Awatmath.1590
net.space
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!watmath!pcmcgeer
Mon Jan 25 23:01:28 1982
Humanists and Technologists
While one hates to destroy cherished illusions, it's hard to see that
any major social problem has ever been solved by a `humanist' or other form
of social theorist. Typically, it has been engineers and hard scientists (those
materialistic, crass, and soulless men) that have provided the solutions to
the major social and political problems of their day. Slavery and hard,
grinding, muscle labor at poverty pay, to take two classic examples from
the 19th century, weren't eliminated by the wailing of philosophers but by the
designs of engineers, and by the money of financiers.
Admittedly, this is largely counter-intuitive. It seems unreasonable
that social and political problems can magically be solved by throwing devices
at them. I suspect the reason that this apparent paradox holds is that people
will generally optimize their own condition subject to constraints, and the
constraints are always a lack in some way or other of resources. Technology
tends to free resources, thus loosening the constraints and providing a higher
level of `potential' for most individuals, which they will happily take.
The previous paragraph wasn't all that good an explanation of the
phenomenon. The interested reader is referred to Smith[1776], Friedman[1957]
`Capitalism and Freedom', or Friedman and Friedman `Free to Choose' [1979].
These references won't tell you a great deal about technology, but
emphasize the failure of `humanists' or `social engineers' to do anything
very productive in terms of ameliorating the human condition. One wishes
that Prime Minister Trudeau could read...
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