THE POWER OF UNQUESTIONED BELIEFS
We invent technologies, and technologies take on a life of their own, not always for the better.
A conversation with writer and environmental activist Max Wilbert, co-author of “Bright Green Lies” and director of Protect Thacker Pass.
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HART HAGAN: You have said that the real power in any culture is the unquestioned beliefs. I have a couple of questions that I think relate to that. So talk about technology. What are some of the unquestioned beliefs we have around technology? What do we need to be aware of? What are some of the choices we have to make?
MAX WILBERT: One of the biggest myths around technology is that technology is always neutral and that it's only what we do with technology that matters. There's a sense in which that's true. We control how we do certain things, and we have real choices that we can make around technology, how to use it, whether to use it, how to develop it, what direction to take it, etc.
But Lewis Mumford, one of the greatest American thinkers of all time, developed a philosophy of technology. He said technology is not neutral. It both emerges from a certain society--a certain type of society, a certain way of thinking--and it helps reinforce a certain way of thinking.
Mumford used the example of nuclear weapons. If you can produce nuclear weapons, that leads to certain things. It leads to certain things being unthinkable and other things being common sense. For example, it leads to nuclear arms races. It leads to doctrines of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which is a very pertinent subject right now, unfortunately.
The technology leads to the development of universities, research laboratories and a whole science industrial complex, a military industrial complex to support the development of these technologies. The escalation of these technologies leads to both nuclear disasters, such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, etc., and also attempts to develop new types of nuclear reactors to circumvent those previous disasters to move past them, all of which generate their own problems.
There’s a reason why the story of Pandora's Box has stuck around for so long. It's because there's a fundamental truth, that humans are influenced by the world around us.
We aren't living in some sort of vacuum where our choices are the only things that matter. We live in an ecology, in an environment. We live in a world with gravity, with natural laws, with other creatures, running around in it. We live in a world with our families and other cultures and political formations.
So yes, our ideas about technology matter, the direction we choose to take matters. But those aren't the only things that matter. There are ramifications of all these technological choices that we make.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A TECHNOLOGY WITH UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES
Cars are a great example of that, right? If you choose to invest in electric vehicles, you might think, okay, this is great. We're going to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and that's going to help save the planet.
You might not even recognize that by investing in electric vehicles, you're also investing in parking lots. You're investing in highways. You're also investing in global trade and international shipping.
You're investing in a culture of rapid travel, whenever you want it, to wherever you want. You're investing in habitat destruction. You're investing in mining. You're investing in all of these different things that--just because you didn't think of them or didn't consider them, it doesn't really matter whether you did or you didn't--that's still going to be the outcome of the choices.
Some people are full speed ahead on that type of thing. The Biden Administration has put billions of dollars towards electric vehicles and charging stations. They're trying to shape the future.
But unfortunately it's not a vision that prioritizes the health of the planet. It's not a vision that prioritizes the well-being of future generations. It’s a lot of short-term thinking.