Politics and Products

Blog #17

Maria Kozdroy

11-1-14

Disclaimer: this blog is to be used as a response to class discussion and readings.

Politics and Products

            Engineers produce products that hold authority over politics.  Engineers are not the main reason though for the problems generated in society by the new technologies, but the way the product is used by consumers is the major problem with innovations and politics.  Government authorities try to suppress the economic and political effects of newly engineered technologies; the engineers themselves only used their knowledge in their product and have done nothing wrong.  The way in which the people use the technologies is what is causing harm and conflicts in society.  Therefore, artifacts do have politics, as proposed by Langdon Winner.  As for Woodhouse in Chapter 12 of his textbook The Future of Technological Civilization, he believes engineering is a highly political activity, as contributed by the engineers themselves.  In this blog post, I will argue that engineers drive politics because they have their own control over what products they decide to produce and implement, as foreseen by government.  Therefore as a result, engineers will continue producing, while politics struggles because of those few consumers that claim to dislike the products and misuse them, when in reality they contribute to the reason of political-innovation problems.

            The majority of products engineered today are set to a standard size.  There are, however, people of different sizes that really want to use and enjoy these technologies, but struggle with them.  The question now belies whether engineers should worry about this problem or not.  An example of this is with midgets and cars.  Car companies have been designing cars for decades now, under one generic size usually.  There are far less undergrown short people in the world, and car companies have been running smoothly with sales; there is no need to engineer a new machine to accommodate this low percentage of people that have simply learned to adjust to this problem.  Car companies’ main concern is to not lose sales and keep engineering cars to attract more people to purchase their new products.  This issue as viewed by a technological determinist, would agree with me; as for a social determinist of technology would say engineers should listen to society’s demands.  Engineers are the ones that drive society, as well as the consumer; however, the engineers make the decisions of what the public and consumers will eventually begin using. 

            In addition, the government demands engineers to produce war materials, for example drones.  Although some may find discontent with drones and wish to have them removed, the engineers do not need to stop producing them, as government has control over this.  Instead, the engineers of drones will only continue to do their job, unless they go on strike!

            It is indeed that artifacts, or engineered products, bestow their own politics.  As for the engineers themselves, they will continue designing and producing, and continue to follow the regulations posed by government.  I believe society should keep functioning this way because politics is derived through the way people behave; since twenty first century politics deals with the way people behave now but with new technologies.

Sources:

Woodhouse, Edward. The Future of Technological Civilization. Chapter 12.
Winner, Langdon. Do Artifacts Have Politics?