Beach Haven

LEVIATHAN AND THE AIR-PUMP
HOBBES, BOYLE, AND THE EXPERIMENTAL LIFE
By Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer
Princeton University Press, 1985, 391 pages
Review by Michael Beach

This history covers an important time in the history of scientific thought. Many scholars consider the 17th century as the ‘scientific revolution’. Many famous discoveries took place around this time. The history under review here speaks to a major debate of the time. Represented by Robert Boyle were those who believed in experimentation as the basis of knowledge production. Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, questioned experimentation, preferring philosophical debate as the basis for coming to understanding. Boyle argued that we should believe our eyes, yet so much of experimentation is ‘managed’ that even today debate over knowledge construction versus knowledge discovery continues.
 
The reading claims that “many aspects of the programme that he (Boyle) recommended continue to characterize modern scientific activity and philosophies of scientific method” (p. 341).  Yet the pump experiments varied in both makeup and outcome. Theories also varied from pump to pump and outcome to outcome. Did facts created by experiments explain the various theories, or did the various theories serve to explain the facts noted in the experiments? When one interprets facts, are they interpreting whether something is a fact, or are they interpreting the meaning of the fact itself?
 
There also seems to be an interesting power balance issue. Hobbes had a connection with the king. You’d think that would have caused his arguments to carry more weight. Yet Hobbes was not accepted into The Royal Society (a prominent British scientific association). The authors offered a long set of examples of speculation by others as to why that was.  Some of the arguments surrounded Hobbes’ personality, yet Shapin and Schaffer show how some accepted members were perhaps more surly than Hobbes.
 
It may have come down to the fact that Boyle had members of The Royal Society act as witnesses to his air-pump experiments and even sign affidavits to the effect. At the same time Hobbes questioned the need for repeated experiments, or at times any experiments. By questioning the intellectual approach of the use of ingenuity (p. 130), which for Hobbes and his detractors was understood to be a slant, he put himself at odds with what amounted to be much of the collective thought leadership at the time. Reliance on the mechanical ‘tricks’, as he put it, was to denote something less than true philosophy.
 
Hobbes wrote a treatise on knowledge and science published in 1651 which he titled Leviathan. Aside from Hobbes’ negative portrait of experimentalists, most members of the Society looked at Hobbes as too dogmatic, including this publishing.
 
Whatever one believes to be the ultimate issue, the authors clearly state, “The rationalistic production of knowledge threatened that involved in the Royal Society’s experimentalism” (p. 139). Hobbes made an interesting assertion that many would still argue today. He depicted Boyle’s experiments as being based on his own assumptions about the nature of air. Likewise, it’s clear that Hobbes also had preconceived ideas. In fact, both Boyle and Hobbes came to what today would be thought of as false conclusions about what was happening inside the vacuum created by the pump. One could argue Boyle pre-decided the outcome of the experiments, the matters of fact, based on his ideas around the nature of air. Likewise, Hobbes essentially argued to ignore the experiments since the interpretation of the outcome was not proven, only conjectured. Yet Hobbes put more stock in his own ideas without any consideration of any matters of fact. As I see it both were socially constructing their perceptions pre- and post-experimentation.

SPACESHIP IN THE DESERT
ENERGY, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND URBAN DESIGN IN ABU DHABI
By Gökçe Günel
Duke University Press, 2019, 256 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach

Success or Failure?


This book recounts the history of an entire community created in the deserts of Abu Dhabi based on renewable energy approaches. The idea was to create a campus in which new energy technologies could develop to help the country become less dependent on petroleum revenue. The name of the new city is Masdar.

Günel notes how Bruno Latour referred to technology as a system (p.139). Where most of us see only the portion we interact with, that portion is supported by an entire network of interconnected parts. For example, at Masdar people in general noted the pod cars of the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system as if they were one and the same (p.142). In fact, the pod cars are of no worth without the supporting system known as the undercroft, the controlling software, and an army of maintenance crew, often made up of workers from Asia. These workers were not allowed to live in the city, nor even use the pod cars once up and running.


How does one describe project success or failure? Exactly! The fact that this is even a question points to how criteria (official and unofficial) varies with every beholder’s eye. 


The PRT was not successful in that it could not handle large numbers of passengers efficiently. It was not cost effective. The undercroft requirement caused increased indirect expenses for the buildings which had to be lifted by 20 feet to accommodate the required space. One could simply walk the short distance the PRT served. It went not faster than a bicycle. Eventually, when a new executive took over the Masdar facility, the PRT was cancelled.


Despite the pessimistic view, others saw how people who came to visit the facility lined up to ride the PRT despite the availability of a shuttle bus during large events. Even jaded academics who pointed out issues still used the system because it was fun, making functionality a secondary consideration (p.142).


Günel makes the point of how the Masdar PRT is just one in a string of PRT projects that all end essentially the same. Although the system in West Virginia is still in use, it does so with a $120M price tag and an annual cost of $5M, and has stayed essentially small scale. It only goes between  West Virginia University (WVU) campuses and downtown Morgantown. 


In his 1994 book  The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, Jame Ferguson argues whether or not original project goals are realized, something is accomplished. The project goals represent an entry point of development efforts, but whatever effect comes about, stakeholders think of some outcomes as desirable, and others as undesirable. 

THE SYNTHETIC AGE
OUTDESIGNING EVOLUTION, RESURRECTING SPECIES, AND REENGINEERING OUR WORLD
By Christopher J. Preston
The MIT Press, 2018, 195 pages
Reviewed by Michael Beach

The Singularity

Among the many threads in The Synthetic Age, Christopher Preston refers to a book by Ray Kurzweil. In The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil defines this event as when artificial intelligence (AI) gets ahead of human intellect. Preston characterizes results of this theoretical event as “a future in which artificially intelligent machines gain a runaway intellect that exceeds anything the human brain can counter” (157).

This theme is a common thread for Preston. Earlier in the book he expresses concerns over other synthetic proposals run amuck. Nanobots that self-replicate, biobots acting as bacteria, genetically created bacteria acting as bacteria, and unforeseen effects of approaches to cooling the earth are some of the examples Preston points to where technical solutions to natural concerns carry their own risks.

Why the ethical backlash to the idea of genetically-created humans, for instance? Dubbed the Human Genome Project 2, some organizations want to take technical lessons learned with genetic recreation of simpler life forms and apply them to the more complex genetic sequences of humans (154). The singularity of AI described by Kurzwail considers software as a servant of humanity, even if the risk of so many sci-fi movies of the machine taking over exists. Creating human life synthetically for purposes such as harvesting organs or experimentation raises reasonably grave concerns. For instance, would a genetically created human be a human? If so, then human rights would apply to them, and would preclude their use as test subjects or organ farms. If not human, then one could argue the ‘experiment’ would have failed. This ethical area hearkens back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

One of Preston’s base arguments shows how concern over human interference with nature is not avoidable. In fact, humans have always interfered with nature. Preston points out how some argue that humans are a product of nature so human acts are acts of nature. The difference between human acts and natural acts gets blurry when humans intervene in natural processes as simple as moving butterflies north in England to help them migrate fast enough to avoid perceived global warming effects, or as complicated as seeding sulfuric acid in the stratosphere to lower sunlight penetration. Human history and natural history begin to merge (149).

DEMOCRATIC DESIGNS
INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION AND ELECTORAL PRACTICES IN POSTWAR BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
By Kimberley Coles
University of Michigan, 2007, 297 pages
Review by Michael Beach

Democracy is neither natural nor intuitive (5)

For those of us who lived our entire life in a country based on democratic principles, the idea that democracy would be thought of as unnatural and counter intuitive seems itself to be counter intuitive. Coles makes a compelling case when one considers all the thought and effort it takes to create an election. An election is really three separate processes, voter registration, voting, and results tabulating. All are complex. Each are made up of many actants (people, objects, processes).

Parts of the international community have a fundamental belief of democratic society as the best power to bring about peace (237). Bosnia-Herzegovina seemed to outsiders as somewhere that could be improved through the imposition of democratic principles since in the 1990s it suffered from war, authoritarianism, and communism (33).

Coles argues rather convincingly how the need to create complex labor-intensive processes, and a perceived need to impose democracy through negotiation and external experts (or even internal experts) would seem to question naturalness. So many places along the election path are fraught with both innocent and intentional process ambiguities and deviations. Many options along the planning and execution paths are open to design and interpretation based on assumptions by system architects and implementers.

Since democracy was a new approach to Bosnians, fears of unfairness or interference led to a desire for transparency. This transparency was bodily symbolized in form of the (sheer, mere, peer) presence of international experts (88). This is similar to the point made by Rist about the need for technical measures including scientific (or expert) knowledge.

Coles argues not only a need to use experts, but also how these experts are knowledgeable about processes that are used in virtually any setting using a cookie-cutter approach (16). The agencies seeking to facilitate the democracy machine approach argue that using ‘standard’ practices makes the effort apolitical or acultural (77) much as Ferguson describes. Technicality equates to depolitization (152).

The intent of holding an election is to translate voter will into political authority so long as those imposing democracy deem the outcome as desirable. The process has to be perceived as valid, but who’s perception matters? Whoever judges validity, in Coles argument the process and outcome needs to be perceived as free and fair. The election is not discretely either free and fair or not free and not fair, rather processes need to be free enough and fair enough to create confidence (155). Mathematically, that is more likely if there is some level of transparency (though total transparency is not really possible). How transparency is measured is another ambiguous concept. So long as the difference between winners and losers is well outside the margin of error perhaps there is more trust. When races are more closely contested then trust is probably more an issue.
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​THE CULTURE OF AI
By Anthony Elliott
Routledge, 2019, 246 pages
​Review by Michael Beach
 
The work is subtitled “everyday life and the digital revolution.” Despite the futuristic robot image on the cover page, Elliott looks to more contemporary practical implications of AI, some of which may be scarier than the stuff of sci-fi movies.
 
Elliott does address robotics such as how technology and automation are growing in the workplace, along with some of the social and economic impacts of that trend. A less flattering look of ‘digital life’ is around our tendencies toward narcissism. Technology can inspire these tendencies. For example it may be more important to some to take online actions to increase follower counts, than to let go of the keyboard and have personal interaction with others. As a reviewer, I was certainly forced to ask myself the question about why I feel a need to publish a review on our family website about each book I read. So far I have resisted the temptation to similar things on other platforms, though I do have a public presence on several social media apps.
 
In the book, Elliott takes time to explore some of the potentially sinister aspects of AI such as automated so-called bot actions, surveillance, and even military applications. Concerns over stalking, bullying, and exploitation by the sex industry express how cyber and robotic tools can enhance the negative parts of humanity. He takes a look at each of these uses of AI and societal impacts as well. Despite the negatives, he gives similar space to positives such as increased capabilities in healthcare, remote communications, crime fighting, and democratic processes.
 
Technology and society are co-productive. Both are ever more mobile. Each cause the language and thought patterns of the other to evolve. Despite all the life enhancements tech and AI bring to modern life, I’m still an advocate of occasional unplugging. I believe it helps us be more human.

​THE PHILOSOPHER’S TOOLKIT
By Julian Baggini & Peter S. Fosl
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 284 pages
Review by Michael Beach
 
The subtitle for this work is A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods. The authors have organized philosophical ideas in a dictionary-like format. The ideas are explained, along with how philosophers tend to use each idea in practical argument. Some philosophies also accompany a short history of the given idea. The authors do not approach the discipline comprehensively, rather they narrow philosophical argument to areas associated with science and technology.
 
The reader will find the work both academic for contemplation, and practical if engaging in debate. If one studies science and technology, perspective and clarity of thought behind various approaches of areas of discipline are informed by understanding major movements in scientific thought. 

​REPRESENTING AND INTERVENING
By Ian Hacking
Cambridge University Press, 1983, 287 pages
Review by Michael Beach
 
In this work, Hacking reviews philosophical thought related to science and technology from the perspective of how scientific and technological ideas do or don’t represent reality. He also shows argument around scientific use of ideas and technology to create reality (intervening). Aside from reviewing the main arguments and philosophers involved on the topics he often interjects his own stands on the issues.
 
An example of a key philosophical debate is eluded to in a quote by Lakatos. His reading of Popper on knowledge growth stated simply is, “people propose, nature disposes” (114).
 
Hacking makes a number of comparisons between the philosophical perspectives of Lakatos and others such as Popper, Kuhn, Putnam, and Kant. The key phase is one focus, specifically on how (and if) science progresses. For Lakatos, successive research either progresses a theory, or degenerates it (117). In this way, theories are bolstered or unsupported by empiricist efforts.
 
Some direct comparison between Kuhn and Putnam allows Hacking to clarify. For instance, while Kuhn speaks of scientific revolution, Putnam is focused more on evolution in terms of knowledge growth through rationality (111). Putnam further muddies the knowledge-growth question through the concepts of reference and extension. One of his arguments, for example, is that a given reference may be understood differently by different people, making the extension, including knowledge growth though experiment, essentially impossible (101). If one accepts this premise, then proposals by people (theories) are not universally understood, nor the disposition of nature as neither the proposition nor the disposition are held in common among scientists.
 
Putnam’s struggle is with meaning. Hacking denotes that a reference is the meaning, or thing, represented by the word. Sense is more like the connotative understanding of the thing, the reference in question (75). If Putnam questions one’s ability to concur with others on either reference or sense, then his questioning of knowledge growth is understandable. The scientific world seems to get around the difference through the practice of dubbing. Where Lakatos would argue that knowledge growth can only be understood in retrospect (118), Hacking argues in favor of dubbing “new natural kinds” which are “often the result of initial speculations which are gradually articulated into theory and experiment” (82).
 
Ian Hacking’s work shows a mixed message claiming varying schools of scientific philosophy share common ground, yet differ in fundamental ways, stating how such point-by-point opposition between philosophers only means there is ‘underlying agreement’.
 
By introduction, Hacking makes a case for ‘common ground’.  He shares seven areas where he believes Carnap and Popper, and by extension philosophers of science in general, tend to agree (5). Natural science is the best rational thought. Distinction exists between observation and theory. Knowledge is cumulative. Science has a deductive structure. Science depends on precise language. Unity of science methodology exists in each discipline. Finally, the context of justification differs from the context of discovery.
 
Despite these unifying assertions, pretty much all the rest of the reading shows an evolution, along with examples of fundamental change of thought. For example, Hacking’s first positivist instinct refers to falsifiability as a ‘variant’ of verification (41), yet early in his work (3) he refers to the divided image of Carnap and Popper as betraying a ‘deeper’ difference. It seems difficult to justify such ‘deeper difference’ with simply being ‘variant’. Difference is variable, on a subjective scale. Qualifying words expose subjective opinion. At times Hacking depicts difference as minor, other times as significant.
 
Hacking describes schools of thought within his own form of structure; realism vs anti-realism, causal vs anti-causal, theoretical entities vs anti-theoretical entities, and the list continues. A specific example referred to earlier was the divided image of Carnap and Popper. Carnap was in favor of science as verifiable. By this he claimed metaphysics is not science, inductive reasoning should be employed, and there are important meanings in language. Popper, on the other hand, stood for science as falsifiable. By this he argued metaphysics leads to science, deductive reasoning should be employed, and calling meanings and language only ‘scholastic’ (4).
 
Difference can be understood subjectively by degrees. Hacking seems simultaneously to both emphasize and downplay difference. Readers could easily see downplayed example differences as significant.
 
Among the topics around speculation and experimentation I found the bridging concept of calculation particularly important. A calculation is a form of modeling. Hacking referenced many ideas of his own and others about meanings of speculation (theory) and experimentation (observation). However, until he addressed the bridging aspect of calculation in the speculation-calculation-experimentation framework, the two seemed somewhat independent. In fact, many of Hacking’s reference philosophers argued specifically a lack of connection between theory and empirical data.
 
This framework also answered a longstanding question for me. So often in science classes teachers would introduce the idea of constants. These constants were usually attached to the name of a scientist who ‘discovered’ or ‘introduced’ the constant. They never were explained. We were just taught how to incorporate a specific constant into a formula to obtain the answer to a specific scientific process. Hacking explains how a calculation comes about from a need to explain a given observation or experimental data set (artifact, phenomenon). Adding a constant to make a calculation consistently approximate the expected outcome allows science to adopt a theory that adheres to accepted scientific principles. The beauty of such a bridging approach is it also allows for change in both theory and experiment without shifting the calculation. The same calculation can be used to support different theories or outcomes.
 
The resulting approximation becomes yet another central argument Hacking spends considerable time discussing. If a formula and data from empirical observation consistently approximate theoretical prediction, is that bringing us any closer to truth, or just substantiating a theory that purports to stand for truth? Perhaps the substantiation is merely for a given system generally accepted by the larger scientific community at the time of the speculation-calculation-experimentation linkage.

CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
By Simon Critchley
Oxford University Press, 2001, 149 pages
 
In the discipline of the philosophy of science and technology, two major schisms have evolved, Continental Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy. In this introductory work, Critchley leads the reader through the historical evolution of the ideas of the Continental school, and those who are its leading proponents. The book is laid out as if a series of lectures, one per chapter. Perhaps that was the author’s use or intent.

An example of one focus of the work would be an examination of to whether Continental and Analytic fundamentals represent an unbridgeable divide or are somewhat complimentary. If truth and wisdom (or meaning) are not the same thing, and according to John Stuart Mill (as depicted by Critchley) a difference in the search of each led to such a strong division among generations of philosophers, then why would some philosophers such as Critchley argue the necessity of both rather one over the other?

This ‘why’ question asked includes several premises spoken of throughout the work; the existence of the two schools, the difference of focus for each, the division of rhetoric between them, and attempts by some to enhance or lessen the division. The question asks for opinion, yet would require a respondent to share some data to give credence to their conclusion. To answer the question with evidence would presume some examples of philosophical debate that either seeks to depict difference, or show complementarity between the Analytical and Continental approaches.
The question itself is a short ‘why’, but the prelude lays out a more complicated compound list of premises to show motivation to the question. A respondent may consider whether each or any of the premises are true, or even if any philosophers (including Critchley) actually made the argument asserted.

One such as Critchley considering a response, could approach the answer as a cynic. They may think nobody really argues in favor of complementarity, and seek to disprove that assertion. They might alternatively be a believer. In which case their answer may seek not only to show examples of publicized papers in favor of complementarity, but also argue the position themselves. In an attempt to lay out an introductory approach, Critchley does both.

The goal of the question may be provoking, as it depicts an assumption of philosophers either seeking separation or coexistence. The answer would lead the answerer to take sides around the idea of whether separation or complementarity exist, and why the respondent tends to agree with one, or at least why they feel Critchley agreed with one. The question skews toward complementarity over division since proponents of complementarity, like Critchley, are the focus. Perhaps the question then is leading toward a future seeking more cohesion in the academic discipline of philosophy.

​THE AMBITIONS OF CURIOSITY
By G.E.R. Lloyd
Cambridge University Press, 2002, 175 pages
 
In this work Lloyd contrasts learning in ancient Greece and China. There is a deep look at both the methods of patronage by those in authority, as well as the emergence of brokers who connected scholars with patrons. He also reviews how technology was view differently in these two very different cultures.
 
I wonder if there is a form of codependency between the documented cycles predicting future events in the Chinese publications described by Lloyd, and the emperor and courtiers whose reputations rode on the outcomes. For example Lloyd points out that when a predicted event does not occur it is thought of as a sign that the emperor has special power to hold back the event, but if an event happens that was not predicted it was thought indicative of neglect of some sort on his part. It would be fair to assume, as does Lloyd, that if the emperor looks bad it would go poorly for his wise men who were supposed to help him know these things. Whereas events were supposedly dependent on predictableness and the strength of documentation, so too was the emperor likewise dependent on the strength of the documentation.
 
Similar metaphysics existed in Greek culture in relation to the Pantheon. Omens were both feared and sought after. Courtiers, or ‘wise men’, at times were from religious institutions, other times specifically non-religious. In either case, when patronage was attached to an adopted school, the professors of a given school (theoretical if not an actual institution) were personally at risk.
 
Many parallels can be drawn from today. Academics often study and publish at the behest of authority, public or private, in the form of grants or stipends. Science itself can sometimes bear the brunt of poor findings. Case in point could be the example of early believe there was little risk to humans from so-called ‘mad cow disease.’ As we now look at the latest wave of COVID-19, perhaps we should continue to both consider how science ‘progresses’ and how the same structures that encourage the scientific path might also limit inquiry.

HOW USERS MATTER
Edited by Nelly Oudshoorn & Trevor Pinch
MIT Press, 2003, 340 pages


Most Significant Arguments

The work How Users Matter is a compilation of papers focused on the ideas of how users of technology and developers of technology influence one another in their decisions about technology. Likewise, a number of the papers also speak to non-users of technology and what might put them into a position of non-use. Much of the relationship between user and technology development is shown as co-constructive. For example in Christina Lindsay’s piece, From the Shadows, referring to TRS-80 users she speaks to a sort of migration from that conceived initially by a technology developer, to those that actually take up and reshape the technology as users. I this case she starts with the reflexive user where the developer and user are one and the same so the technology matches the person creating it. Then the configured user who is defined or limited by the construct of the technology. Finally a projected user where the developers imagine the persons tastes, motives, etc. All of these are at the beginning of the technology release process. Then the “real” user steps in, with the technology in hand, and may comply with the notions the designers had in mind, but many do not. In fact many reshape the technology. They even can form user groups that work together to reshape the technology and its use.

This idea of user groups like the TRS-80 group is another important theme that was iterated in a number of the papers. Some of these groups are like the friks and Raners in the Laegran article, Escape Vehicles. In these examples the users form a sort of self-help collective to share information and spark ideas among themselves. They also find identity and community among like-minded people. Then there are the user groups acting as spokespeople in the Parthasarathy article, Knowledge is Power, and the work by van Kammen, Who Represents the Users?. In these examples there are interested parties who are users (patients), but then they take on more of a leadership role in structuring, to one degree or another, policies based on their interpretation of the respective user community. One good example of this was the difference in how the US and UK patient advocacy groups approached actors in the policy and development portions of a system/network around genetic testing, the BRCA gene technology, in the Parthasarathy work. The US groups like the NBCC and BCA felt they were more knowledgeable than the average patient and wanted to limit access to and use of the BRCA testing. In the UK the GIG felt that increased access was in order. These groups sprung up from volunteers who coalesced into a formal advocacy group. The US healthcare system differed from the UK healthcare system in that the US version is/was dominated by private medical research and insurance companies and the patient groups generally do/did not trust that these companies would have the patient’s interest ahead of profits. The UK system is primarily a government run medical system and is more trusted by the patient groups. This is how the article explains the difference in approach.

Comparison with Other Readings

The idea around community or group representation does not seem to be in the Cowan article, Consumption Junction. She certainly advocates for putting the user at the center of the network with ever-widening concentric rings showing different provider groups. The center is the user or type of user in the household domain, then out to retail suppliers of the finished product, then wholesaler, producers and governmental regions. There are groups that are supposed to represent the user, for example a government agency is supposed to somehow be mindful of the consumer needs, as are the retailers, but she does not focus on the users themselves forming any sort of formal group to either co-identify, or to speak on behalf of the user community. Her model allows for such a group in terms of an option to place them onto one of the network diagrams, but she doesn’t focus on how such a group might influence, or be influenced by, the other actors in the user-centric network.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The Users book and the Cowan article seek to define the network of technology creation from the perspective of technology consumption. I really like this approach in that creators of technology will either ultimately consider if and how their technology is used or they will fail. Many do consider this, but get caught in a trap of considering the user at the beginning of development then stop once the technology is “publicized”. That said, in the case of the TRS-80 the technology was preserved and shaped by the users even through the company didn’t do much with it, and eventually discontinued the line. None the less, Tandy did eventually fail with the TRS-80 if their goal was about gaining a large user base and continuing sales.

Most of the articles admit that every user is different, but then still make efforts to categorize both users and non-users. For example Wyatt puts non-users into groups with titles: Resistors, Rejecters, Excluded, Expelled. These ideas about grouped non-users are helpful, but it doesn’t allow for those who may move from category to category, or are in more than one category at the same time. Wyatt does speak of non-users who are former users (Rejecters and Expelled). She also speaks about non-users ability to become future users. Each of these groupings implies some sort of knowledge by the non-users about the existence of the technology. If they never even knew a technology existed, could they be in one of these non-user groups? Would we have to create another non-user groups called “Unaware”?

Aside from students of STS, I would think the works would appeal to policy makers, advocates, technology designers, technology planners and historians. I could see interest in those who also look into behavioral economics. It’s an interesting field where researchers try to understand how people make every day decisions, including how they spend their money.
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