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The Online Technology and Society Reader |
| Part
Four: Technology and Capital Conversion
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Section One: The Conversion of Natural Capital |
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| Reading 1. Jerry Mander (Resurgence) - Man-machine merger causes ecological catastrophe | |
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In this article, Jerry Mander examines the proposition of Jacque Ellul, a pioneer in the study of the impact of technology on society, that in technological society all forms of human activity, whether personal behavior or organized social and economic activity, are fundamentally adaptive to the dominant logic and form of the machine. One consequence, says Mander, is that machines and other industrial forms (e.g. corporations) operate outside the non-economic value system of society with dire consequences for the environment. |
| Reading 2. Hans Binswanger (Science) - The challenge of Faust and | |
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Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, in addition to being an author of classics, was
finance minister at the Court of Weimar. In this article by Hans
Binswanger, and in the review of Binswanger book by economist Herman
Daley, we learn how Goethe's Faust can be read as a parable of
capital accumulation and economic growth.
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| Reading 3. Paul Watson - The politics of extinction | |
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Paul Watson is head
of the environmental group, Sea
Shepard. In this article he examines the impact of our behavior
on the environment.
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| Reading 4. Jonathan Rowe (Dollars & Sense) - How we try to grow our way out of problems, and achieve the opposite | |
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Jonathan Rowe
describes our fascination with GNP and what it means. He suggests
that there are many groups who oppose the consequences of perpetual
economic growth, sometimes without even knowing it.
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