> For the forseeeable future "technology" _means_ "capitalist technology,"
> and therefore technical questions are _always_ political questions from
> the git-go.
>
> For example, it is pointless, even seriously misleading, to discuss GM
> except on the premise that GM decisions are going to be made by
> companies that are totally indifferent to human needs. So an argument
> that GM _could_ be a useful technology is a false argument. Will GM as
> used in current agribusiness be a useful technology? That is the
> question, and really, the only question. If the answer is no, then for
> the time being we need to oppose _any_ use of GM technology.
>
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But when and where in the modern era has technology NOT been developed under
the auspices of capitalism? Within your frame of understanding, can you
provide us with an example of a widespread modern "non-capitalist"
technology. Pre-capitalist innovations like the plow and wheel don't count,
and neither does Chernobyl, which borrowed a technology developed in the
West.
Instead of GM, could you not also have written:
"For example, it is pointless, even seriously misleading, to discuss computer technology except on the premise that computer technology decsions are going to be made by companies that are totally indifferent to human needs. So an argument that computers could be a useful technology is a false argument. Will computers as used in current economies be a useful technology? That is the question, and really, the only question. If the answer is no, then for the time being we need to oppose any use of computer technology."
It seems to me the answer is sometimes pretty clearly no (nuclear weapons), sometimes pretty clearly yes (AIDS vaccines), and mostly both yes and no - depending on the use to which the technology is put. All technology under capitalism is developed for profit, which does not in itself render it irrelevant to human needs. Which was James Heartfield's point, no?
Frankly, as concerns this issue at least, I think your anticapitalism owes more to the Victorian romantics like Arnold and Ruskin than it does to Marx.