Good and Bad technology

GOOD AND BAD USES OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The Green party is now very active and it has made many good
points, particularly about the need for conservation of wild
spaces near cities, protection of threatened animals and plants
throughout the world and pollution of the air, water and earth.
Nevertheless, I think there should be some concern about throwing
the baby out with the bath-water, where some environmentalists
have adopted un-critical ant-science and anti-technology
attitudes. This may also be true of some socialists.

I think that it is quite possible to protect the environment and
accommodate some high technology, while expanding the
opportunities for all to avail themselves of the benefits of low
technology. The poorer workers and consumers have often been
denied the latter. Low technology has also been used to
interfere with civil liberties, not to mention the waste of
resources expended on weapon manufacture, whether it be nuclear
weapons or comparatively low-tech poison gas.

Let us consider household technology, pesticides, fertilisers,
nuclear energy, contraceptives and drugs, electronics and
computing, and explore how the main effect of these can be good
or bad. The side-effect of a quite good use of technology may
also be bad, and sometimes so bad that the technology has to be
discarded, but this is quite different from a bad, intended main
use.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

In Britain at present coal, oil and nuclear power stations have
all been used to generate electricity. Some people want to
dismantle nuclear power stations immediately, because of the
difficulties in storing radioactive waste, and because of the
production of plutonium for bombs in them. It is however a
different type of power station which primarily produces
plutonium for bombs, and while there should be no argument about
stopping bomb production, with further research, a way may be
found of usefully converting in a slow reaction the plutonium to
energy for electricity. Research directed towards this problem,
rather than towards more sophisticated "nuclear deterrence" would
surely be a useful occupation for nuclear scientists. This does
not mean that scientists working on energy from renewable sources
should not also receive support - because different parts of the
world need different solutions to their energy problems.
(The above was written before the MOX fuel was developed. I am
against transporting it round the world. If it could be used
locally, this might be good.)
If renewable sources really took off in the "third world", who
knows that we in the industrial north may not be glad to learn
from them in the future when our own coal, oil and nuclear
materials may become exhausted. Now is the time to help them to
set up renewable energy sources, while continuing on a different
course ourselves for the time being.

"New Scientist" (8.3.1984.) has discussed an entirely peaceful
use of nuclear explosives in Russia. Russia has carried out 83
large underground explosions in the last 20 years, in connection
with searching for oil and gas, for seismic sounding and for
creation of underground storage. It can be argued that Russia
gives false information about these, or that they may contaminate
the environment, but this does not invalidate their main use,
which is directed towards developing Siberia sufficiently for
increased populations living there. Possibly wind-power might
provide sufficient renewable energy for the future in such areas,
but this needs established communities first, and nuclear high
technology might just be the most useful way to start up.

We need to maintain a balance in the use of pesticides and
fertiliser. The place to begin abandoning pesticides is the
private garden. In agriculture, until research into natural
control of insects and other destroyers of crops has made some
advance, pesticides will be needed as a holding operation. And
like it or not, the majority of Northern hemisphere populations
live in cities, and it is only the continue use of nitrogenous
fertilisers which has ensured a sufficient food supply. There
is a case for discouraging over-use. Research such as that
carried out at Jealotts Hill Research Station may be the answer.
Chemistry and Agriculture (Symposium Proceedings) April 1979
published by the Chemical Society gives details.

The type of pollution we have in the North may be a more easily
solved problem than the poverty of most of the people in the
Southern hemisphere. But some of the latter, such as China are
coping by getting its agriculture on the right lines first, and
then proceeding with the introduction of low technology such as
small computers. ( I have lost the reference for this)
It is something that all the population can be involved with,
rather than high-tech control by the centre-- by which people
usually feel threatened, and often a few people in control with
high technology are a danger to all.

In less fortunate South American and African countries, the wrong
kind of cash crops are being grown instead of the food needed for
the local population. This is a political problem. However,
when policies are changed with a more human form of government
(such as in Nicaragua possibly), the introduction of appropriate
technology can only help. Electro-voltaic solar panels, wind-
power or whatever, with no need to neglect local oil supplies for
a useful start-up, and slow expansion.

Techniques are just becoming available for revitalising desert
soil, by adding a type of plastic which glues soil grains
together in small lumps which are then able to hold water. Then
growing alfalfa and lupin first to establish a soil structure
before planting other crops.

Some countries with desert soil like Kuwait have leapt forward
into becoming one of the world's richest in money terms because
of oil production. Then the danger becomes pollution for the
environment - they share the problems of the rich Northern
industrial world. China has discouraged over-rapid development.
If the needs of the population have to be catered for alongside
technical development, the danger of over-concentration on high
tech polluting equipment that keeps the upper echelons of society
rich and maintains class divisions is avoided.

ELECTRONICS

Electronics in work, home and leisure at present are mainly in
the possession of the industrialised world. For example, small
radio transmitters and receivers in Citizen's Band Radio (now
superceded by mobile phones) may have increased the use and
understanding of these things by the ordinary person. There are
also specific devices to help the disabled. London Innovation
Centre are now developing a device enabling the deaf or deaf and
blind person to "hear" the doorbell by means of a sensory device.
These are good uses, I would say. But there is always the
possibility of interference with neighbour's TV, or more
seriously with hospital equipment, if careful attention is not
paid to the wavelength and power of transmitters. However a bad
side-effect is fundamentally different from a bad main use. For
example, if released prisoners are fitted with transmitters which
relay their position to the police station, this is such a
fundamental interference with civil liberties, that I doubt if
any prisoner would agree to release from jail on such conditions.
It may be cheaper for the taxpayer, and may make the public
complacent, but the punishment of being a full-time, possibly
life-time prisoner in the wider community, where one's
imprisonment is not apparent to all, is far more drastic than
anything hitherto devised. The same applies to the "artificial
conscience" described by Donald Gould in New Scientist. This is
not meant to be a punishment at all, but an aid for the deaf.
They receive a small hit on the wrist every time they talk too
loud. It reminds me of being shouted at by a school-teacher.
This method rarely produces the best work by the pupils, does it?

TECHNOLOGY IN THE HOME

IN the house , washing machines programmed by microprocessors are
now common. The older type of washing-machine is also a good
stand-by The twin tub, or one tub with separate spinner are
still useful, whether or not the users understand "how they work
electrically". Vacuum cleaners have done a lot to improve
women's health, by reducing the amount of dust inhaled while
doing housework. It is no argument to grumble because many women
have no technical knowledge; the same applies to many car-
drivers, whether they are male or female. Indeed the upper-class
person often despises "mere mechanics."

It is a good star to posses the machines; there are now many
classes for women who wish to acquire a knowledge of technology
within the home. The typewriter, which has provided so many
women with work, is maybe now a greater source of alienation than
home technology. Women usually have to type the thoughts of
mangers with little use of initiative, and with the introduction
of VDU's, many find themselves spending even longer hours at the
keyboard. Progress from lower to higher grade jobs are barred,
because only those who acquire education in early life have the
chance to "make it". In the present depression, these are not
likely to be the female children of poorer parents. Life at home
with children begins to look positively attractive to them, and
it can be a fulfilling life for younger women, provided
conditions in the home are good; it is only when they become
middle-aged with little to hang on to, and no longer welcome back
into the workplace, because computers have enabled the available
work to be done with fewer staff that they become depressed.

\this is a bad use of low technology - to divide people even more
into specialists, and especially to divide women in the home from
those in the workplace. Computers could have used to reduce the
laborious and routine work for all.

DRUGS AND CONTRACEPTIVES

Long-acting drugs reduce "patient control". With contraceptives
and psychiatric drugs this is usually undesirable.

The side-effects of such treatment may be so severe as to
invalidate the main effect; as in Depa Provera injections which
last about three months and are reported to produce continued
bleeding. there is always the suspicion that the desired main
effect is the side-effect - i.e. to make the woman infertile for
as long as the doctor desires, not regarding the wishes of the
woman.

In psychiatry, long-acting drugs may prevent doctors from
"Looking again at the patient" , because the illness cannot be
distinguished from the side-effects of the drug. It is then
suspected that drugs may be given to make women "shut up" and be
docile, and not complain about their real problems, under the
load of tranquillisers given.
This is a large subject, and it may be trivial to mention the
reminding pill-bottle, which gives an alarm each time the next
dose is due, but if this encourages those who need and want to
take pills regularly, it is better than irreversible long-acting
drugging.

THE DESIRE FOR SECURITY AND PROTECTION BY THE PEOPLE
The desire for security and protection by the people who regard
themselves as the law-abiding majority is overdone. For example,
double-glazing with laminated glass and window-locks (for
insulation and to discourage thieves) has trapped people within
the horrors of fire in a flat filled with cheap, comfortable
polyurethane furnishings, which produce deadly cyanide gases when
they burn.
Perhaps society has made the idea of security too attractive, but
excluded some people from these so-called benefits, keeping them
perpetually insecure. Things can be improved by using easily
broken glass for double-glazing, and impregnating foam with fire
retardants. At the same time, we should ensure housing for all
including non-productive people.

In general, when considering which technology to adopt, the
North-South divide seems the most important consideration In the
North we need to be concerned with the environment , possibly
with problems such as removing sulphur dioxide and oxides of
nitrogen from power station exhaust gases, but beware of
discarding long-used technology too hastily. At the same time
we should help the South with appropriate technolgy. A slow
small-scale approach is best. Quick fixes have proved
disastrous.