn legitimacy in the eyes of the public. At the very least, research in science and technology studies provides some guidance on how they ought not to proceed. For example, after post-Chernobyl accident radiation rained down on parts of Cumbria, England, scientists quickly moved in to study the effects as well as ensure that irradiated livestock did not get moved out of the area. Their behavior quickly earned them the ire of local farmers. Scientists not only ignored the relevant expertise that farmers had regarding the problem but also made bold pronouncements of fact that were later found to be false, including the claim that the nearby Sellafield nuclear processing plant had nothing to do with local radiation levels. The certainty with which scientists made their uncertain claims as well as their unwillingness to respond to criticism by non-scientists led farmers to distrust them. The scientists lost legitimacy as local citizens came to believe that they were sent there by the national government to stifle inquiry into what was going on rather than learn the facts of the matter. Far too many technoscientists (or at least their associated cheerleaders in popular media) seem content to repeat the mistakes of these Cumbrian radiation scientists. “Take your concerns elsewhere. The experts are talking,” they seem to say when non-experts raise concerns, “Come back when you’ve got a science degree.” Ironically (and tragically), experts’ embrace of deficit model understandings of public scientific controversies undermines the very mechanisms by which legitimacy is established. If the problem is really a deficit of public trust, diminishing the transparency of decisions and eliminating possibilities for citizen participation is self-defeating. Anything looking like a constructive and democratic resolution to controversies like GMOs, fracking, or nuclear energy is only likely to happen if experts engage with and seek to understand popular opposition. Only then can they begin to incrementally reestablish trust. Insofar as far too many scientists and other experts believe they deserve public legitimacy simply by their credentials – and some even denigrate lay citizens as ignorant rubes – public scientific controversies are likely to continue to be polarized and pathological. The belief that science and religion (and science and politics for that matter) are exact opposites is one of the most tenacious and misguided viewpoints held by Americans today, one that is unfortunately reinforced by many science journalists. Science is not at all faith-based, claims Forbes contributor Ethan Siegel in his rebuke of Matt Emerson’s suggestion otherwise. In arguing against the role of faith in science, however, Siegel ironically embraces a faith-based view of science. His perspective is faith-based not because it has ties to organized religion, obviously, but rather because it is rooted in an idealization of science disconnected from the actual evidence on scientific practice. Siegel mythologizes scientists, seeing them as impersonal and unbiased arbiters of truth. Similar to any other thought-impairing fundamentalism, the faith-based view of science, if too widespread, is antithetical to the practice of democracy.
Individual scientists, being human, fall prey to innumerable biases, conflicts of interest, motivated reasoning and other forms of impaired inquiry. It sanctifies them to expect otherwise. Drug research, for instance, is a tangled thicket of financial conflicts of interest, wherein some scientists go to bat for pharmaceutical companies in order to prevent generics from coming to market and put their names on articles ghost-written by corporations. Some have wondered if scientific medical studies can be trusted, given that many, if not most, are so poorly designed. Siegel, of course, would likely respond that the above cases are simply pathological cases science, which will hopefully be eventually excised from the institution of science as if they were a malignant growths. He consistently tempers his assertions with an appeal to what a “good scientist” would do: “There [is no] such a thing as a good scientist who won’t revise their beliefs in the face of new evidence” claims Siegel. Rather go the easy route and simply charge him with committing a No True Scotsman fallacy, given that many otherwise good scientists often appear to hold onto their beliefs despite new evidence, it is better to question whether his understanding of “good” science stands up to close scrutiny. The image of scientists as disinterested and impersonal arbiters of truth, immediately at the ready to adjust their beliefs in response to new evidence, is not only at odds with the last fifty years of the philosophy and social study of science, it also conflicts with what scientists themselves will say about “good science.” In Ian Mitroff’s classic study of Apollo program scientists investigating the moon and its origins, one interviewed scientist derided what Siegel presents as good science as a “fairy tale,” noting that most of his colleagues did not impersonally sift through evidence but looked explicitly for what would support their views. Far from seeing it as pathological, however, one interviewee stated “bias has a role in science and serves it well.” Mitroff’s scientists argued that ideally disinterested scientists would fail to have the commitment to see their theories through difficult periods. Individual scientists need to have faith that they will persevere in the face of seemingly contrary evidence in order to do the work necessary to defend their theories. Without this bias-laden commitment, good theories would be thrown away prematurely. Further grasping why scientists, in contrast to their cheerleaders in popular media, would defend bias as often good for science requires recognizing that the faith-based understanding of science is founded upon a mistaken view of objectivity. Far too many people see objectivity as inhering within scientists when it really exists between scientists. As political scientist Aaron Wildavsky noted, “What is wanted is not scientific neuters but scientists with differing points of view and similar scientific standards…science depends on institutions that maintain competition among scientists and scientific groups who are numerous, dispersed and independent.” Science does not progress because individual scientists are more angelic human beings who can somehow enter a laboratory and no longer see the world with biased eyes. Rather, science progresses to the extent that scientists with diverse and opposing biases meet in disagreement. Observations and theories become facts not because they appear obviously true to unbiased scientists but because they have been met with scrutiny from scientists with differing biases and the arguments for them found to be widely persuasive. Different areas of science have varied in terms of how well they support vibrant and progressive levels of disagreement. Indeed, part of the reason why so many studies are later found to be false is the fact that scientists are not incentivized to repeat studies done by their colleagues; such studies are generally not publishable. Moreover, entire fields have suffered from cultural biases at one time or another. The image of the human egg as a passive “damsel in distress” waiting for a sperm to penetrate her persisted in spite of contrary evidence partly because of a traditional male bias within the biological sciences. Similar biases were discovered in primatology and elsewhere as scientific institutions became more diverse. Without enterprising scientists asking seemingly heretical questions of what appears to be “sound science” on the basis of sometimes meager evidence, entrenched cultural biases masquerading as scientific facts might persist indefinitely. The recognition that scientists often exhibit flawed and motivated reasoning, bias, personal commitments and the exercise of faith nearly as much as anyone else is important not merely because it is a more scientific understanding of science, but also because it is politically consequential. If citizens see scientists as impersonal arbiters of truth, they are likely to eschew subjecting science to public scrutiny. Political interference in science might seem undesirable, of course, when it involves creationists getting their religious views placed alongside evolution in high school science books. Nevertheless, as science and technology studies scholars Edward Woodhouse and Jeff Howard have pointed out, the belief that science is value-neutral and therefore best left up to scientists has enabled chemists (along with their corporate sponsors) to churn out more and more toxic chemicals and consumer products. Americans’ homes and environments are increasingly toxic because citizens leave the decision over the chemistry behind consumer products up to industrial chemists (and their managers). Less toxic consumer products are unlikely to ever exist in significant numbers so long as chemical scientists are considered beyond reproach. Science is far too important to be left up to an autonomous scientific clergy. Dispensing with the faith-based understanding proffered by Siegel is the first step toward a more publically accountable and more broadly beneficial scientific enterprise. Looking upon all the polarized rhetoric concerning vaccines, GMO crops, climate change, and processed foods one might be tempted to conclude that the American status quo is under attack by a fervent anti-science movement. Indeed, it is not hard to find highly educated and otherwise intelligent people making just that claim in popular media. To some, that proposition probably seems commonsensical if not blatantly obvious. Why else would people be skeptical of all these advances in medical, climate, and agricultural sciences? However, looking more closely at the style of argumentation utilized by critics undermines the claim that they are “anti-science.” Rather, if there is any bias to popular deliberation regarding the risks regarding vaccines, climate change, and GMO crops it is a widespread allergy to engaging in political talk about values.
Consider Vani Hari, aka “Food Babe.” Her response to a take-down piece in Gawker is filled with references to studies and links to groups like Consumers Union, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the Environmental Working Group, who do employ people with scientific credentials and conduct tests. Groups concerned with potential adverse affects from vaccines, similarly, have their own scientists to fall back on and draw upon highly skeptical and scientific language to highlight uncertainties and as-of-yet undone studies that might help settle safety concerns. If opponents were truly anti-science, they would not exert so much effort to mobilize scientific rhetoric and expertise. Of course, there is still the question of whose expertise is or should be relevant as well as whether or not participants in the debate are attempting a fair and charitable interpretation of available evidence. Nevertheless, the claim that the debate is a result of a split between pro and anti-science factions is pretty much incoherent, if not deluded. Contrary to recurring moral panics about the supposed emergence of polarized anti-scientism, American scientific controversies are characterized by a surprising amount of agreement. No one seems to be in disagreement over the presumption that debate about GMO crops, vaccines, processed foods, and other controversial instances of technoscience should be settled by scientific facts. Even creationists have leaned heavily on a scientific-sounding use of information theory to try to legitimate so-called “intelligent design.” Regardless, this agreement, in turn, rests on an unquestioned assumption that these are even issues that can be settled by science. Both the pro and the con sides are in many ways radically pro-science. Because of this pervasive and unstated agreement, the very real value disagreements that drive these controversies are left by the wayside in favor of endless quibbling over what “the facts” really are. Given the experimenter’s regress, the reality that experimental tests and theories are wrought with uncertainties and unforeseen complexities but are nevertheless relied upon to validate each other, there is always some room for both doubt and confirmation bias in nearly all scientific findings. Of course, doubt is usually mobilized selectively by each side in controversies in ways that mirror their underlying value commitments. Those who tend to view developments within modern science as almost automatically amounting to human progress inevitably find some way to depict opponents as out of touch with the scientific method or using improper methodology. Critics of GMOs or pesticides, for their part, routinely claim to find similar inadequacies in existing safety studies. Additional scientific research, moreover, often only uncovers additional uncertainties; more science can just as often make controversies even more intractable. Therefore, I think that Americans would be better off if social movements were more anti-science. Of course, I do not mean that they would totally disavow the benefits of looking at things scientifically or the more unambiguous benefits of contemporary technoscience. Instead, what I mean is that such groups would reject the assumption that all issues should be viewed, first and foremost, scientistically. Underneath most, if not all, public scientific controversies are real disagreements that relate to values and power. Vaccine critics, rightly or wrongly, are motivated by concerns about a felt loss of liberty regarding their abilities to make health decisions for their children in an age of seemingly pervasive risk. Advocates for more organic farming and fewer petroleum-derived residues on their food and in eco-systems are not only concerned about health risks but the lack of input they have regarding what goes into the products they ingest. The real debate should concern to what extent the technoscientific experts who create the potentially risky and nearly unavoidable products that fill our houses, break down into our local watersheds, and end up in our bloodstreams (along with their allies in business and government) are sufficiently publically accountable. Advocacy groups, however, are caught in a Catch-22. As long as the main legitimacy-imparting public language is scientistic, those who fill their discourse primarily with a consideration of values will probably have a hard time getting heard. Nevertheless, incremental gains could be had if at least some people endeavored to talk to friends, family, and acquaintances about these matters differently: in more explicitly political ways. Those who support mandatory vaccination would do better to talk about the rights of parents of infants and the elderly to not have worry under the specter of previously eradicated and potentially deadly diseases than to claim a level of certitude about vaccine risk they cannot possibly possess. Advocates of organic farming would do well to frame their opposition to GMOs with reference to questions concerning who owns the means of producing food, who primarily benefits, and who has the power to decide which agricultural products are safe. Far too many citizens talk as if they believe science can do their politics for them. It is about time we put that belief to rest. 2/5/2015 CfP - 4S 2015 - Open Panel: Steering Technology, Lessening Barriers and Embracing PartisanshipRead Now Call for Papers
Open Panel: Steering Technology, Lessening Barriers and Embracing Partisanship: (Re)Constructivism and Pathways toward Alternative Modernities Organized for 4S Meeting to be held at the Sheraton Downtown Hotel in Denver, Colorado, November 11-14, 2015 Description Despite all the gains made by STS in understanding how technoscience is socially constructed, inquiry into how modernity might be feasibly reconstructed to be more democratic, sustainable and/or communitarian remains woefully underdeveloped. Indeed, too often the field can be interpreted as not too dissimilar to ecology prior to the formation of conservation biology: seemingly content with cataloging failures rather than envisioning and/or aiding concrete interventions. While STS scholars have well established that contemporary technoscience could have been otherwise, the question of how it might become otherwise merits more attention (see Woodhouse 2005). The purpose of this session is to stimulate the formation of scholastic networks to further explore how a more contemporary and future-oriented STS might generate more intelligent incremental steering toward alternative modernities. Papers could include the exploration of themes such as the pace of innovation, the appropriate application of expertise, the distribution of participation, and the conceptualization of the political. Such explorations would ideally draw from, extend or constructively critique proposed frameworks for the improved steering of technoscience. Also relevant are discussions of the tensions faced by analysts facing expectations to perform “academic disinterestedness” but still desiring to pursue explicitly partisan scholarship. How might STS researchers more productively strategize around such tensions? This panel invites scholars from a variety of backgrounds and disciplinary traditions, utilizing a variety of methodologies, to discuss and engage with these and other themes related to the improved governance of technosocial systems. Of particular interest are case studies and analyses concerning the barriers to realizing alternative technoscience or the dismantling of status quo science and technology. Moreover, how do/can actors strategize to incrementally lessen such barriers? Finally, given the paltry progress made in intelligently steering technoscience in many societies, what reforms to STS (conceived as a sociopolitical institution) might be necessary or desirable? Submission Submission Deadline: March 29, 2015. Submit paper, session, and making and doing proposals here: https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/ssss/4s15/ Please check the box to submit your paper to open panel "Steering Technology, Lessening Barriers and Embracing Partisanship." You can find more details about the conference on http://www.4sonline.org/meeting Organizers For more information contact: Taylor Dotson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, dotsot@rpi.edu Michael Bouchey, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, bouchm4@rpi.edu In the aftermath of the United States national rugby team’s historic match against the New Zealand “All Blacks” on November 1st, many are hoping that the sport’s growing visibility (and televisibility) in North America can be leveraged into the creation of a domestic professional league. Indeed, the match attracted decent ratings and sold out Soldier Field, the home of the Chicago Bears NFL franchise. From the viewpoint of science and technology studies, a sports league is an organizational technology whose politics are recognizable through how its design helps determine who will benefit, who will own what, and who has the power to make important decisions. An American professional rugby league is an emerging technology, one whose politics remains malleable. Its politically-relevant design features are still easily alterable. Rugby fans, players and coaches ought to be concerned that the proposed National Rugby Football League (NRFL) will look and function too much like the National Football League or other American professional sports leagues. At this early stage, it is still feasible to steer the effort toward community control, rather than let it become a lucrative game run by billionaires privately gaining from millions in public subsidy and dominated by an overarching concern for television ratings rather than home-grown support.
For the unfamiliar, rugby is a sport that shares some similarity with and predates American Football but is notable for the lack of pads, forward passing, and blocking. Rugby is one of the top sports in countries like the United Kingdom, France, Argentina, South Africa and Japan, as well as in most nations throughout Oceania. The United States remains very much a second-tier team, similar to what was the case for soccer a decade or so ago. The sport does have two different variants, union and league, but for sake of this post I will gloss over the distinction between the two. To anyone aware of the history of rugby in the United States, the proposal for the NRFL seems eerily similar to earlier failed attempts to grow the sport on American soil. In the 1950s, wrestling promoter and former NFL player Mike Dimitrio assembled a group of football playing rugby neophytes, dressed them in patriotic, football-like attire and proceeded to get, unsurprisingly, demolished in a tour against rugby league teams in Australia and New Zealand. It is hard not to get a sense of déjà vu from former national team coach Eddie O’Sullivan’s NRFL “combines,” which appear to specifically aim to recruit retiring or unsuccessful football players. A representative “All-American” team is scheduled to play the Leicester Tigers this summer, a club that has won the English premiership more than any other. Organizers are betting that the television spectacle surrounding this match will further jump start interest in a professional league. Sound familiar? Despite the resemblances to Dimitrio’s failed efforts in the 1950’s, mainly his emphasis on spectacle and recruiting American football players over developing homegrown rugby talent, the NRFL could be successful. Given that very real possibility, current fans, players and coaches should take an interest in what the future shape of the NRFL will be. RugbyLaw, the Minneapolis-based firm involved in the effort, has been mostly silent about the important details. However, one has good reason to worry about future NRFL franchises being sold to billionaires who may have little interest in the league apart from its potential profitability, as has been the case in the NFL and other professional sporting leagues. Consider the all too common practice within the NFL, as well as other pro-sports, wherein local or state taxpayers are forced to pony up millions for a new stadium every decade or so under the threat that the team will be moved to “greener” pastures. For instance, the state of Minnesota and city of Minneapolis recently put up 348 million and 150 million of public dollars, respectively, to keep the Vikings from moving to Los Angeles for a few more decades. The real tragedy of this practice is that such investments are never recouped, either in income growth or job production, by those forking over the dough. States and cities are more paying for the privilege of and status imparted by an NFL franchise (not to mention padding the earnings of team owners) rather than improving their local economic viability. There is likely no clearer case of corporate welfare and taxpayer waste than the pro-sport stadium extortion game. This situation is all the more tragic given that the fix for this problem is dead simple: community ownership. Teams should be owned by those whose livelihoods lie in the community rather than by a select few jet-setting individuals. Local fans-owners are not going to threaten to move their team to a city they do not live in. Just look at the Green Bay Packers, the only community owned team in the NFL. The Packers have been one of the most successful teams in the NFL, in terms of franchise value and fan support (games have been consistently sold out for decades), despite being located in a town of around 200,000 people. The level of community investment in the team is almost unparalleled in the league, and the team is unlikely to ever relocate. There are numerous examples of successful community-owned teams in other pro-sports as well. What is particularly notable in the case of American Football is that the NFL currently outlaws community ownership – the Packers were grandfathered in. Although I am not so cynical to suggest that this regulation is a conspiratorial effort by rich owners to keep the pro-sport stadium extortion game going, it is certainly helpful to that cause. The major political advantage of community ownership lies in the fact that decision making power in organizations tends to mirror its ownership structure. Fans owning a piece, if not majority, of their teams will mean that fans have a say in major decisions. This matters because the rich guy who buys a team as an investment is unlikely to have fans’ interests in mind. Moreover, one could imagine taking the model even further and structure the whole league so that it is, at least partly, owned and governed by fans, employees and players. Of course, running something so large would require the involvement of professional managers. Nevertheless, ownership by stakeholders rather than a small cadre of businessmen would mean that these managers would owe a greater deal of accountability to fans, employees and players in the same way that the typical CEO is beholden to his or her shareholders. At stake in the determination of whether communities or business elites own and run the future NRFL are important issues like the valuation of in-person attendance versus television ratings. Are bodies in seats more or less important than television viewers? The privileging of the latter is clearly visible in the NHL, whose current commissioner oversaw the moving of teams from cities in the hockey heartland, such as Quebec City and Winnipeg, to the American South (where games are notoriously sparsely attended). NHL managers appear to prefer to roll the dice on potentially breaking into lucrative television markets in states like Florida rather than fill stadiums in Canada. Do American rugby fans want a league run by managers myopically chasing television ratings, or would they rather have a league that privileges home-grown support and the ability of locals to tailgate and attend games in person? Cooperative and community ownership structures have a lot of potential to lessen or eliminate many of the unsavory and undesirable aspects of contemporary corporate-dominated capitalism, in pro-sports as much as anywhere else. The likely development of an American professional rugby league provides the opportunity to experiment with these models and realize a pro-sport system that meets the needs and wants of fans and players, rather than primarily those of rich owners. Current American rugby fans should not lose sight of the questions of “Who benefits?”, “Who decides?” and “Who owns what?” in their zeal for growing the domestic presence of the sport. Careful attention to these concerns will help realize the benefits of professionalization without many of its traditional pathologies. Repost from TechnoScience as if People Mattered
Opponents of regulatory changes that could mean the end of “net neutrality” or proposed legislation like the SOPA/PIPA acts of 2012 regularly contend that these policies would “break the Internet” in some significant way. They prophesize that such measures will lead to an Internet rotten to the core by political censorship or one less generative of creativity. Those on the other side, in response, turn out their own expert analysis meant to assure citizens that the intangible goods purportedly offered by the Internet – such as greater democracy or “innovation” writ large – are not really being undermined at all. In the continuous back and forth between these opposing sides, rarely is the question of whether or not “breaking” the contemporary Internet is actually undesirable given much thought or analysis. It is presumed rather than demonstrated that the current Web “works.” What reasons might we have to consider letting ISPs and content creators lead public policy toward a “broken” Net? Is the contemporary Internet really all that worth saving? To begin, there are grounds for wondering if the Internet has really been that much of a boon to democracy. Certainly critics like Hindman andMorozov – who point out how infrequently political concerns occupy web surfers, how most content production is dominated by a few elites, and that the Internet has had an ambivalent role in promoting enhanced democracy in totalitarian regimes – would likely warn against overestimating the actual democratic utility of contemporary digital networks. Arab Spring notwithstanding, the Internet seems to play as big a role in entertainment, “clicktivism” and commerce driven pacification of populations as their liberation. Though undoubtedly useful for activists needing a tool for organizing popular action across space and time, the Web is also a major vehicle for the “bread and circuses” (i.e., Amazon purchases and Netflix marathons) that too frequently aid citizen passivity. Moreover, as Jodi Dean points out, those championing the ostensible democratic properties of digital networks frequently overstate the political gains afforded by certain means for public communicative self-expression becoming “democratized.” Just because the Average Joe (or Jane) can now publish their own blog does not necessary mean that they have any more influence on public policy than before. Second, the image of the Internet as a bottom-up, decentralized and people-powered technology of liberation, for all intents and purposes, seems to be more myth than reality. From the physical infrastructure and the standardization of protocols to the provision of content through websites like Google and Facebook, the Internet is highly centralized and very often already steered by the interests of large corporations. Media scholars Robert McChesney and John Nichols, for instance, contend that the Internet has been one of the greatest drivers of economic monopoly in history. Likewise the depiction of the movement against measures that threaten net neutrality as strictly the bottom-up voice of the people is similarly a figment of collective imagination. That this opposition has any political traction has more to do with the fact that content providers like Netflix and others having a major financial stake in a non-tiered Internet than the bubbling over of popular democratic ferment. Purveyors of bandwidth hungry services profit greatly from a neutral net at the expense of ISPs, who, in turn, are looking for a bigger piece of the pie for themselves. Third, as Ethan Zuckerman has recently pointed out in an article for the Atlantic, the entrenched status-quo business model of the Internet is advertising. Getting an edge over the competition in advertising requires more effectively surveilling users. We have unintelligently steered ourselves to a Net that financially depends on users’ surfing and social activities being constantly tracked, monitored and analyzed. Users’ provision of “free cultural labor” to companies like Google and Facebook drives the contemporary Internet. The fact that the current Web depends so intimately on advertising, moreover, fuels “clickbait” journalism (think Upworthy), malware and high levels of economic centralization. Facebook’s acquiring of Instagram, as Zuckerman reminds us, was motivated by the company’s desire to maintain its demographic reach of advertising data points and targets. Size, and thereby access to big data, generally wins the day in an ad-driven Internet. Finally, for those of us who wish contemporary technological civilization offered more frequent opportunities for realizing vibrant face-to-face community, the Internet is more often “good enough” than a godsend. A Facebook homefeed or Netflix marathon provides a minimally satisfying substitute for the social connection and storytelling that occurred within local pubs, cafés and other civic institutions, spaces that centered community life at other times and places. Consider one stay-at-home mom’s recent blogging about the loneliness of contemporary motherhood, loneliness that she describes as persisting despite the much hyped connection offered by Facebook and other social networks. She recounts driving to Target just to feel the presence of other people, seeing fellow mothers but ultimately lacking the nerve to say what she feels: “Are you lonely too?… Can we be friends? Am I freaking you out? I don’t care. HOLD ME.” Digitally mediated contact and networked social “meetups” are means to social intimacy that many of us accept reluctantly. They are, at best, anodynes for the pain caused by all the barriers standing in the way of embodied communality: suburbia, gasoline prices, six-dollar pints of beer, and the fact that too many of us long ago became habituated to being homebodies and public-space introverts. The fact that the contemporary Web has these strikes against it, of course, does not necessarily mean that is better to break it than reform it. That claim hinges on the degree to which these facets of the Internet are entrenched and likely to strongly resist change. Are thin democracy, weak community and corporate dominance already obdurate features of the Net? Has the technology gained so much sociotechnical momentum that it seems unreasonable to expect anything better out of it? If the answer to these questions is “Yes,” then citizens have good reason for believing that the most desirable avenue for “moving forward” is the abandonment of the contemporary Internet. I am not first to suggest this course of action. A former champion of the Internet, Douglas Rushkoff , now advocates its abandonment in order to focus on building alternatives through mesh-network technologies. Mesh-networks are potentially advantageous in that surveillance is more difficult, they are structurally decentralized and appear to offer better opportunities for collective control and governance. Experimental community mesh networks are already up and running in Spain, Germany and Greece. If properly steered, they could be an integral part of the development of more substantively democratic and communitarian Internets. If that is truly the case, then resources currently being dedicated to fighting for net neutrality might be put to better use supporting experimentation with and the building of mesh-network alternatives to the current Internet. Letting ISPs have their way in the net neutrality debate, therefore, could prove to be a good thing. Users frustrated by increasing fees and choppy Netflix feeds are going to be more likely to be interested in Web alternatives than those with near perfect service. For the case of the Internet and improved democracy/community, perhaps letting things get worse is the only way they will ever get any better. 8/4/2014 Why Are Scientists and Engineers Content to Work for Scraps when MBAs get a Seat at the Table?Read Now Report from TechnoScience as if People Mattered Why should it be that some of the most brilliant and highly educated people I know are forced to beg for jobs and justify their work to managers who, in all likelihood, might have spent a greater part of their business program drunk than studying? Sure there are probably some useful tasks that managers and supervisors perform, and some of them are no doubt perfectly wonderful people. Nevertheless, why should they sit at the top of the hierarchy of the contemporary firm while highly skilled technologists just do what they are told? Why should those who design and build new technologies or solve tenacious scientific problems receive a wage and not a large share in the wealth they help generate? Most importantly, why do so many highly skilled and otherwise intelligent people put up with this situation? There is nothing natural about MBAs and other professional managers running a firm like a captain of ship. As Harvard economist Stephen Marglin illustrated so well, the emergence of that hierarchical system had little to do with improvements in technological efficiency or competitive superiority but rather that it better served the interests of capitalist owners. What bosses “do” is maximize the benefits accruing to capitalists at the expense of workers. Bosses have historically and continue to do this by minimizing the scope each individual worker has in the firm and inserting themselves (i.e., management) as the obligatory intermediary for even the most elementary of procedures. This allows them to better surveil and discipline workers for the benefit of owners. Most highly skilled workers will probably recognize this if they reflect on all those seemingly pointless memos they are forced to read and write. Of course, some separation of labor (and writing of memos) is necessary for achieving efficient production processes, but the current power arrangement ensures that exactly how any process ends up being partitioned is ultimately decided by and for the benefit of managers and owners prior to any consideration of workers’ interests.
Even if one were not bothered by the life-sucking monotony of many jobs inflicted by a strict separation of labor, there is still little reason why the person in charge of coordinating everyone’s individual tasks ought to rule with almost unquestioned authority. This is a particularly odd arrangement for tech firms, given that scientists and engineers are highly skilled workers whose creative talents make up the core the company’s success. Moreover, these workers only receive a wage while others (e.g., venture capitalists, shareholders and select managers) get the lion’s share of the generated wealth: “Thanks for writing the code for that app that made us millions. Here, have a bonus and count yourself lucky to have a job.” Although frequently taken to be “just the way things are,” it need not be the case that the totality of the profits of innovation so disproportionately accrue to shareholders and select managers. Neither does one need look as far away as socialist nations in order to recognize this. Family-owned and “closely held” corporations in the United States already forgo lower rates of monetary profit in order to enjoy non-monetary benefits and yet remain competitive. For instance, Hobby Lobby, recently made infamous for other reasons, closes its stores on Sundays. They give up sales to competitors like Michaels because those running the firm believe that workers ought to have a guaranteed day in their schedule to spend time with friends and loved ones. Companies like Chick-Fil-A, Wegman’s and others pay their workers more livable wages and/or help fund their college educations, all practices unlikely to maximize shareholder value by any stretch of the imagination. At the same time, the hiring process for many managers does not lend much credence to the view that their skills alone make the difference between a successful or unsuccessful company. Michael Church, for instance, recently posted an account of the differences between applying to tech firm as a software engineer versus a manager. When interviewing as a software engineer, the applicant was subjected to a barrage of doubts about their skills and qualifications. The burden of proof was laid on the applicant to prove themselves worthy. In contrast, when applying for a management position, the same applicant was seen as “already part of the club” and was targeted with hardly any scrutiny at all. This is, of course, but one example. I encourage readers to share their own experiences in the comments section. Regardless, I suspect that if management is regularly treated like a club for those with the right status rather than the right competencies, their skills may not be so scarce or essential as to justify their higher wages, stake in company assets and discretion in decision-making. Young, highly skilled workers seem totally unaware of the power they could have in their working lives, if enough of them strove to seize it. I am not talking about unionization, though that could also be helpful. Instead, I am suggesting that scientists and engineers could own and manage their own firms, reversing (or simply leveling) the hierarchy with their current business-major overlords. Doing so would not be socialism but rather economic democracy: a worker cooperative. Workers outside the narrow echelon of managers and distant venture capitalists could have stake in the ownership of capital and thus power in the firm, making it much more likely that their interests are better reflected in decisions about operations and longer-term business plans. There is no immediately obvious reason why scientists and engineers could not start their own worker cooperatives. In fact, there are cases of workers less skilled and educated than the average software engineer helping govern and earning equity in their companies. The Evergreen cooperative in Cleveland, Ohio, for instance, consists of a laundry – mostly serving a nearby hospital, a greenhouse and a weatherization contractor. A small percentage of each worker’s salary goes into owning a stake in the cooperative, amounting to about $65,000 in wealth in roughly eight years. Workers elect their own representation to the firm’s board and thus get a say in its future direction and daily operation. Engineers, scientists and other technologists are intelligent enough to realize that the current “normal” business hierarchy offers them a raw deal. If laundry workers and gardeners can cooperatively run a profitable business while earning wealth, not merely a wage, certainly those with the highly specialized, creative skills always being extolled as being the engine of the “new knowledge economy” could as well. The main barrier is psychological. Engineers, scientists and other technologists have been encultured to think that things work out best if they remain mere problem solvers – more cynical observers might say overhyped technicians. Maybe they believe they will be one of the lucky ones to work somewhere with free pizza, breakout rooms and a six figure salary, or maybe they think they will eventually break into management themselves. Of course there is also the matter of the start-up capital that any tech firm needs to get off the ground. Yet, if enough technologists started their own cooperative firms, they could eventually pool resources to finance the beginnings of other cooperative ventures. All it would take is a few dozen enterprising people to show their peers that they do not have to work for scraps (even if there are sometimes large paychecks to go with that free pizza). Rather, they could take a seat at the table. Repost from TechnoScience as if People Mattered
There has been no shortage of both hype and skepticism surrounding a proposed innovation whose creators champion as potentially solving North America’s energy woes: Solar Roadways. While there are reasonable concerns about the technical and economic viability of incorporating solar panels into street and highways, almost completely ignored are the sociopolitical facets of the issue. Even if they end up being technically and financially feasible, the question of “Why should we want them?” remains unanswered. Too readily do commentators forget that at stake is not merely how Americans get their electricity but the very organization of everyday life and the character of their communities. Solar Roadways technology is the brainchild of an Idaho start-up. It involves sandwiching photovoltaics between a textured, tempered road surface and a concrete bedding that houses other necessary electronics, such as storage batteries and/or the circuitry needed to connect it to the electrical grid. Others have raised issue over the fairly rosy estimates of these panels’ likely cost and potential performance, including their driveability and longevity as well as whether or not factors like snowfall, low temperatures in northern states and road grime will drastically reduce their efficiency. Given that life cycle analyses of rooftop solar panels estimate energy payback periods of ten to twenty years, any reduction in efficiency makes PV systems much less feasible. Will the panels actually last long enough to offset the energy it takes to build, distribute and install them? The extensive history of expensive technological failures should alert citizens to the need to address such worries before this technology is embraced on a massive scale. However, these reasonable technical concerns should not distract one from looking into the potential sociocultural consequences of implementing solar roadways. One of the main observations of Science and Technology Studies scholarship is that technologies have political consequences: Their very existence and functioning renders some choices and sets of actions possible and others more difficult if not impossible. One of the most obvious examples is how the transportation infrastructures implemented since the 1940’s have rendered walkable, vibrant urban areas in the United States exceedingly difficult to realize. Residents of downtown Albany, for instance, are practically prohibited from being able to choose to have a pleasant waterfront area on the edge of the Hudson River because mid-twentieth century state legislators decided to put I-787 there (partly in order to facilitate their own commutes into the city). Contemporary advocates for an accessible and vibrant waterfront not only face opposition from today’s legislators but also the disincentives posed by the costs and difficulties of moving millions of tons of sunk concrete and disrupting the established transportation network. Solar Roadways, therefore, is not merely a promising green energy idea but also potentially a mechanism for further entrenching the current transportation system of roads and highways. It is politically consequential technology. Most citizens are already committed to the highway and automobile system for their transportation needs, in part also due to the intentional dismantling and neglect of public transit. Having to rely on the highway and road system for electricity would only make moving away from car culture and toward walkable cities more difficult. It is socially and politically challenging to alter infrastructure once it is entrenched. Dismantling a solarfied I-787 in Albany, for example, would not simply require disrupting transportation networks but energy systems as well. If states were to implement solar roadways, it would be effectively an act of legislation that helps ensure that automobile-oriented lifestyles remain dominant for decades to come. This further entrenchment of automobility may be exactly why the idea of solar roadways seems so enticing to some. Solar Roadways is an example of what is known in Science and Technology Studies as a “techno-fix.” It promises the solving of complex sociotechnical problems through a “miracle” innovation and, hence, without the need to make difficult social and political decisions (see here for an STS-inspired take). That is, solar roadways are so alluring because they seem to provide an easy solution to the problems of climate change and growing energy scarcity. No need to implement carbon taxes, drive less or better regulate industry and the exploitation non-renewable resources, the technology will fix everything! To be fair, techno-fixes are not always bad. The point is only that one should be cautiously critical of them in order to not risk falling victim to wide-eyed techno-idealism. Some readers, of course, might still be skeptical of my interpretation of solar roadways as techno-fix perhaps aimed more at saving car culture than creating a more sustainable technological civilization. However, one simply need to ask “Why roadways rather than rooftops?” It does not take much expertise in renewable energy technologies to recognize that solar panels on rooftops make much more sense than on streets, highways and parking lots: They last longer because they are not subject to having cars and trucks drive on them; they can be angled to maximize the incidence of the sun’s rays; and there is likely just as much unused roof space as asphalt. Given all the additional barriers they face, it seems hard to deny that some of appeal of solar roadways is not technical but cultural: They promise the stabilization and entrenchment of a valued but likely unsustainable way of life. Nevertheless, I do not want to simply shoot down solar roadway technology but ask “How could it be used to support ways of life other than car culture?” Critically analyzing a technology from a Science and Technology Studies perspective can often lead to recommendations for its reconstruction, not simply its abandonment. I would suggest reinterpreting this proposed innovation as solar walkways rather than roadways, given that their longevity is more certain if subjected to footsteps instead of multi-ton vehicles. Moreover, as urban studies scholars have documented for decades, most urban and suburban spaces in North America suffer from a lack of quality public space. City plazas and town squares might seem more “rational” to municipal planners if their walking surfaces were made up of PV panels. Better yet, consider incorporating piezoelectrics at the same time and generate additional electricity from the pedestrians walking on it. Feed this energy into a collectively owned community energy system and one has the makings of a technology that, along with a number of other sociotechnical and political changes, could help make more vibrant, public urban spaces easier to realize. Citizens, certainly, could decide that solar walkways are no more feasible or attractive than solar roadways, and should investigate potential uses that go far beyond what I have suggested. Regardless, part of the point of Science and Technology Studies is to creatively re-imagine how technologies and social structures could mutually reinforce each other in order to support alternative or more desirable ways of life. Despite all the Silicon Valley rhetoric around “disruption,” new innovations tend be framed and implemented in ways that favor the status quo and, in turn, those who benefit from it. The supposed “disruption” posed by solar roadway technology is little different. Members of technological civilization would be better off if they not only asked of new innovations “Is it feasible?” but also “Does it support a sustainable and desirable way of life?” Solar freakin’ roadways might be viable, but citizens should reconsider if they really want the solar freakin’ car culture that comes with it. |
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AuthorTaylor C. Dotson is an associate professor at New Mexico Tech, a Science and Technology Studies scholar, and a research consultant with WHOA. He is the author of The Divide: How Fanatical Certitude is Destroying Democracy and Technically Together: Reconstructing Community in a Networked World. Here he posts his thoughts on issues mostly tangential to his current research. Archives
July 2023
Blog Posts
On Vaccine Mandates Escaping the Ecomodernist Binary No, Electing Joe Biden Didn't Save American Democracy When Does Someone Deserve to Be Called "Doctor"? If You Don't Want Outbreaks, Don't Have In-Person Classes How to Stop Worrying and Live with Conspiracy Theorists Democracy and the Nuclear Stalemate Reopening Colleges & Universities an Unwise, Needless Gamble Radiation Politics in a Pandemic What Critics of Planet of the Humans Get Wrong Why Scientific Literacy Won't End the Pandemic Community Life in the Playborhood Who Needs What Technology Analysis? The Pedagogy of Control Don't Shovel Shit The Decline of American Community Makes Parenting Miserable The Limits of Machine-Centered Medicine Why Arming Teachers is a Terrible Idea Why School Shootings are More Likely in the Networked Age Against Epistocracy Gun Control and Our Political Talk Semi-Autonomous Tech and Driver Impairment Community in the Age of Limited Liability Conservative Case for Progressive Politics Hyperloop Likely to Be Boondoggle Policing the Boundaries of Medicine Automating Medicine On the Myth of Net Neutrality On Americans' Acquiescence to Injustice Science, Politics, and Partisanship Moving Beyond Science and Pseudoscience in the Facilitated Communication Debate Privacy Threats and the Counterproductive Refuge of VPNs Andrew Potter's Macleans Shitstorm The (Inevitable?) Exportation of the American Way of Life The Irony of American Political Discourse: The Denial of Politics Why It Is Too Early for Sanders Supporters to Get Behind Hillary Clinton Science's Legitimacy Problem Forbes' Faith-Based Understanding of Science There is No Anti-Scientism Movement, and It’s a Shame Too American Pro Rugby Should Be Community-Owned Why Not Break the Internet? Working for Scraps Solar Freakin' Car Culture Mass Shooting Victims ARE on the Rise Are These Shoes Made for Running? Underpants Gnomes and the Technocratic Theory of Progress Don't Drink the GMO Kool-Aid! On Being Driven by Driverless Cars Why America Needs the Educational Equivalent of the FDA On Introversion, the Internet and the Importance of Small Talk I (Still) Don't Believe in Digital Dualism The Anatomy of a Trolley Accident The Allure of Technological Solipsism The Quixotic Dangers Inherent in Reading Too Much If Science Is on Your Side, Then Who's on Mine? The High Cost of Endless Novelty - Part II The High Cost of Endless Novelty Lock-up Your Wi-Fi Cards: Searching for the Good Life in a Technological Age The Symbolic Analyst Sweatshop in the Winner-Take-All Society On Digital Dualism: What Would Neil Postman Say? Redirecting the Technoscience Machine Battling my Cell Phone for the Good Life Categories
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