Beach Haven

​I embrace new tech. That said, I think too often we can be tempted to dump ‘better’ legacy tech in favor of the latest and greatest. We are tempted to move to new tech because it’s new.  The old curmudgeon in me has made me more skeptical of shiny things or change for change’s sake. It seems I’m not alone. IEEE’s Gwendolyn Rak recently interviewed Rachel Plotnick who has been considering how buttons once replaced by touch screens are making a comeback.

Here’s the link to the full interview:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/touchscreens

“One of the biggest observations I made was that a lot of fears and fantasies around pushing buttons were the same 100 years ago as they are today. I expected to see this society that wildly transformed and used buttons in such a different way, but I saw these persistent anxieties over time about control and who gets to push the button, and also these pleasures around button pushing that we can use for advertising and to make technology simpler. That pendulum swing between fantasy and fear, pleasure and panic, and how those themes persisted over more than a century was what really interested me. I liked seeing the connections between the past and the present.”

Plotnik notes how touch screens are more visual than tactile. This can make user interfaces difficult for visually impaired. Button are purely tactile.

“If you look at gamers playing video games, they want to push a lot of buttons on those controls. And if you look at DJs and digital musicians, they have endless amounts of buttons and joysticks and dials to make music. There seems to be this kind of richness of the tactile experience that’s afforded by pushing buttons. They’re not perfect for every situation, but I think increasingly, we’re realizing the merit that the interface offers.”

Personally, I tend to be agnostic when it comes to human interface with machines, specifically my human interfaces. However, I have long worried about the risk of losing a screen causing a total loss of the device it controls. I also don’t like distractions while driving. Looking at a touch screen on a phone has caused way more accidents than the half second it takes to find the volume or tuning knob on a car dashboard. Once you touch an actual button there is no longer need to look at it while using it.

“I like the idea that people who are in the humanities studying these things from a long-term perspective can also speak to engineers trying to build these devices.” That is, if engineering departments take user-experience feedback into account. There are plenty of designers out there who feel they ‘know better’ than the people who receive the devices and software they are cranking out. I would argue that sometimes there is more in the field of design about keeping up with the Jones’ than listening to consumers.
​
For a number of years, I attended the Washington DC auto show. I did this not to look at the cars, but to check out the ‘infotainment’ systems (also known as head units) in the dashboards. In my role at NPR back then I was interested in how our over-the-air audio and metadata was being displayed in the menu system of each car. The trend setters were definitely de-buttanizing back then. I’m happy to hear in this interview that the opposite may be happening now. Maybe it’s ok that I held onto that large stereo system in our family room. As the saying goes, ‘everything old is new again’.

It’s been my experience that when people think about cool new software advancements, they rarely think about the impact on physical hardware and what it takes to support that hardware. In a recent IEEE article titled “Generative AI Has a Massive E-Waste Problem” Katherine Bourzac does note the increased requirements of water and electrical grid load. The focus of her article is not on this environmental impact, nor the need for more raw materials to build new servers. Rather, her focus is on the need for evermore capable hardware platforms to run the evermore sophisticated algorithms that search growing databases. Predictive AI ‘learns’ patterns from all sorts of information sources. This approach is known as a large language model or LLM. As we collectively speed up our upgrades, Bourzac notes that it could result in 2.5 million tons of waste increase of old machines we get rid of in the process.

The author reminds us that, “electronic waste contains toxic metals and other chemicals that can leach out into the environment and cause health problems.” She shares that a staggering 62 million tons of e-waste was produced worldwide in 2022 alone. That means our e-waste is growing five times as fast as our ability to recycle it. To make it worse, Bourzac was only considering studies associated with LLM models of AI. There are others as well.

Despite the fact that our machines and the chips that run them get more efficient over time, the volume of systems is still growing. Bourzac recommends ‘downcycling’, meaning repurposing servers for more simple tasks such as web hosting. That prolongs usage so long as the equipment continues to function. At some point though, it will still become waste. Large tech firms have announced ‘sustainability goals’, but these generally relate to carbon footprint and not so much about e-waste. 

Here's the link to the article:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/e-waste

As Christmas quickly approaches, I hope each of you is also able to enjoy the spirit of the season. It’s the time of year we remember the birth of Jesus Christ. I remember my experience as a missionary at Christmas in Spain. Though it’s been more than 40 years ago, the memories are clear. It was both trying being away from family, and wonderful watching the gospel at work in the lives of people. I remember similar times away from home in the Navy, or for work, but nothing matches my time serving God.

I’ve been thinking about the talk Pres. Russell M. Nelson shared in 2022 titled ‘What is Truth?’. This topic has been close to my heart for a long time. It’s what drives me to seek wisdom, ‘even by study and by faith’. My PhD studies focus a lot on the intersection of facts, perspective, and truth.

About five years ago I noticed a bump on my forehead. It grew slowly, but noticeably. After nearly a year I had a doctor take a look. It was clear that it was under the skin and attached to my skull. As the doctor looked it over, he called my bump a lesion. He ordered up an ultrasound followed by an MRI. After the ultrasound, the bump/lesion name changed again to an occlusion. An ultrasound essentially looks at one side of the occlusion. That was the incentive for the MRI. After the MRI, the name changed again to an osteoma. It was described to me by the doctor in another way. He called it a benign bone tumor. The nature of the thing on my head never changed, but the technical tools used to look at it, and the names those tools inspired changed. So too did my level of stress over what it might mean for my future health. In the end, there is no health risk. Its growth stopped. If I ever want to have it go away, they can cut open my forehead and grind the bone. Sounds gross, and it’s not all that noticeable as it is. In fact, if I don’t mention it people generally don’t even notice. However, if I point it out, a person can’t help but notice.

This all seems analogous to truth to me. Truth does not change. It simply is, regardless what we call it, what we use to discover it, or how we feel about it. In my academic studies a large question is whether truth is 'discovered' or 'manufactured'. In the gospel sense, we seek truth through study and faith. For me, faith means doing. We can certainly understand some things intellectually. I assume you have met people who are ‘convinced’ of gospel truths, yet fail to commit. That’s because they are not willing to exercise faith by acting on invitations. What one believes is not the same as truth necessarily. It’s our individual responsibility to seek. Just like my bump, people often don’t notice the gospel until someone points it out to them. Then they can’t ignore it. They are forced to accept or reject. They can’t not consider it once they hear the word. That’s probably true of any idea, whether it be true or false, but gospel truth is only confirmed through BOTH study AND taking faith-based action.
​

Back in 2019 I posted a review of this book. I'm reposting it here as the entire work is a testament to when the stated outcome of a technology in fact has the opposite effect. As technology entered the home with the intent of making work for mother become easier, in fact all the it tended to do is lower work for everyone else in the home. While 'mother's' work surely changed, it did not abate. In deed, work may have increased for her with each new invention. Below is what I published back then.

MORE WORK FOR MOTHER
By Ruth Schawartz Cowan
Free Association Books, 1989, 257 pages

​Most Significant Arguments

In More Work for Mother, author Ruth Schwartz Cowan links changes in domestic work with changes brought about by technological advancements. She speaks to the separation of labor into work for women, men and children. As technology makes tasks easier, or even not needed, Cowan notes how most of the advancements replaces work done by men and children. Those technologies that do help with “woman’s” work removes the “need” to keep other women help in the home.

Examples of taking away work by men and children are often around cooking stoves and ovens. As gas and electricity replaced wood and coal, the need for gathering and preparing wood dissipates. The cooking work still exists, but the help to mother by father and children is lessened, or even eliminated. Washing machines are another example. As machines came into the home there was no longer a perceived need for sending laundry out or having a laundress come into the home. Although doing a load of laundry was less strenuous, at the same time expectation for cleanliness also increased so the amount of laundry work increased. The effect of both of these examples was that work eased, but for mother workload increased.

In the post-war era of the 1960’s and 1970’s work for women outside the home became more normal. Unlike when this happened during the depression when poor women worked outside the home out of necessity, women in general felt either need or opportunity to do so. In this case not just poor women began to work outside the home, but so too middle-class women. Despite this, the housework did not shift off of mother and onto the rest of the family. Cowan argues this is because the division of labor, masculine and feminine work, has been firmly entrenched in American culture. Entrenchment of the single family home and self-sufficiency in America also keeps alternate arrangements from succeeding such as communal work sharing.

Comparison with Other Readings

Jesse Adams Stein addresses the idea of masculine and feminine work in the piece Masculinity and Material Culture in Technological Transitions. She points to the government press operations in Australia to show how cultural assumptions mold division of labor. Unlike the Cowan work looking to the home, Stein is looking at work outside the home, in the printing press. There was a division of “men’s work” in the press at the time of the letterpress. Generally the argument was that running a letterpress machine took physical strength and the ability to know a machine’s quirks so well as to be able to run it properly. Both of these aspects were thought to be beyond a woman’s ability. In fact a few women here-and-there did run these machines, but found other ways of approaching the need to load type if the weight was too much for them. Then the disruption came was letterpress was supplanted as a technology by offset lithography. Male machinists fought moving from the heavier manual process as they defined themselves in that role. Even when offset lithography became the norm, pressmen still defined their role in masculine terms. Less skill was needed to run the machines, but the tradition of working a press had been masculine and change was slow. Similar to Cowan’s argument that housework was primarily looked at as feminine culturally, Stein argues that press work was primarily looked at as masculine culturally.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Cowan’s arguments are well laid out. The technical migration and the corresponding correlation to changes in housework seem natural and logical. Even her arguments about why some technologies or processes were chosen over others seem to work.

One area I question was her depiction of the shift from mother as consumer of services to mother as producer of services. The “products” of mother were keeping the family fed, healthy and clean. As the specific work to accomplish this shifted from others to mother, and the quality and quantity expectation rose, the result was increased work for mother. Cowan gives examples of the shift from consumer to producer such as less delivery to the home with availability of the car. Mother now had to go to the supermarket to get the food rather than having it delivered, or going to a local market by walking there. The supermarket came about because increased use of refrigeration allowed for more variety of food out of season. As expectation to deliver health and food to family included a more varied diet, mother produced transportation of food stuffs by driving to a supermarket that was not close enough to walk to, and would not deliver. She also needed the car to allow for larger loads of foodstuffs required by the increased variety in diet.

I would argue that it is a little more complicated. For example when mother walked to the local market to pick up food, that act is not unlike driving to the supermarket. She was a consumer of delivery before the car (delivery to home, delivery to local market). She is a consumer of delivery after the car (delivery to the supermarket). Like drawing lines in a system between what is in and out of the system, the line between consumer and producer can be difficult. Mother was, and is, both consumer and producer of food delivery both pre- and post-car. The question is where does one draw the line? One could pick at similar arguments given by Cowan on healthcare (doctor home visits vs mother taking a child to the clinic), education (home schooling vs getting the kids to a public school), etc.

The ideas in this work could appeal to students of history, technology, sociology, gender, etc. I think there is appeal here to lay readers as well. The conversations sparked between my wife and I were interesting. My helpfulness with Thanksgiving preparations certainly increased, but I found her unwilling to allow me to get involved in some of the work which seem to support Cowan’s culture entrenchment arguments. Spouses and children should be more aware of the burdens on mothers whether they work outside the home or not.

Bibliography
​Bhattacharjee, Y. (2020, January). A World of Pain. National Geographic.

Reading a deep-dive article about pain studies in the January 2020 issue of National Geographic, I noticed two instances describing how virtual reality (VR) was used to counteract pain successfully.

In the first, a patient is awake during surgery. A picture shows the person on a gurney with a surgeon hovered over him. Metal probes are sticking out of the man’s midsection. His face is covered with a VR headset. The note next to the picture describes how the patient plays a VR game called SnowWorld. The note further explains that during the procedure “he had one stabilizing pin removed from his pelvis” (Bhattacharjee, 2020, p. 49) with and another without the VR. The study “suggests VR could decrease the need for general anesthesia, reducing risk and cost”. 

In the other example, a chronic pain sufferer “watches a mesmerizing motion of jellyfish on a virtual reality headset” (Bhattacharjee, 2020, p. 61). This approach was said to help regulate “body responses to pain, improving mood, and reducing anxiety”.

VR displays at different media conferences I’ve attended for decades now, have been all about transporting a user into other worlds, be they natural like viewing ocean creatures or man-made like a video game. That’s been the base intent all along. I might argue it is likely that VR creators did not consider the pain-reduction potential of this particular technology. Mood modification is a part of the approach of most media. For example, music can pump up or relax the listener. Movies can evoke fear, excitement, sadness, or romance. Media as a form of escapism has a long history, but escaping pain might be a new take on the specific tech of VR.

I thought I’d take a stab at sharing ideas around a specific area that has long been an interest of mine. It’s probably fair to say that each of us has had to make decisions based on fewer facts than we would have liked. Even if we have a large amount of data, inevitably we can’t think of every possible effect our decisions have. We stumble along doing the best we can with what we know, and hope things generally turn out for the better (whatever we think ‘better’ means). Some of the results of our decisions are like medical side effects. Most of those side effects seem to be all about potential problems, but sometimes they result in a whole new area of benefit we hadn’t thought of.

Not all ‘unintendeds’ are ‘consequences’. That’s why I will stay away as much as possible from the moniker of ‘unintended consequences’. I’m sure in this new blog thread many of the stories will speak to such consequences, but there are also other unintended areas. For example, in the world of technology where I butter my bread, there are also often unintended uses that result from user experimentation. I supposed one could argue that’s a consequence, but I think of a consequence as an outcome, not as a ‘next step’ such as in the world of technological innovation. In that sense, targets of technology use the artifact in ways designers did not intend. That’s some fancy jargon to say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’.

Like most things I produce, this thread will be something my narcissistic side will create for myself. If someone out there is masochistic enough to follow along, I apologize in advance. Writing has become a sort of cheap therapy for me. If you choose to waste your time with this, think of it as me simply thinking out loud in an attempt to understand something of interest to myself. If that’s not the very definition of egocentric then I don’t know what is.

Let me start with a straight forward example. For years we lived in northern Virginia and I rode a commuter train into Washington DC for work. The train is called the Virginia Railway Express (VRE). From my stop on Brooke Road to Union Station in downtown DC the ride took about an hour. All sorts of people got on and off along the way. For example, it seemed like most riders I got to know were federal government employees of one sort or another. There were many military folks who wore uniforms. Tourists or visiting families were an obvious stand out on some days. People studying college courses of one sort or another could be identified with their books out and laptops busy doing homework. Dress ran the gamut from very casual to very formal.

I usually sat on one of the upper tier seats. You get a better view of the Potomac River from there. One day I noticed a young lady of maybe late 20s or early 30s sitting across from me in a similar seat position. After a while, she pulled out her phone and began staring at it and moving her head in the way one does while taking a selfie video. My old man eyeroll went unnoticed. My judgmental attitude was of course behind it. A few minutes later I glanced back and everything changed. My ‘get off my lawn’ brain had faded and my ‘techie’ brain engaged. She was obviously in the act of applying her makeup in preparation for the work day. Her clothing was quite professional, and everything about her seemed the opposite of my original assumption.

I am quite sure the inventors of the cellphone camera did not imagine themselves to be providing a makeup mirror when they added it to the base product. Yet, here it was. In the world of the swiss-army-knife of electronics, a tech user had managed to remove the jangling burdens piled into her purse by one more item thanks to the unintended use of the cellphone camera. Her makeup mirror has no doubt been relegated to the back of one of her bathroom drawers, and will likely never see the light of day again. A quick scan online these days produces a long list of makeup mirror apps that are downloadable to any 'smart' phone.

​Maybe in a future writeup I'll try to unpack the idea of the phrase 'smart phone'. At least I may have the intention to.

Bibliography
​Vifell, A. C., & Soneryd, L. (2013). Organizing Matters: How 'the Social Dimension' Gets Lost in Sustainability Projects. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 41(2), 104-113.

Review by Michael Beach

The authors examine sociality in sustainability projects from a specific framework of their own design. “We argue that the way sustainability projects are organized will affect how the social dimension is taken into consideration” (Vifell & Soneryd, 2013, p. 104). They describe projects based on three dimensions they call pillars: economic, ecological, and social. They note how organizations often have set project group forms and structures so reflection on whether those set social forms meet project requirements of the task at hand “is a rare phenomenon” (Ibid.). The authors assert that “a practice cannot be fully sustainable until all three dimensions are fulfilled” (Vifell & Soneryd, 2013, p. 106) meaning the three pillars, but they don’t really define the dimensions beyond their basic titles.

In order to examine the social dimension, they examine two case studies in Sweden: The Action Plan 2010 to Increase Organic Consumption and Production of Food Products and A Safe Radiation Environment. The first is a non-governmental campaign by The Ecological Forum to encourage increased ecological food production and a varied agricultural landscape. The second is a government response by The Swedish Radiation Protection Authority to public opposition to increasing 3G cellular services throughout the country of Sweden. Yes, this is about 3G cellular, but remember this study is from 2013.

The authors assume tasks associated with the two case studies are organized into projects, and that the sociality of groups working on the projects are reflected in the group ‘mind-set’. They examine how such mind-sets are defined and incorporated into project teams. The forms of mind-set they define are: open or narrow framing, action orientation, participation, and lastly knowledge gathering and production. The authors spend several pages defining in their own way what they mean for each of these dimensions. The paper then reviews each of the four dimensions are they are exhibited in the two specific cases.

Open/Narrow Framing - In the food production case, certain farming approaches were excluded as they became politically charged in Sweden. As a result, some specific groups advocating these farming approaches were also excluded. This leads the authors of this paper to put the effort more on the side of narrow project scope definition. There was no definition of ‘sustainable’ given as part of the project charter which made this part of the process more on the open side. In the radiation case, social sustainability was never specifically addressed. The points to be addressed by the project were given in a very specific list. The list related to already ongoing projects, so the authors consider that project as operating in a narrower frame.

Action Orientation - This question is couched by contrasting what might be done as opposed to encouragement to do what has already been decided to be done. In the food case, there had been several failed projects previous to this one. The steering group of the first version of this project resigned as a result. The new project focused on moving forward to finish the original plan, so clearly a desire to take some measurable action as a project group and not just encourage others to act. The action, though, was to complete previous decisions, so not necessarily action to come up with new approaches. In the radiation project, the group in charge, called the SSI, came up with a clear project plan that included tasks. Before they even involved other groups, they had an idea of what needed to get done.

Participation - As mentioned above, there were a number of organizations that participated in the agricultural project, but some specific ones with agendas that seemed to be too entrenched on politically hot issues in Sweden at the time were excluded. There was a steering group that headed the project with representation from more than one concerned organization involved in the related topics of encouraging increased food production at all levels. In addition, there were synthesis groups used to gather relevant knowledge. No socially focused group was created as the goal was to find equilibrium between food supply and demand. When the first steering group felt as if they could not meet the goals they dissolved. The second group did not change the focus, but sought to complete the original approach. They felt like the most extreme views were getting in the way of the first steering committee and decided to take out group members with those views to allow progress. In the radiation case, all the participants were officials at SSI so they invited some additional actors with a wide range of perspectives to join the conversation. The idea was to create an approach as “a forum for tuning the suggested measures or new or re-formulated objectives” (Vifell & Soneryd, 2013, p. 110).

Knowledge Production - In the agriculture example, content was produced by the six synthesis groups on various topics. The group indicated a need for some statistics to help inform decisions. As it turned out, industry organizations were skeptical the data could be produced. The second steering committee took the synthesis group reports, tacked them onto the end of the steering committee plan as appendices, then stuck to their own plan. Knowledge was a highly contested issue in the radiation case. Trust in information from specific organizations was deemed suspect by some committee members. The group organized sub-groups to participate in brainstorming sessions on specific topics, noting problems and potential solutions. Later ideas were distilled to more realistic approaches. Since the goal was to reduce or control radiation, in the end, social issues raised were simply declared as out of scope.
​
The paper’s conclusions are helpful if one adopts the specific three sustainability dimensions and the four frames as the authors describe them. It’s one way to try to account for the aimed-for social dimension of the two projects reviewed. It could be more helpful for project teams, such as those involved in the agriculture and radiation projects in Sweden, to include some similar framework in their own up-front project planning. Even if such a project team chooses to ignore social factors on their decisions, at least they would be doing so consciously.

 

In several articles National Geographic authors describe various topics connected with slavery and the ship known as the Clotilda. This particular ship is noted because it was the last ship to bring enslaved people from Africa to the United States. The final voyage was after a law was past that made it illegal to bring new slaves to this country, though the law at that point did not make slavery itself illegal. The ship owners and crew were obviously aware they were breaking the law because they offloaded their cargo in clandestine ways. As soon as they did, they sailed her up a river where they burned and sank the ship.

The series of articles includes depictions of the technology of the ship Clotilda itself. There is a series of maps (another form of technical knowledge) depicting slave-ship routes and numbers of enslaved people forced along each of the routes between Africa and various parts of North America, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. For example, the map shows how mainland North America received 307,000 slaves directly. At the same time over 4 million were taken to the Caribbean, many later were moved into North America, or the products they created directly benefited North American people. The map shows around 3.8 million were sent to mainland South America, with perhaps similar North American benefit. One other bit of technology I’d like to mention is the use of modern underwater tools to find and document the final whereabouts of the Clotilda. Underwater archaeology was not really possible to any extent even in the early part my lifetime. Here we are today with sophisticated imaging to find anomalies that we can then directly approach and explore in the water environment.

Archives and media are other forms of communication technology here. Sales of humans were documented, but so were the aftermath events to the people who were Clotilda victims. This issue of the National Geographic magazine describes the lives of some of them after emancipation, and their efforts to settle a new town that still exists today. Africatown, AL still has buildings built by its founders, many of whom were Clotilda survivors and their descendants.

As one who studies societal effects of technology and technological effects by social issues, I’m reminded by this series of stories how human aims drive technical development for well or ill. Acts of both evil and good were facilitated by and inspired creation of specific forms of technology. These kinds of stories remind me why the ideas of technological determinism are relegated to former thought, and themes of co-production are more generally accepted. Specific technical expression is not inevitable, but influenced. Social choice is not driven by technical advances, but both change each other. For example, despite all our access to online texts, when we lost electrical power in our home this past winter my hands and eyes turned to hard-copy. When I spend long hours in a car my ears turn to the same content through hands-free connectivity. These options and their use came to be by choice and the inspiration of necessity. None of that technical expression was inevitable.

Bibliography
Bourne, Joel K. 2020. "Cruel Commerce." National Geographic, February: 52.
—. 2020. "Saving Africatown." National Geographic, February: 61-65.
Brasted, Chelsea. 2020. "Owning the Past." National Geographic, February: 66-67.
Diouf, Sylviane. 2020. "Journey of No Return." National Geographic, February: 53-55.
 

Bissonnette, Andréanne. 2020. ""Caged Women": Migration, Mobility and Access to Health Services in Texas and Arizona." Journal of Borderlands Studies 1-22.
 
Andréanne Bissonnette described to us the concept of the ‘golden cage’. It’s a zone from the US and Mexico border internal within the first 100 miles inside the US side of the border. Within that zone there are numerous checkpoints. Within the golden cage, presumed migrants can be stopped and questioned without probable cause. If a migrant attempts to leave the zone they risk running the checkpoints, yet healthcare is essentially impossible for them within the area.
 
Bissonnette also pointed out that healthcare is difficult outside the golden cage for a host of reasons. Many lack of insurance. Fear of accessing healthcare, lack of language skills, and fear of having their immigration status checked at a clinic are examples of difficulties. Many immigrants are often unaware of where to access medical care. They may believe they need insurance for COVID vaccine.
 
Location matters. There are different laws from one state to another. Despite what laws exist in a given state, application of laws varies among locations within a state. Hesitancy by migrants to access healthcare could cause them to wait until a health issue becomes acute, putting increased strain on trauma centers and emergency rooms in locations with high migrant populations.
 
One area of a conversation I attended with Bissonnette was about how healthcare might encourage circular migration. On either side of a border different types of healthcare are available. For example, some medicines may require a prescription on one side and not the other. If an immigrant has a US social security number (their own or one they have assumed) they may be able to better access some aspects of healthcare on the US side of the border. With or without it, there may be better access on the Mexican side to other types of healthcare. An immigrant may be motivated to live closer to the border if they have healthcare needs that would be better addressed on the Mexican side.
 
I’d like to combine the ideas of healthcare and circular migration to question the concept of the golden cage. In class I shared my experience working in a high-end hotel while an undergraduate student. Much of the housekeeping and janitorial staff at the time were Hispanic. One day the US immigration services (‘la migra’) showed up at the hotel in force. They went through the hotel checking identification for Hispanic staff. This was well outside the golden cage region so they must have had some sort of warrant based on previous investigation, or at least one would hope that was the case. I saw the officers load about a dozen young male Hispanics into a large van waiting outside the hotel about an hour after they first entered the building. I had been friends with many of those taken away, often practicing speaking Spanish with them.
 
Several weeks passed, then suddenly these same employees were back working at the hotel in the same jobs they had been taken from. I asked several of them what had happened. Their answers were all the same. The US immigration officers had transported them back to Mexico City. From there they used their own money to visit family for a few weeks, then made the same journey they previously had in crossing the border into the US and back to the hotel. Management at the hotel allowed them to resume their jobs using the same documentation previously on file with Human Resources. One could question that management ethic, yet it is likely not unique to this specific employer. Clearly this was a circular migration. The original migration to the US was economic-based. The migration back to Mexico was forced. The return to the US was again economic. They were obviously not limited in mobility by the idea of the golden cage.
 
How about healthcare? The hotel did offer health insurance to full-time employees. I have no idea if any of these young men were full-time or part-time, but with whatever documentation offered to the hotel that was good enough for employment, one would presume the same documentation was good enough for the employer to provide the insurance benefit. It’s clear this same documentation was not good enough for immigration service officers. At the same time, one could imagine that young healthy people with no healthcare mandate as we have today might simply opt out of health insurance, perceiving no need as so many other young people do.
 
Given this experience, it’s clear there are reasons for circular migration that are completely unrelated to healthcare. In fact, healthcare in my example likely played no part of migration in either direction, and may have had nothing to do with the thoughts of these migrants.
 
In the case of these particular young immigrants, the checkpoints of the golden cage were basically meaningless. They were able to easily circumvent them at least twice. The fact that so many who cross the border illegally end up in literally every part of the US is itself evidence that checkpoints are not effective in containing migrants within the 100-mile zone. In this sense, perhaps healthcare does act as some incentive for migrants who feel a need to access clinics south of the border. Mobility may be possible for longer distances from the border, but likely becomes more difficult as distance from the border increases. If this is true, the golden cage might be less about being ‘trapped’ by check points and more about the cost and time required to voluntarily engage in circular migration for healthcare purposes, or any other motivation.
 
One related point, as many migrant workers have some documentation, valid or not, which allows them to work, they can also share their earnings as remittances to family in their home country. That may also mean they manage a bank account that allows them to transfer money. In the case of my former hotel associates, having a bank account would have facilitated accessing funds from within Mexico needed to return to the US. That same money and documentation, one could presume, could permit them to access healthcare outside the golden cage. This particular community was close knit. Most were bilingual. It’s very likely they shared information with each other on how and where they could best access healthcare if needed. The bilingual skill was not true for all of them, and there are plenty examples of migrants who don’t speak English, but I wonder how strong the language impact is. So long as some of the community can research on behalf of others, the language barrier may be less impactful. In the case of long-term migrant residents where their children grow up in the US, children become the interpreter on behalf of their non-English-speaking parents. I have seen this over the years where fairly young migrants must help their parents navigate a number of services. This can reverse family dynamics by reversing family roles.
 
My conclusion is the idea of a golden cage may be less impactful than Bissonnette’s research suggests. It’s true my logic is based on anecdotal experience and may be lacking, but the experience is real and not isolated.

Foucault, Michel. 2008. ""Panopticism" from Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison." Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts (Indiana University Press) 2 (1): 1-12.
 
​One of Foucault’s central arguments about the motivation for a panopticon is that a facility (prison, hospital, school, etc.) could be open to the public for random ‘inspection’. Proponents suggest this approach could counter the risk of a ‘Potemkin village’. One obvious counter is the practicality of actual inspection. All of those environments are intended to be secure either from or for those inside.

Foucault’s work was published in 1975. Technology has changed dramatically since then. Although the physical domains he spoke about remain, much of security is more about the virtual domain today. Many government and financial institutions stress the need to monitor (surveil?) in a global version of a virtual panopticon. We all now wonder, who is watching us through online technology, or when, or how? Are we at risk of violence from the other ‘inmates’? Will someone enter our virtual ‘hospital room’ to hold our ‘treatment’ hostage?

It seems as if one could make the argument that in our current state-of-the-art, all the same arguments for and against the physical panopticon exist. Those in power can justify ever-increasing levels of intrusion in the name of security. Those out to take advantage of the vulnerable constantly look for ways around the system. Most of us are less versed about the technological means and must make a decision between varying levels of security, access to services, and freedom. Another direction could be to opt out of online life. Like the Potemkin village, that is becoming less and less an option. As physical businesses become ever more virtual (or at least hybrid physical/virtual) our ability to remain ‘old-school’ (offline) continues to decrease. Pandemics also discourage use of cash in favor of a third-party account.

Ihde, Don. 2009. "A Phenomenology of Technics." In Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 76-97. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

In Don Ihde’s work A Phenomenology of Technics, he proposes three specific variants describing the relationship of humans with the world by way of technology. One central argumentative claim Ihde proposes is that humans have no relationship with the world except in relation with technology.

If interaction with the world involves anything manipulated by humans beyond the natural naked body, and one considers everything manipulated by humans beyond the natural naked body as technology, then Ihde has a point. He seems to contend that anything manipulated in order to shield one from the elements, or extend natural human ability is technology. There could be an argument made against such an assumption in that a natural part of humans is an intellect that leads to the creation of shielding or ability-extending devices.

Ihde claims that as technology becomes less demanding, less interactive, then it becomes a lesser part of human life. What about when we are not using more demanding tech? What about any tech at all when not viewed as separate from who or where we are? Could the human-technology-world relationship variants include another where the parentheses encompasses all three? Is there a time when people don’t view the world through tech or as tech, but rather humans and tech and the world are all wrapped into one, not separate? If people see themselves immersed in both technology and the world, they perhaps see themselves as integrated with both (like a fish in water?). In this view, whatever shape the tech and the world have become in a person’s individual life, the relationships are not separate. For example, a person is hiking the Appalachian Trail and simultaneously checking their position on a GPS map (or paper map for that matter). In some ways the person is experiencing nature through the hiking clothes, the trail, the map, the GPS, and the smart phone with the map and GPS. At the same time, they are out in nature, and taking in the sights, sounds, smells, and textures.  Does that mean that the person has a relationship with the natural world and the socially-constructed world separately at the same time?

Vallor, Shannon. 2015. "Moral Deskilling and Upskilling in a New Machine Age: Reflection on the Ambiguous Future of Character." Philosophy of Technology (28): 107-124.

Shannon Vallor links the use of automation through technology with a loss of ‘traditional’ moral values in the form of moral deskilling. I wonder if really the phenomenon is less about moral deskilling, and more about moral reskilling. Does an adjustment of morals exist with any technology, not just those described as ‘new’ or ‘automation’? Here is what I mean. There exists an argument from the likes of popular personality Mike Rowe which says that working with one’s hands is just as valuable as working with one’s mind (https://www.mikeroweworks.org/). This version of the Vallor argument is about equal value. For Rowe, value is linked to individual pay, but also a kind of mindset, a work ethic. I’ve heard a more snobbish version of the argument pro and con intellectual (or information-based) professions or the craft trades in which people take the position that one is more noble or important than the other.

The question that Vallor brings to the fore a number of times throughout the article is about what technology does with us, not just what it does for us. She argues in favor of a technomoral in that technology and character are not separate spheres. Whether one takes either the extreme position of one work ethic is more important than others, or the Mike Rowe position that the ethics are different but equally important, both of these perspectives is an agreement with Vallor on the co-shaping influence of a technomoral. Can differing technomorals coexist in society? To Vallor’s point, that would depend on how one defines society. 
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Light, Andrew. 2009. "Ecological Restoration and the Culture of Nature: A Pragmatic Perspective." Chap. 30 in Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 452-467. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

What is Included in Philosophy?

In his article, Andrew Light focuses on the philosophical niche of environmentalism. His main argument is that philosophy should take a role informing activists, policy makers, and the public at large on ecological issues. “If we talk only to each other about value theory, we have failed…” (p. 453). To support this strong statement, Light argues from the specific perspective of ecology. Can such a normative pronouncement be generalized to other niche areas of philosophy, or even to philosophy in general?

In order to plead support for philosophical activism, Andrew Light examines the specific controversy of ecological restoration. The controversy is a normative should question. Should humanity invest in projects intended to restore ecosystems that have been changed through human activity? He examines positions by philosophers such as Robert Elliot and Eric Katz who are against any restorative attempts on several grounds; we have neither obligation nor ability, and any attempts yield artifacts not nature.

Light argues in favor of what he calls ‘benevolent restoration’ on a number of grounds. He notes how even an imperfect restoration can free nature to grow and replace itself where man starts the process. Without any effort by humans, nature often cannot replace itself in damaged areas except with maybe something completely different than what once was. He calls this catalyst approach ‘intermediate communication’. Light further points to how such attempts at restoration tend to restore a culture of nature, if not nature itself. This last point seems similar to Bruno Latour’s position that when a human actor and a technological actant join, it can result in something entirely different than either inter-actor would create on its own. Light calls this interaction “firsthand exposure… to the actual consequences of human domination of nature” (p. 464).
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This line of reason by Light is persuasive to one who may already be inclined to support ecological issues, but doesn’t actually make the case of why philosophy should do more than contemplate. For example, is sharing philosophical perspective with activists, policy makers, and the public more akin to scientific communications than philosophy?

Feenberg, Andrew. 2005. "Critical Theory of Technology: An Overview." Tailoring Biotechnologies 1 (1): 47-64.

Andrew Feenberg concludes that Critical Theory of Technology is “the argument of our time” (p. 63). How can the philosophy of technology “join together… potentiality and actuality – norms and facts – in a way no other disciplines can rival” (Ibid.)?

That’s a strong claim. Feenberg seems to be saying that other disciplines do not have the ability to synthesize both theoretical and empirical approaches as well as not just the philosophy of technology, but the specific version of philosophy of technology known as Critical Theory. Perhaps a key focal point to his description of this approach is in the idea of recontextualization. Criticism (analysis) of technology leads to decontextualization. Try as we humans might, we are not able to fully separate technology from its context. The result is a redefinition of context. Feenberg claims these attempts tend to minimize social constraints, but not fully eliminate them. In an attempt to redefine social context, risk still exists that social and political decisions are biased due to unequal power.
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Is that really what happens? This line of reasoning seems to answer the theoretical portion of Feenberg’s conclusion. What of the empirical? He notes how “technical advances break down the barriers between spheres of activity” (p.62). Although he advocates critical theory of technology, it’s not clear that there are no other approaches that are able to reconcile “many apparently conflicting strands of reflection on technology” as he claims (Ibid.).

Latour, Bruno. 2009. "A Collective of Humans and Nonhumans: Following Daedalus's Labryrinth." Chap. 11 in Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 156-167. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
 
Bruno Latour is a seminal author in the field of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) as the architect of a set of ideas that have come to be known as actor-network theory (ANT). This excerpt was originally a portion of chapter 6 of one of his published books titled Pandora’s Hope. One of the base tenets of ANT is that anyone, or anything, or any group can be considered an actor (or more precisely an actant) in a network supporting a technological system. The more actors/actants in a supportive system, the more accepted the system is. Eventually, a heavily supported system is no longer scrutinized. It fades into the background as a nested system or ‘black box’ that nobody questions anymore.

This particular piece is focused on the idea of technical mediation, or ways in which one node in an ANT network influences another. Interference is a mediation when agent 1 enlists agent 2, and together they become agent 3. For example, a person enlists a gun, and together they become a killer. Composition is a mediation where an actor’s goal becomes interrupted by some obstacle, they seize another agent and return to the original goal (overcomes the obstacle). Folding of time and space is another mediation for Latour. In this example goals are redefined by nonhuman actants. A speed bump slows us down in a parking lot, not so much because we don’t want to injure a pedestrian, rather we don’t want to injure our car. The designers and builders of the speed bump are not present at the time when we cross the so-called ‘sleeping policeman’, yet use of technology by them in the present adjusts (mediates) our action with the technology of the car and the parking lot. The speed bump and the technology to create the speed bump are nested black boxes to the larger system of transportation through cars and roads. The last mediation is about crossing the boundary between signs and things. A change in technology is used to modify behavior, and behavior modifies the technology. Parking lot speed signs and painted crosswalks are intended to serve the same purpose as a speed bump. If a parking lot owner decides the technology of speed limit signs and painted lines do not invoke the behavioral change of slowing down, then the behavior inspires the addition of a speed bump, which in turn modifies the behavior of not slowing down.

The biggest critique of Latour and ANT has been his emphasis on actors, and ignoring of non-actors. If a person, thing, or group does not directly affect a technological decision, then they are effectively ignored. In the speed bump example, what of those who never drive? What of those who ride bicycles or walk? What of those who pay no taxes to fund the road or parking lot? For Latour they are not considered, but tax payers who don’t drive are also not considered since they have no direct impact on the technology. Despite this, the technology has some impact on them since they pay taxes, though any one person’s taxes are not directly attributed to the individual project of the speed bump.
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The basic concept of mediation is a large one in philosophy, including to the specific branch of philosophy of technology. Are technological artifacts a result of societal values? Are societal values shaped by the technology available to a given society? Do society and technology ‘co-construct’? Is there an intent within a specific artifactual device? Is the device neutral, and the intent only lies within the person or society creating or employing the device? These are basic concerns of philosophy.

The attached version of the reviewed article is from an alternate source.

Brey, Philip. 2009. "Philosophy of Technology Meets Social Constructivism: A Shopper's Guide." Chap. 7 in Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 98-111. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, and Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
 
In his ‘Shopper’s Guide’ approach to spelling out ways social constructivism could compliment the philosophy of technology, Philip Brey offers at least a partial answer to Langdon Winner. The latter had judged in previous writings that if one were to open the proverbial black box of Bruno Latour, one would find no tangible additions to philosophy by social constructivists. Winner argued this was because social constructivism harbored definitions that are too narrow in scope. To Brey, social constructivism does examine areas Winner claimed it was ignoring.

Philip Brey offers generalized descriptions of the ‘strong’ and ‘mild’ approaches of research (his shopper's guide). He agrees that the strict adherence to the symmetry principle in the strong program can inhibit some, but not all, philosophical supporting research. He claims the philosophy of technology is too abstract. It does not examine any particular technology or its impacts. Testable arguments within the philosophy of technology are often not supported by empirical evidence, he notes. Experiments and data derived through social constructivist research, Brey argues, can help philosophers of technology construct more realistic theories.

​For Brey, artifacts are socially shaped, but also embody a script that can influence outcomes. Social constructivism, he argues, allows normative and evaluative philosophical analyses of technology and its impacts not otherwise possible. He does temper his argument stating, “these approaches, if valid, do suggest new directions for the philosophy of technology” (p. 108). Brey had suggested throughout the article that the proverbial black box was not empty as Winner suggested, but was filling up as social constructivist research expanded, and rigid adherence to the symmetry principle was vacillating. One could argue that this idea of adjustment to the symmetry principle results in something other than social constructivism. Brey weakens his argument by adding the caveat “if valid” to his closing statement.

​The attached version of the reviewed article is from an alternate source.

Anyone who knows me also knows that I’m not some sort of radical tree-hugger. At the same time, anyone who knows me also knows I’ve spent a lot of time in the wilds of this world, and I care about the planet. I do believe that God gave Adam and Eve and their descendants (us) a stewardship to take care of this world. There are many people who take political positions on both extremes of what we used to call conservation. Some would either seek to push us into paths that would have a strong negative impact on human life and livelihood through an overly restrictive approach. Others seek deeper exploitation with little-to-no restriction. In the midst of such heated polemics, I’m always happy to see good ideas that are neither irrationally restrictive, nor blatantly exploitative. I like practical ideas that are actually put into use.

While we were visiting relatives over the holidays this past year, my father-in-law decided I would be a target for his efforts to ‘spring clean’. For Christmas he gave me a stack of his National Geographic magazines, yes the printed variety. I’m already up to my eyeballs in reading between work, school, church, and even the occasional pleasure-read. Having yet another reading pile wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. On the other hand, I have respect for this particular brand, even if their TV channel seems less and less to mission. Last month I randomly pulled one out, and unlike the TV version, I was not disappointed.

The edition is from March of 2020. There is good story variety in this particular publication. Rather than add to anyone else’s paper pile, I’ll include a link to the online version of this specific edition. Then anyone can follow up if they have a mind to, and we won’t need to ship around a re-gift.

The main headline is an evocative assertion: “The End of Trash”. Although that statement seems unlikely, the focus is on ideas related to a circular economy with a growing emphasis on turning our waste into something useful. Although not completely circular, the idea of generating power through incineration is also not a new one. Since plastics are derived from petroleum products one could argue this approach is not that different from other electric generation plants burning carbon-based fuels. While that may be true, modern burning approaches do seem to produce fewer emissions then in the past. Using stored petroleum in the form of plastics can also reduce pumping demand. It does require transport, but so does every other form of energy in some way. Even wind or solar require manufacture and physical shipment for installation. In my opinion, nothing people do is truly neutral.

One interesting approach to trash incineration documented in the story is in Copenhagen, Denmark (my wife’s people) where they built a year-round skiing complex to hide the entire incinerator and the large pile of trash awaiting its demise. If we ever visit that town I will certainly be making some turns on the roof-top.

Here is a link to the edition:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/issue/march-2020
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Here is a link to the specific story on trash and the circular economy:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/how-a-circular-economy-could-save-the-world-feature

Jonas, Hans. 2009. "Technology and Responsibility." In Readings in thye Philosophy of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 173-184. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
 
Hans Jonas looks closely in this article at how technological change drifts inherently toward a Utopian set of actions. Utopian could be thought of in the sense that people effect change to make things ‘better’. One has to ask - what does better mean? Jonas specifically asks - what force (or insight, or value-knowledge) represents the future in the present? How one views a future that ‘ought to be’ reflects one’s technological decisions today.
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Like others who examine ‘modern technology’, Hans Jonas makes the case that the pace and potential lasting effects (positive or negative) have outstripped our ability to adjust ethical wisdom. Former technological change was slow enough that we could examine potential outcomes through an ethical lens, and that ethical lens could be adjusted as societies gained technological knowledge. The knowledge we lack about new ethics is more urgently needed, he suggests, but wisdom is not gained urgently. The ethic of thou shalt not kill only exists because of our capacity to kill. Our capacity now has global implications both for humanity and for nature, though one can also argue that these are not independent of each other. Jonas notes how our capacity to bring about irreversible effects has likewise grown.

The attached version of the reviewed article is from an alternate source.

Winner, Langdon. 1993. "Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Technology." Science, Technology, & Human Values (Sage Publications, Inc.) 18 (3): 362-378.

Empty? Full? Something in Between?

In this article, Langdon Winner champions the need to look more closely at technical artifacts, the varieties of technical knowledge, and social actors. He views these research focus areas as black boxes much as Bruno Latour describes the concept in actor-network theory (ANT). He notes how constructivism also helps us consider these as well as the “interpretive flexibility of technical artifacts” (p. 366). Winner describes this sort of constructivist research as a narrow understanding of society in terms of ‘environment’ or ‘context’ that influences technology choices made. As helpful as this approach is, Winner argues that the narrowness of this perspective disregards important questions.

For Winner, the constructivist approach is a backward looking perspective with focus on technological origin and adoption. While constructivists note how context influences technology choice, it’s proponents often leave out social consequences that result once a technical choice is made. Constructivism tends to adhere to Latour’s concept of networks. By considering only those identified as actors who directly influence a given technology, groups considered ‘irrelevant’ are simply left out. ANT in particular notes dynamics of immediate needs, interests, problems, and solutions. While perhaps partially fulfilling some or all of those societal concerns, Winner notes the same technology often erodes community such as modern communications that can encourage human isolation.
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By concentrating current and past interaction of technology and society, Winner points out, constructivism is essentially ignoring judgement (political, moral) of social use of artifacts. Temporally, he says, this is looking only at the present and the past with no thought toward potential futures. For Winner, this is a partial view that leaves empty the ‘black box’ constructivists claim to be opening up for examination. Couldn’t one argue instead that such an approach is not looking at an empty box, but perhaps conducting a partial inspection of the contents?

Marcuse, Herbert. 2009. "The New Forms of Control." In Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 34-42. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
 
Review by Michael Beach

This article was shared in the aggregate referenced book, but is really the first chapter of a book written by Harbert Marcuse titled One-Dimensional Man. In the Marcuse reading The New Forms of Control, he argues, among other things, that use of mass media is one technological mechanism intended to align inner-dimension personal needs with outer-dimension societal (repressive) needs. The higher the personal level of indoctrination, the more the standards of priority align. Marcuse uses this idea of a societal need to indoctrinate as an implication of the two-dimensional person. ‘Society’ uses technology such as mass media to bring individual needs toward a goal of mimesis. When that societal goal is reached, the individual is now really one-dimensional. There is no longer any difference between personal or societal needs as expressed through technology adoption.

Marcuse wrote this in 1964. Mass media then was quite different from today. Television and radio broadcast channels, as well as newspapers and magazines, were essentially the communication technologies of the day. Marcuse focuses primarily on broadcast media, rightfully for the time in that these were the primary information and entertainment sources of most people, at least in many western cultures. Since then media have fractionalized considerably. One can make the argument that narrowcast two-way media is having the opposite effect as Marcuse depicts. As people have ever more choices, and increasing control over the sources they rely on for information, the number of ‘societies’ available through technical means has grown. Membership in any one society or culture has decreased. Many people even find themselves in multiple cultures simultaneously. Mistrust grows by way of technology in those cultures (societies) to which one chooses not to belong. Maybe this still makes each person one-dimensional as Marcuse implies. Does it also mean each ever-more-specialized society now adjusts its needs to match individuals in order to have enough ‘membership’ in order to exist? Is it the society that becomes more one-dimensional?

The attachment is of the specific reference above, but is the entire work. This article only reviews chapter 1. 

Heidegger, Martin. 2009. "The Question Concerning Technology." In Readings in the Philosophy          of Technology, edited by David M. Kaplan, 9-24. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto,                      Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
 
Review by Michael Beach

In this seminal article on the topic of the philosophy of technology, Martin Heidegger seeks to define the essence of technology. He approaches this subject through a series of interconnected vocabulary. The essence, he says, is enframing which he defines as a destining or revealing. Other words in the circular argument include calling-forth, ordering, unconcealment, and setting-upon. In one sense, nature is a resource, a standing-reserve. Heidegger speaks further of a danger to ‘man’. If one is not careful, he says, humankind becomes a force of ordering up nature’s standing-reserve. If, then, man is only in the role of ordering up reserves in order to unconceal (reveal) technology, then man also becomes a standing-reserve in the destining of nature as technology. This risk Heidegger defines as danger, but notes that in that very danger man can find the saving power of recognizing the true essence of technology. To Heidegger, the highest dignity of man is in keeping watch over unconcealment of all nature and technology coming to presence.

Martin Heidegger is a foundational author in this branch of philosophy. All subsequent practitioners are forced to address his ideas. Historically, his works were published in the early 20th century. Heideggarians are forced to also consider his role in the Nazi regime of Hitler’s Germany. His arguments help to see technology beyond the simple ideas of technology-as-applied-science, or as human attempts to alter the natural world. For Heidegger, there is a difference between technology that sets nature in order such as subsistence farming, and technology that sets-upon nature such as coal mining. The former simply uses nature more or less as it is to benefit man. The latter increases nature, or changes natural processes. In the coal example, the sun changes energy into coal. Man then extracts the coal, distributes it, and then removes the heat to create other kinds of energy such as electricity. That energy is further distributed, and is again converted into heat, or mechanical energy for yet other uses, and so on.

One weakness of Heidegger’s argument is its circularity. Often he uses words to define other words in a chain which eventually is used to help define the words he used to start the definition chain. Some of this struggle comes from his use of Greek words that he explains in his original text written in German, then later translated into English for the version this review is concerned with. 

The posted pdf version of this article is from a source different from the opening reference.

Guldi, Jo. 2019. "Parliament's Debates About Infrastructure: An Exercise in Using Dynamic Topic Models to Sythesize Historical Change." Edited by Suzanne Moon. Technology and Cuture: The International Quarterly of the Society for the History of Technology (Johns Hokins University Press) 60 (1): 1-33.

Reviewed by Michael Beach

This article looks at data generated through text mining of debates held in British Parliament regarding social infrastructure from 1800 through 1890 with the specific intent to “test the usefulness of text-mining methods” (p.3) for a specific microhistory and for synthesized macrohistorical trends. The study links infrastructure words with specific project types, and also shows how evolving infrastructure terms show government priority shifts over time. Guldi intends to show how the data can “reveal new tensions and turning points that characterized the uptake of infrastructure” (Ibid.) over time.

Historians have long debated the usefulness of looking at a microhistory and extrapolating trends in macrohistory, or how such trends can be read into individual microhistorical events. One example shared based on the word association data was the amount of infrastructure debate investment Parliament put toward piers and dredging in the River Shannon. As expected there was more attention to major needs on River Thames, but what is surprising was how such a lesser-known body of water like River Shannon attracted so much attention. For example it is mentioned considerably more than work destined for the Nile, Clyde, Trent and Severn rivers, all of which the author notes as having more significant economic value.

The data tables offered are persuasive in terms of how computer-based datamining can quickly find these historical shifts not easily captured otherwise. Guldi ultimately concludes that micro- and macrohistories complement each other. This larger conclusion seems more opinion than can be synthesized from the arguments made through the word-association data. Historians of technology are the specific intended audience, but historians in general may find such a computer-based tool helpful in other areas of research.