Technology's Effect On The Rate Of Change example essay topic

Introduction The interaction of technology and society may be the one thing more than any other that gives society a meaning and defines us a human beings. In recent years it has become popular to point fingers of accusation at technology as if it were 'autonomous' and driving us all to perdition. I take other view. No doubt the uses of technology and society interact strongly. I think it wrongheaded and very naive to think of aggressive technology affecting a passive society eroding away the things that give society value and leaving behind a rusted hulk. Admittedly there always the potential for abuse or misuse of a technology, but technology is not inherently destructive, I argue.

In the following we will consider ten effects of technology. No doubt many more can be thought of. Instead of, or in addition to the list below, we might include the effect of technology on health, on other technology or on the security of the individual and the nation. I consider these and other topics as too narrow in scope or able to be covered under one or more of the other headings. I believe the following ten can be used as a systematic first step into the study of technology and society. Here is the list of effects.

Following that I will discuss each briefly. Finally I will present a list of nine values regarding the interaction of technology and society to guide our analysis. Ten Effects of Technology Technology's Effect on Commerce Technology's Effect on Social Systems Technology's Effect on The Environment Technology's Effect on Individual Psychology Technology's Effect on The Rate of Change Technology's Effect on Institutions Technology's Effect on Individual Freedom Technology's Effect on Our Perception of Reality Technology's Effect on Our Mutual Dependence Technology's Greatest Effect In the following each of these are briefly discussed. Technology's Effect on Commerce The first field deals with the economic and commercial consequences of the technology in question, whether it is an existing historical technology or a burgeoning one that is just beginning to impact the society. This was not chosen without considerable thought. The impact of technology on the commercial aspect of human culture is a major one.

Most technological changes begin in the economic realm. Technology is a key factor in the supporting and developing of an economy, in the securing and maintaining of jobs for the population, and most certainly in determining the level of economic welfare experienced by the members of the society. What is the effect of the new technology on business and commerce? Does it represent new goods and services? Are we dealing with new products resulting from technological change? If so, how will the new products impact the economic structure?

One source of new technology is the search for increased economic efficiency and a sincere desire to reduce the cost that the society has to pay for the availability of goods. Whether the purpose of the technology is to improve its effective use of available natural resources or to increase or alter the supply of available resources, it will impact what people buy, what they choose to do with their time, what jobs are lost due to changes in the overall economic mix, and possibly the price of other goods that compete with the technologically changed function for raw materials, labor, and the limited capital resources that are available. As a secondary effect, how will the new technology create changes in unrelated or distantly related markets? The computer was a fantastic new technology. Indeed, it still is.

The changes that have taken place in the business world reach far beyond the immediate impact anticipated. On the surface, it was not difficult to realize that the computer would affect the market for mechanical devices designed to do tasks that a computer does, such as adding machines, typewriters, or even automatic mechanical control mechanisms. Yet this consideration does not begin to deal with the other changes that have taken place in the business world as a result of computer technology. An entirely new industry had been born in the form of the microprocessor, a stepchild of the larger computer industry available only to big businesses with big dollars to buy big computing power.

New skills and new opportunities for employment have come about as a result. The expansion of the computer market and proliferation of microcomputers into the mainstream of American life have increased the ability of the homemaker to run a household effectively; to shop and cook more efficiently; to learn about the true nature of family finances; and to create part-time productive jobs, and for a host of other things. The nation has, in effect, stepped out of the industrial arena into the information arena. Here is a single technology that has so changed our ability to gather, store, manipulate, and disseminate information that the entire economic structure has been transformed, And all from a single technological change, albeit with a highly sophisticated and extensively proliferated collection of applications. The computer and its impact on the economic structure is no less startling and dramatic than that of the steam engine; electric power; or for that matter, fire and the wheel. Through the computer, the efficiency and expansion of the economy have been so greatly accelerated that we are hard pressed to keep up with the changes.

It is indeed revolutionary in nature and explosive in the speed at which it is altering our economic lives. Answer two questions: Ten years ago, how many people did you personally know who had access to a computer or dealt with one? How many do you know now? If you answer honestly, you will be astonished at the manifold changes that have taken place in just a single decade. And the next decade promises to outstrip the last by far.

Technology's Effect on Social Systems Briefly, the extent to which a technology affects social systems has to do with basic patterns among social groups and the changing patterns of needs and need fulfillment resulting from technological change. When the Industrial Revolution came about and particularly when the industrialization of America took place in the last century and first half of the present century, a number of social factors changed. Many of these changes impacted not only those directly involved in the process, but also those who chose not to be involved in the industrial boom. Workers in an industrial setting are able to command higher wages than farm workers. This is a fact of economic life. It is the result of the efficiency of labor in an industrial setting compared with the efficiency and productivity of farm workers, on whom, at the time of the first industrializing moves in America, the country's economy was based.

Economic systems recompense workers in accordance with their productivity rather than how hard or how long they work. It is their production level that determines how valuable they are. For the industrial worker, whose level of productivity working in a mill or production plant is as much as ten times what his or her farmer counterpart could achieve, this meant ten times the wages for the same amount of work by simply shifting from farming to industrial work. Thus the mass migration from the country to the city occurred, with its accompanying rapid rise in urban population.

The industries were located in urban areas near supplies of raw materials, centers of transportation and communication, and markets. Chicago rose as the center of the meatpacking industry. New York grew through its transportation, communication, and financial centers, as did Houston and Atlanta at a later time. Pittsburgh, in the center of the coal and iron ore belt, was a center for foundries as early as the 1850's. Hundreds of other examples support the same argument. Industrial concentration and bigness, being the way to achieve efficiency, meant concentrating industry in small areas, which led to the packing of population in and around those locations where high-paying, high-productivity jobs existed.

With these heavy concentrations of large numbers of people came all of the attendant problems of urban life heretofore no more than mere annoyances to the general population. Families lived closer to one another. The unavailability of living space created multistory and multifamily living. Families found themselves in close proximity to neighbors, unable to depend on themselves for food and simple tools, dependent instead on supplies bought in local neighborhood markets. With crowding came an increase in crime, an increase in disease, and an increase in stress on the family unit. City life, with its compacted physical structure and rapid pace, replaced the easygoing, steady pace of rural communities.

One no longer knew everyone in the neighborhood or in the community People came and went more frequently. Mobility increased for some and decreased for others. Time telescoped as efficiency in business spread as a concept to efficiency in life style. Dispersion, particularly among generations, tended to decrease the level of interaction among members of the extended family and to increasingly isolate the primary family unit. New social institutions have arisen as a result of the industrialization process. Unions arose as groups of workers fought for their collective rights.

New groups within the work environment have risen to satisfy or thwart many of the needs of individual workers who are no longer able to obtain need fulfillment through the extended family. Identification with cliques, social groups from the work environment, or the company itself forms social structures for the benefit of the urbanized worker, a condition neither necessary nor possible in the older, agrarian culture of pre industrialized America. These processes are still taking place in the late twentieth century as our technology alters our perceptions and our patterns of living. Television and telephone communication have replaced the more personalized forms of communication, again isolating us from one another and reducing the opportunity for interaction and the need to form social structures through traditional channels.

The high-tech high-touch concept of John Nais bitt (see Mega trends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives. New York: Warner Books, 1982) is no myth. It exists and promises to have a strong influence on our social behavior in the foreseeable future. The key is to determine how a technology will affect the opportunity and the probable form of social systems as it alters our day-today lives. As an evolving species, humans should expect change, and the changes in social structure that result from technological innovation will determine to a large degree the quality and kind of life available to us in the future. Technology's Effect on The Environment Technology's effect on the environment has received much attention in recent years, mainly due to (a) the reduction in lead time perceived between the instigation of a new technology and the serious effects on the ecological balance of our world that may possibly occur as a result of it, and (b) the greatly increased control over the environment that modern technology represents.

Environmental considerations are among the most obvious areas of importance to us in dealing with technology because they are utmost in our minds. Every technology affects the environment to some extent, just as it affects every physical entity to some degree. Many of the technological advances brought forth in recent years have been viewed as detrimental to ecological balance. Acid rain threatens wide ranges of forests and farmland. Pollution from nuclear tests is suspected of causing cancer in victims unfortunate enough to be exposed to it, while chemical content in rivers and streams destroys communities and reduces the productivity of already overworked soil.

Diversion of water from natural sources feeds towns and cities, only to create shortages elsewhere. Leisure use of natural habitats destroys landscapes and threatens the homes of wildlife. Pipelines are purported to damage the ecologically delicate balance of permafrost environments and to disrupt the migration patterns of elk. Oil spills pollute our oceans, the main source of oxygen for the planet, leaving a trail of tar and oil solids from one continent to another. The list could go on and on... Yet it would be inequitable to consider only the negative impacts of technology on the environment, though they may be a serious matter of concern.

In addition to the detrimental effects that technology can be viewed as creating, there are also positive effects. It is through our understanding of nature and the manipulation of its laws that we can construct dams and spillways to bring life to the deserts of the Near East It is through our understanding of nature that we can prevent disaster by destroying diseases detrimental to wildlife or save endangered species facing starvation and extinction, not from the hands of humankind but from the pressure of natural droughts. Science and technology can reclaim natural wilderness areas as well as destroy them, protect the integrity of ecological systems as well as disrupt them, and prevent catastrophic occurrences as well as create them. As with any other human system, it is the use to which technology is put that determines its desirability, not the nature of the technology itself. Technology's Effect on Individual Psychology Our attitudes, opinions, approaches to problem solving, and psychological balance are all affected by changes in technology. The world in which we live, including technological change, includes all the inputs we use in developing our personalities.

Experiences teach us what to believe about the constitution of our world. Observations shape attitudes about social interaction and what is and is not considered appropriate. Threats from external sources create the need for a host of adjustment mechanisms, which collectively add up to a considerable part of our behavior patterns. The story in the STS Diary describing a hypothetical meeting of Luddites illustrated the pressures of industrialization in early nineteenth-century England as the cause of a mass movement. [The Luddites are briefly described at this link.] Violent action resulted from the inability of the members of the movement to cope with the changes that were taking place around them.

This is an example of how technological change can affect the otherwise stable thinking patterns of a human being. In modern times, the degree of specialization and separation of workers from their tools inherent in the 'big business' approach industry results in feelings of alienation among workers. Personal satisfaction of needs drops as workers become less and less attached to a finished product with which they are working. There is no feeling accomplishment, no personal interaction, and therefore little identification with either work or company. Patterns of behavior that would be considered unthinkable in a more personal form of endeavor become commonplace, including a reduction in pride, a reduction in honest and an increasing dissatisfaction with work as a whole. There are also the feelings of frustration, fear, anxiety over the unknown, and dislike toward others that result from the interaction of the individual with the technologically changing society.

With the proliferation of television sets in America, the methods by which the population internalizes information changes. The presentation of the Vietnam conflict in detail and, at times, within hours of actual occurrences, is a case in point. For the first time it was possible to sit in one's living room and be a part of the carnage, the fear, the death. Such strong input was beyond the capacity of many in the society to cope with, and the result was a peace movement that eventually brought about an end to U.S. involvement in that war. Counter cultural elements, whether representing a peace movement seeking an end to carnage or merely malcontents not willing to interact with a world that changing too fast for them to internalize, are the result of changes: psychology or the result of an inability in people to change attitudes in the face of changing times. How will a given technology change the psychology of a nation or a given group of people within a culture?

How will a society react to a new methodology? Will it ignore it? Will certain people attack as the Luddites did on the basis that it is 'stealing' jobs? What about society's attitudes concerning technological advances in the past?

A person who grew up on science-fiction movies be predisposed to fear robots? Do people view new technology with suspicion because of the Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll stereotypes? How do they handle the creation of artificial life? What has the death threat of nuclear war done to their attitudes and ideals?

Will future technology have a similar effect or will it act to ease tension, alleviate our anxieties, and issue in a n era of confidence? These are the kinds of questions that need to asked concerning technology and individual psychology. Technology's Effect on The Rate of Change Again the prime example of the rate of change in the modern world is the computer. Never have we been able to manipulate and have available to us such huge stores of information.

With this availability comes heightened possibility for progress and development of still other technology. With a sharing of knowledge comes a sharing of wealth that can only create more wealth through its use. But this is certainly not the only example that can be cited. The oared galley, the railroad, the automobile, and the airplane are all examples of technological changes that brought about a flowering of progress in individual societies. In the case of oared galleys, the ancient vessels so equipped were instrumental in initiating international trade by opening up foreign lands in the ancient world as they made their way across oceans and seas, disseminating knowledge and spreading local technologies to other lands.

Until the railroad opened up the West, the movement of population outward from the coastal areas was extremely slow in the United States. Railroads meant faster, safer travel. They were a means of expanding markets by shipping greater amounts of goods from one area to another. Markets were no longer local. Perishables could be sold over long distances.

The movement of people and raw materials decreased dependence on limited, highly favorable habitats. The automobile opened up the entire country to the population, connecting towns and villages with cities. Whole new industries sprang up, creating still other industries in an orgy of growth that did not slow down until midway through the twentieth century. The airplane meant fast travel for passengers. This was accompanied by increases in the efficient use of time, particularly in business, and in the growth of holiday travel, which caused still other industries to flourish. In each of these cases, the speed with which progress was made was magnified.

By facilitating the spread of technology, whole societal st ruckuses were created. Technology's Effect on Institutions Technology reshapes a society. In that capacity, it must necessarily impact on the social institutions of the society. Social institutions are like other social constructs -- they exit because they fulfill some purpose for the population. If the introduction of a technology into a society changes the needs of the population or alters the availability of the institution to perform the function, then the institution itself is affected, either by altering its form or by disappearing altogether. Some examples will clarify this point.

Religion Religion is one of humanity's major institutions. Yet it has often clashed with changes in the structure of society. During the Renaissance, there was a reevaluation of the concept people held of the world and an expansion of understanding that effectively destroyed the old traditional paradigm of Western Europe forever. The Church, as a political, religious, and administrative source, found itself in the thick of battle over many of the new technological and scientific discoveries being made. Galileo utilized the telescope, a technological device, to study the planets.

For doing so, he nearly lost his life at the outrage of Church officials. Copernicus put forth the idea that Earth was not at the center of the universe, an idea in direct opposition with the church-held view of the time. He was threatened with excommunication and being burned at the stake as a heretic unless he recanted those views. Martin Luther awoke to the inconsistencies within the Church hierarchy and started the Reformation -- a new approach to Christianity. Central to the Reformation was gaining increased knowledge of the world through reading books, a technologically oriented act. Books were printed on printing presses, technological devices made by artisans using technological techniques of the day.

The Protestant Ethic -- the practical, worldly moral code that so inspired the founders of America and helped create the mercantile empires of Europe -- had as its impetus the technologically fruitful age, the Industrial Revolution. Religion tends to change as the consciousness of people changes. And technology can do much to change people's consciousness. Religion also benefits from technology. The invention of the printing press greatly enhanced the spreading of the Word of God.

The ability to become involved in comparative religious studies increased along with the availability of books on other religions. And in the modern age, religion uses contemporary communications systems to spread its message through television, radio, and computerized information systems. Scholars share information and search out obscure answers more quickly. Religious leaders and pilgrims travel with greater ease to the shrines of their faith. Whole new vistas of understanding open up in the face of a scientific community whose leading edge more and more approximates the mystic concepts of religions. Since science asks how, and religion asks why, they cannot be one, yet religion has the capacity to avail itself of modern technology like any other social institution.

Education With the changes in technology leading to central beating, electric light, and the mass distribution of energy, the whole concept of education changed. As a result, the rural social structure shifted to an urban one, necessitating a shift from the traditional one-room schoolhouse of the last century to the mass education institutions of today. Indeed, education is ever in the throes of technological change. One hundred years ago, a person might spend five to seven years in the same schoolhouse, learning from the same teacher. Less than fifty years ago, education meant larger, more centralized schools, with more facilities shared by a larger number of students, and, hopefully, extended opportunities for gaining knowledge. Today, there is a shift away from the centralized approach, with college-by-television available to many students so that they need not even leave their homes in order to receive the education that they desire.

The institution changes again. Government The political structure that a society chooses is also a social institution, whether it is the town meeting, diet, parliament, or congress. These are all political institutions, designed to carry out a single set of functions, that is, to govern (creating and supplying public goods and services, and maintaining order). Yet how does a structure change? Feudalism was killed by a population which settled as a result of the invention and implementation of the plow as a means of increasing productivity. Of course, feudalism took several hundred years to die once the death blow was struck.

Nevertheless it was the lack of mobility on the part of the population that led to its decline. The Rise of The Middle Class through trade and the expansion of knowledge created the right of the people to have a voice in their government. Although self-rule was not a new idea -- indeed, the Greeks had a pure democracy long before the Romans ever thought of becoming an empire (I wonder how the Greek slaves felt about Greek democracy?) -- the true rise of the middle class to political prominence came with the economic clout developed through its dominance of the technology of the age. Do we have democracy in the United States? Democratization. Technically, the United States is a republic with a representative government rather than a direct government.

People are elected to make laws rather than it being done by the population at large. Yet with changes in technology, such as television, computers, and rapid long-distance communications, the idea of every citizen voting on an issue before Congress is not as farfetched as it once was. What would be the effect on the political structure if everyone had a button on the television set to instantly vote on an issue? Privacy is a privilege that we take for granted in this country, yet it is strongly threatened by advances in technology. The ability of political and economic institutions to discover private information about individual citizens is awesome.

There are satellites capable of focusing on a single individual on the ground. They can do so with such precision that the dial of a watch can be seen from orbit. There is the capability, with the proper authorization, to screen telephone calls for certain key words and then record those conversations for later study, or to check on what people buy, what they owe, to whom it is owed, and whether they live beyond their means. These are capabilities considered by many to be threatening to the institution of privacy, a social structure long valued for its social value. The right to private property is altered by such simple technological devices as the photocopier and the tape recorder. How does one protect copyrights when it is so easy to gain illegal access to the fruits of one's neighbors?

Technology's Effect on Individual Freedom Are we more free or less free by virtue of our technology? Apparently, the answer is yes and no. Depending on the use to which a technology is put, it can be either freeing or enslaving, or both at the same time. We are doomed to be dependent on technology as long as that technology is allowed to shape our world. Modern Home Building. The technology of building modern homes creates comfort, safety, beauty, security, and a host of other positive benefits that free us from the fears of our distant ancestors.

Yet technology can enslave us to a life style that depends on his element being in our lives. How would it be if the houses were no longer there? How would we survive a cold winter? How would we protect ourselves from the elements? How would we maintain our privacy? We are dependent on housing in the forms that are available to maintain our life style.

Reliance on the Automobile. A more serious example is our dependence on the automobile as means of basic transportation. This dependency is one that has been brought home with shocking clarity in recent years as a result of shortages and rising fuel prices. When the fuel crisis of the 1970's began, many Americans were unaware of their dependency on the automobile to get them about. It was simply a fact of life, a technological device that was taken for granted in modern American society.

But within weeks, motorists found themselves stranded in lines to buy gas, paying black market prices for fuel, wondering how they were going to cope with the crisis and how they could alter their life style. Seventy years of dependency on a reliable means of transportation had locked them into its use. In the long run there were solutions to that dependency. One could buy a foreign car that did not burn so much gas.

One could buy a motorcycle or begin riding the local mass transit systems (a far more efficient form of transportation anyway), or take up bicycling or jogging. But in the short run, when the crisis first arose, all that could be done was to bite the bullet, dig a little deeper into the old wallet, and pray that the pump did not run dry before your turn. Artificial Lighting. As an experiment, consider the following. The light bulb is a simple device that is available to all of us. It is a technological miracle that has given us a tremendous amount of freedom in our lives, yet it has created a huge dependency as well.

To drive home just how freeing and how enslaving this simple device is, take note for the next few hours just how often you use one. Note each time you switch on a light in your home or office. Consider how often that light is on and that you have no control over how long it lasts. Consider street lights, the little light in your car that automatically goes on when you open the door, or the one in your refrigerator that always goes off when the door closes. How often and in how many ways does the lowly light bulb free you, yet make you dependent? Think about it.

Technology's Effect on Our Perception of Reality An individual's perception of reality is created by the observations that are made by that person. If someone were forced to grow up in a room that was totally dark at all times and was never allowed to see any light, that person's perception of reality would be seriously distorted in that he or she would lack any content involving seeing. If another person were never allowed to experience kindness, that person would grow up believing that kindness in humanity is a myth. What we observe to be true, we believe to be true. In fact, we build our world in the image of those beliefs. But what if the world we experience is altered by technology?

What if we experience something new that does not fit into our contextual framework? This is the effect that new technology can have on a person's sense of reality, and it is no more than what was earlier discussed in terms of altering the paradigm with which we work. I can think of no more dramatic or elegant example of this phenomenon than the following, which is presented as the only example to be given. Prior to the second half of the twentieth century, no known person had ever viewed planet Earth from a height of more than a few tens of miles. We were well aware of the planet's makeup, of what constituted its surface, and where the various planetary features could be found, but no one had ever seen the planet from afar.

Then we entered the age of space exploration that brought with it, among other things, the first pictures of our own neighborhood. From the moment this first camera took the first picture of that huge blue marble in a velvet void, the life of every person on the planet was changed. It was possible for the first time to see that we are all aboard the same ship traveling at some 250 miles per second through a sea of cosmic flotsam, and that what happens to one of us happens to all of us, particularly as concerning the planet itself. This is one ship that it is difficult to get off. It is this realization among an increasing number of people that holds the greatest hope for stability in the world of tomorrow.

Technology's Effect on Our Mutual Dependence Buckminster Fuller once recommended ending the threat of nuclear holocaust by connecting the electrical grids of the United States Canada, and the USSR to create a single huge electrical system He theorized that no one is crazy enough to blow up the other half of their own electrical grid. Regardless of the merits of the idea, it illustrates an important aspect of technology and what life is in a technological world. Just as there is an increase in our dependence on technology, there is also the possibility of becoming more dependent on one another because of technological involvement. The United States is highly dependent on Middle Eastern oil producers for the supplies of crude oil needed to run our economy.

Without oil, we would be hard pressed to maintain supplies of fuels, plastics, and a host of chemicals, just to mention a few items. In a similar manner, much of the world is dependent on the United States for food. Because of technological innovations in agriculture less than 5 percent of our population is capable of feeding not only our own population but millions and millions of others. Nevertheless, if we are to have coffee, we must import it.

If we are to have rare earths and exotic metals, much of the supply must come from elsewhere. We live in what is, as Marshall McLuhan has said, a global village. This is a world economy that we are involved with, and it is that involvement that makes us dependent on one another for what we need to survive. Technology can both create and alleviate that dependency. In the absence of certain goods (such as, for instance, our dependence on the supply of natural rubber from Southeast Asia during World War II), technological innovation can create new substitutes. Likewise, a dependence on a certain technology may result in a dependence on a specific commodity, such as our insatiable thirst for oil stemming from combustion engine technology.

The key is to consider the consequences of a technology in terms of its tendency to increase or decrease mutual dependence of socio-politico-economic groups and, from that, ascertain the probable outcome of a technology's introduction. Technology's Greatest Effect What sector of the population will be most seriously affected by a given technology and when? If the technology is one that can be generalized over the entire society, then it will probably have an impact on everyone but if it has localized application, then what form of effect ill exist and for whom? Historically, any example that deals with a technology being localized for some reason would suffice to demonstrate the necessity of studying this issue. In the ancient world, about the time of the rise of the Mesopotamian city states such as Ur and La gash in the fertile crescent, it was the technological innovation of agriculture that created cities where trade took place. City states arose around the farmlands of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, and because of the availability of water transportation (another example of technology), they were able to grow prosperous and powerful.

Thus, the citizens of these areas were most greatly affected by the introduction of the agricultural technology, though tribal peoples from along the rivers were involved in the trade that resulted from the sedentary life style the agricultural people practiced. A more contemporary example is the age of 'king cotton' in the southern United States. With the cotton gin, cotton manufacture became cheap and profitable. By technologically solving the problem of how to comb the seeds from the cotton fiber rapidly and cheaply, the desirability of cotton as a crop rose dramatically, and there was a thriving market for those goods in England, where the textile industry depended on cotton and wool for its livelihood. The people most directly affected by the technology were those in a position to take advantage of it, that is, the Southern states, where the climate was perfect for growing cotton and where the employment of slave labor was productive enough to be profitable. These conditions did not exist in the North, and, as a result, people living there were relatively untouched by either the cotton industry or the slave labor method of operation, since Northern industry depended on different inputs to create goods and services.

Eventually, the schism in social systems represented by the localized nature of the cotton industry technology led to the Civil War and the end of an era. After years of political and economic dominance by an agricultural South, the nation was dominated by a more efficient and more productive North, where, it should be noted, there was a technological advantage in manufacturing industries because of the abundance of raw materials and transportation. Whom a technology affects is as important as how. This can lead to moral questions as well.

What of the wonder drugs that could be manufactured or developed but are not because the number of patients requiring them is too small to warrant the costs? What of the ability to save lives through expensive operations such as heart transplants or mechanical hearts? Who receives them and who does not? Who pays for them?

Are there too few people affected to warrant continuing that technology? These are some of the questions that arise in considering this aspect of technological development. Nine Values of Science and Technology Utilitarian Values These values have high positive regard for technology and are easiest to grasp. Usually they dominate most discussion of the importance of technological advance. Everything we need for living -- food, clothing, shelter -- depend on our use of technology to extract them from the land. Naturalistic Values The value of nonhuman life surely transcends merely going foraging nature for the benefits of evolutionary history for our own consumption.

If that were the only argument about preserving diversity it would at the same time make the argument that nature was created specifically for our use. There is pleasure and value for humans in nature. Preserving diversity preserves opportunities for pleasure. Ecologist ic-Scientific values Humans enjoy the systematic study of nature. Esthetic Values Symbolic Values We use technology everyday -- in common speech, in literature, in art, in fact, in many ways for communication and thought. Humanistic Values Moralistic Values Dominionistic Values Humans seem to have a need to dominate nature.

Generally one tries to preserve one's dominion. Negativistic Values This is the flip side of the positive values 1-8 above. This alludes to fear and alienation people feel toward some parts of nature such a spiders and snakes. Those who hold negative values may not support preservation's attempts if they conflict with these values. Education plays a role -- a very strong role -- in the values a person holds.

The more education one has received, the more one will tend to stress the importance of humanistic, moralistic and scientific values, downplaying, utilitarian, and negativistic values. Those with less education tend to see things the other way around.