I will continue to define “technology” as “practice” — as the way things are done around here — and will emphasize how the practices and their contexts have changed. — : 55-56
In this lecture, I would like to talk about technology as practice, about the organization of work and of people, and I would like to look at some models that underlie our thinking and discussions about technology. Before going any further, I should like to say what, in my approach, technology is not. Technology is not the sum of the artifacts, of the wheels and gears, of the rails and electronic transmitters Technology is a system. It entails far more than its individual material components. Technology involves organization, procedures, symbols, new words, equations, and, most of all, a mindset. — 2: 100-105
Our language itself is poorly suited to describe the complexity of technological interactions. The interconnectedness of many of those processes, the fact that they are so complexly interrelated, defies our normal push-me-pullyou, cause-and-consequence metaphors. How does one speak about something that is both fish and water, means as well as end? That’s — 5: 138-140
Looking at technology as practice, indeed as formalized practice, has some quite interesting consequences. One is that it links technology directly to culture, because culture, after all, is a set of socially accepted practices and values. Well laid down and agreed upon practices also define the practitioners as a group of people who have something in common because of the way they are doing things. Out of this notion of unifying practice springs the historical definition of “us” and “them.” I think it is important to realize that the experience of common practice is one of the ways in which people define themselves as groups and set themselves apart from others. “Around here, that’s how we do things,” a group will say, and this is their way of self-identification, because “others” may do the same thing differently. A different way of doing something, a different tool for the same task, separates the outsider from the insider. — 6: 144-151
I think it’s important to realize that technology defined as practice shows us the deep cultural link of technology, and it saves us from thinking that technology is the icing on the cake. Technology is part of the cake itself. — 9: 180-182
the difference between control- and work-related technologies, — 10: 189-189
The distinction we need to make is between holistic technologies and prescriptive technologies.6 Again, we are considering technology as practice, but now we are looking at what is actually happening on the level of work. The — 10: 191-193
The ordering that prescriptive technologies has caused has now moved from ordering at work and the ordering of work, to the prescriptive ordering of people in a wide variety of social situations. — 18: 283-284
prescriptive technologies eliminate the occasions for decision-making and judgement in general and especially for the making of principled decisions. Any goal of the technology is incorporated a priori in the design and is not negotiable. — 18: 290-292
Processes that are cheap in the marketplace are often wasteful and harmful in the larger context, and production models make it quite easy to consider contextual factors as irrelevant. — 21: 325-327
even though today production models are almost the only guides for public and private discussions. It — 22: 328-328
birth control for cars and trucks is not an urgent agenda item in any public discussion. — 24: 359-359
The real world of technology seems to involve an inherent trust in machines and devices (“production is under control“) and a basic apprehension of people (“growth is chancy, one can never be sure of the outcome“). If we do not wish to visualize people as sources of problems and machines and devices as sources of solutions, then we need to consider machines and devices as cohabitants of this earth within the limiting parameters applied to human populations. — 25: 366-369
We cannot walk before we toddle, but we may toddle much too long if we embrace a lovely Model that’s consistent, clear and wrong.17 — 26: 384-386
The scientific method works best in circumstances in which the system studied can be truly isolated from its general context. This is why its first triumphs came in the study of astronomy. On the other hand, the application of the general to the specific has been much less successful in situations where generalization was achieved only by omitting essential considerations of context. These questions of reductionism, of loss of context, and of cultural biases are cited quite frequently by critics of the scientific method.4 We hear much less about the human and social effects of the separation of knowledge from experience that is inherent in any scientific approach. These effects are quite widespread and I think they can be serious and debilitating from a human point of view. — : 429
If I want to promote change I need to understand and appreciate the structuring of the images, even if I don’t trust their content. Opting out by individuals really doesn’t change the agenda of what is urgent and what is not, unless there is a collective effort to supplement and substitute the images with genuine experience. Just because the imaging technology has emphasized the far over the near, the near doesn’t go away. Even though the abnormal is given a great deal more play than the normal, the normal still exists and, with it, all its problems and challenges. But somehow observing a homeless person sleeping in the park around the corner doesn’t seem to register as an event when it’s crowded out in the observer’s mind by images from far-away places. — : 512
I’d like to stress that reciprocity is not feedback. — : 573
We should reflect on the possibility that technology that produces pseudorealities of ephemeral images and eliminates reciprocity also diminishes the sense of common humanity. — : 596