[WS:] I am in the same camp on this. I think society (rather than capitalists) should have a choice which technologies to adopt and which to reject, although I recognize that exercising that choice may pose some practical difficulties. However, in a planned society where all investments are public and individuals own only personal property, that condition can be closely approximated.
Having said that, however, I believe that generally speaking, technology tends to "bring good things to life" ;) - if applied in a socially and environmentally conscious manner. I think that negative effects of most technologies, including hype and techno-utopia, are the product of capitalism - that is profiteering and marketing - rather than the technology itself. take my arch-nemesis, the automobile. There is nothing wrong with the machine itself,and it can offer many benefits in many settings. The problem arises from mass marketing of it to boost private profits, which leads to pollution, congestion, safety problems (human and animal,) sprawl, etc. In a planned society, the use of the automobile would be discouraged in situations where it is detrimental (e.g. urban environment) for example by very high licensing fee, as it is the case in Singapore, but promoted where it offers clear societal benefits (e.g. in rural areas.) Of course, profitability or lack thereof would not be an issue, because all investments would be public, and price mechanisms would be used exclusively to regulate consumption rather than to generate return to investments.
Wojtek