[lbo-talk] Re: Tolkein/Technology

BklynMagus magcomm at ix.netcom.com
Mon Sep 15 15:46:57 PDT 2003


Chuck0 wrote:


> It's just a damn good movie that is based on some excellent books.

I guess I get suspicious about a movie in which the hero is helped along by "others" who seem glad to be of service to a questing white male. A lot of the enthusiasm for the movie seems to stem from cinematic wish fulfillment: "Those were the good olde days when white men led, women were pliable and others obeyed."


> One of the biggest canards about technology is that it is neutral. Technology implies a system of social and economic relations. A nuclear power plant implies a system of economic exploitation, mass consumption,
colonization, and everything else required to make a nuclear plant and justify its existence.

The applications of technology are not neutral, but the technology itself is. Once questions start being raised about what gets funded and what is developed and deployed, ethical intervention is needed. The backward thing about our culture is that we get ethical far too late in the process of developing technology systems. We need to reclaim a discourse of ethics around technology systems and their development.

Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister



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