220 Week 2. Critical Analysis of Modern Technology

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Critical Analysis of Modern Technology
Introduction
Technology has become the most significant platform in the modern era for its practicality, expediency, and versatility. Among the emerging problems related to modern technology is the argument on whether it truly helps people or it destroys them. This paper discusses the arguments present in the articles entitled, Do Artifacts Have Politics? by Langdon Winner and Critical Theory of Technology by Andrew Feenberg.
Article Analysis
Do Artifacts Have Politics?
Controversies sprung from the interrelation between technology and society. The arguments are focused on the claim that technology has the authority over the people and this philosophy is alarming for technology has its ways to mask this thought by providing people efficient machines, effective structures, and a modern culture that overpowers traditional norms. Winner gave meaning to the political qualities of technology and he argues that these may soon corrupt the society.
The article provided examples of technical approaches, procedures, and structures that cannot be prospected to have a political effect at first glance. However, these examples unequivocally convey their political resolve after establishing their false incorruptibility (Winner).
Some systems are designed to massively influence the society by generating unnecessary and inhumane social outcomes. Examples of these include the parkways built surrounding Long Island, New York in the 1930s, and the invention of the Mechanical Tomato Harvester in 1949. In fact, Winner said that,
“Histories of architecture, city planning, and public works contain many examples of physical arrangements that contain explicit or implicit political purposes.”
Robert Moses, one of the celebrated public officials, designed low hanging overpasses that are designed to dissuade the presence of buses on the parkways. This prevents the marginalized communities to have a means of transportation since the overpasses only allow small vehicles to pass through. This circumstance produces an immense social injustice for the poor since small vehicles are only affordable for the bourgeois. Another example is the mechanical tomato harvester invented by the University of California. This machine is designed to increase the efficiency of work by multiplying the number of tomatoes collected in a day. Despite the boost in production, it had dire consequences in the agriculture industry. This method drastically decreased the number of tomato farmers from 4, 000 to 600 in the 1960s since the private sector values the production rate over the welfare of the laborers. It resulted in the filing of charges against the University of California stating that the invention is designed to spend the taxes of all citizens benefiting the private and the rich sector without the consideration of the low-to-middle classes (Winner).
The stated instances revealed the malevolence behind some technologies since these upheld discriminations, injustices, threats, and preserve the legacy of skilled leaders whose sole concern is their welfare. Laborers are denied the right to speak and partake in the decision-making process which governs the power of technology to ma...