Thanks for revisiting this, Michael, and glad to bookmark some pointers to your other thoughts on the tech ethics scene all around. I'm glad to see your rebooted question list. A couple of things that have been on my mind in this realm, as professor of design and humanities at an engineering college: 1) my colleague Erhardt Graeff’s coaching our students through the decision of “design refusal” when appropriate—making it possible for them as engineers to recognize when and how they might reach the end of a proposed engineering process with the result of *not building a thing.* (https://erhardtgraeff.com/2020/12/16/the-responsibility-to-not-design-and-the-need-for-civic-professionalism/) And 2): as PI for an initiative at my home institution to integrate humanities and arts in the politics of technology (not STEAM in its thin sense, we hope, but something far more probing), I often think lucid question lists such as yours are *terrific*—and also may land only halfway for young engineers who think that those questions arise from good thinkers and not, by extension, from deep nontechnical domains. That is, your readers here know well that your training is in the humanistic disciplines, which helps you formulate the queries. But my students, I fear, (and the average engineering major?) too often have the vague and well-meaning sense that “an emotional and moral dimension should be added,” yes, but they imagine that addition is an ahistorical act of newly-stated first principles, rather than a recovery of much older habits of mind.
Sara, thank you for these comments. I'm glad to be introduced to Prof. Graeff's work. It had not occurred to me, but I immediately see how valuable it would be to learn when and how to refuse in this sense. I imagine it runs against the habits engrained by the discipline and requires more than a little courage to pull off in most cases. I'll look forward to listening to the talk. Regarding your second point, I can see how that would be the case. I've occasionally thought of expanding on this list and part of that would be a matter of "showing the work" as it were. In other words, making explicit the perspectives and disciplines that generate these sorts of questions. Humility seems to be a key virtue in this context, too.
The more I reflect on your work, especially this piece, I feel like you're asking the kinds of questions Wendell Berry would be, if he owned a computer.
What's funny is when I first started reading his work that ISN'T his anti-computer piece (which I love, to be fair), I wasn't sure how relevant it'd be. An essay about forestry and logging?
Days later, not only am I able to bring up the "worst-first" method of forestry into a conversation organically (pun intended), but it's really got me thinking about how I perceive ecology in general, which...well, school was never able to really get that out of me. So congrats, Mr. Berry?
In all truthfulness, he has stirred up a discomfort in my being about how I live and what I'm doing with my life, the legacy I'm leaving behind. I am sure I'm not alone in this place, but thankfully, it's pointing me closer to the Lord as well.
These are really important questions. Thank you. I think it would be particularly valuable to ask these questions of medical technology, which so many rely on for wellness. I would call medicine at this point primarily a technological discipline (science at the end stages of a paradigm, maybe, as per Kuhn) and its activities have tremendous influence on all of us.
Thanks for revisiting this, Michael, and glad to bookmark some pointers to your other thoughts on the tech ethics scene all around. I'm glad to see your rebooted question list. A couple of things that have been on my mind in this realm, as professor of design and humanities at an engineering college: 1) my colleague Erhardt Graeff’s coaching our students through the decision of “design refusal” when appropriate—making it possible for them as engineers to recognize when and how they might reach the end of a proposed engineering process with the result of *not building a thing.* (https://erhardtgraeff.com/2020/12/16/the-responsibility-to-not-design-and-the-need-for-civic-professionalism/) And 2): as PI for an initiative at my home institution to integrate humanities and arts in the politics of technology (not STEAM in its thin sense, we hope, but something far more probing), I often think lucid question lists such as yours are *terrific*—and also may land only halfway for young engineers who think that those questions arise from good thinkers and not, by extension, from deep nontechnical domains. That is, your readers here know well that your training is in the humanistic disciplines, which helps you formulate the queries. But my students, I fear, (and the average engineering major?) too often have the vague and well-meaning sense that “an emotional and moral dimension should be added,” yes, but they imagine that addition is an ahistorical act of newly-stated first principles, rather than a recovery of much older habits of mind.
Sara, thank you for these comments. I'm glad to be introduced to Prof. Graeff's work. It had not occurred to me, but I immediately see how valuable it would be to learn when and how to refuse in this sense. I imagine it runs against the habits engrained by the discipline and requires more than a little courage to pull off in most cases. I'll look forward to listening to the talk. Regarding your second point, I can see how that would be the case. I've occasionally thought of expanding on this list and part of that would be a matter of "showing the work" as it were. In other words, making explicit the perspectives and disciplines that generate these sorts of questions. Humility seems to be a key virtue in this context, too.
The more I reflect on your work, especially this piece, I feel like you're asking the kinds of questions Wendell Berry would be, if he owned a computer.
Well, Berry is certainly an influence!
What's funny is when I first started reading his work that ISN'T his anti-computer piece (which I love, to be fair), I wasn't sure how relevant it'd be. An essay about forestry and logging?
Days later, not only am I able to bring up the "worst-first" method of forestry into a conversation organically (pun intended), but it's really got me thinking about how I perceive ecology in general, which...well, school was never able to really get that out of me. So congrats, Mr. Berry?
In all truthfulness, he has stirred up a discomfort in my being about how I live and what I'm doing with my life, the legacy I'm leaving behind. I am sure I'm not alone in this place, but thankfully, it's pointing me closer to the Lord as well.
These are really important questions. Thank you. I think it would be particularly valuable to ask these questions of medical technology, which so many rely on for wellness. I would call medicine at this point primarily a technological discipline (science at the end stages of a paradigm, maybe, as per Kuhn) and its activities have tremendous influence on all of us.