Technological change does not happen in a vacuum;
decisions about which technologies to develop, fund,
market, and use engage ideas about values as well as
calculations of costs and benefits. This anthology
focuses on the interconnections of technology, society,
and values. It offers writings by authorities as varied
as Freeman Dyson, Laurence Lessig, Bruno Latour, and
Judy Wajcman that will introduce readers to recent
thinking about technology and provide them with
conceptual tools, a theoretical framework, and knowledge
to help understand how technology shapes society and how
society shapes technology. It offers readers a new
perspective on such current issues as globalization, the
balance between security and privacy, environmental
justice, and poverty in the developing world. The
careful ordering of the selections and the editors'
introductions give Technology and Society a coherence
and flow that is unusual in anthologies. The book is
suitable for use in undergraduate courses in STS and
other disciplines. The selections begin with predictions
of the future that range from forecasts of technological
utopia to cautionary tales.These are followed by
writings that explore the complexity of sociotechnical
systems, presenting a picture of how technology and
society work in step, shaping and being shaped by one
another. Finally, the book goes back to considerations
of the future, discussing twenty-first-century
challenges that include nanotechnology, the role of
citizens in technological decisions, and the
technologies of human enhancement. |
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