[extropy-chat] FWD (Got Caliche?) Social construction of technology [SCOT]

[Terry W. Colvin]

< http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041005/D85HAR7O0.html >

A vibrating sex toy shut down a regional airport for almost an hour Monday.

Editor's Note:
The embarrassment of knowing that luggage will go thru an xray scanner causes
people to jettison spare parts (some feel good with just a plain brown paper 
bag 'to go', but certainly, not all). Knowing these are problems inherent in 
the social construction of technology, there must be a market out there for a
Romulan cloaking device, or, for artifacts that dis-assemble to innocuous shapes
for private travel. However, there are at least four problems with "SCOT" and 
this type of material culture: (1) How to market the master of the universe
device (it's hard to imagine these transformer action figures advertised on
cartoon network); (2) Future archaeologists will have a difficult time with
classification and typology; (3) Bill Rathje (of Garbage Project fame) may claim
we are running out of landfill space with all the disassembled spare parts going
missing into the trash; (4) Since technologies have different meanings for 
different social groups, how does W. and the D. Homeland Security keep 
terrorists out of sex shops where they might learn to imitate cloaking 
techniques and build IEDs (improvised explosive devices) or 'thermo-nukulur'
dildos... If you have an answer to any of these vexing problems of social
construction and material culture, let us know.


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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