Carrier Rocket Writing Assignment: Technology and Politics
prompt：Langdon Winner's essay confronts us with a simple question that gives rise to a complex set of answers: what is the political or social effect of technology? In this unit, I would like you to bring the Winner essay into conversation with a specific technological phenomenon of your choice. To what extent do Winner's ideas (or ideas he cites) apply to your topic? To what extent does your topic complicate certain theories advanced in the Winner article? What does your particular example suggest about the political dimensions of technology? How do your findings add a new layer to the conversation begun in the Winner piece? The upon part is the prompt for this essay, I will send this and the detail requirement from professor again, the detail technology that I selected is the carrier rocket. because it can be the missile rocket too, it looks like its a technology with authoritarian, and it can be use as a satellite launcher to prosper the market of commercial satellite, also the technology is controlled by Musker and launched by their company, from this level, we can say this technology is some how democracy. I hope writer use the case that I provided and combine with the essay requirement and references as much as possible of examples from winner's essay, especially need to use the last example from page 39, about the ship,: ship at sea need sailors and captain, out of service needs only a caretaker. I will upload the winner's essay, at the meantime, I hope writer find more related articles to complete this.
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Introduction
During the Greco- Roman era, technology and politics were two entirely different things. In most cases actually, the two never came into much contact at all, unless it was under special or urgent circumstances such as during war. However, things began changing with time, within the same societies. As technology kept on advancing and became more sophisticated so did the interest of the political class towards the technology. Through the activities of various men and women in the society, top-notch inventions and innovations have been born all with the aim of improving the life of each member of the community.
It is evident that technology is the reason there are machines, good infrastructure, right communication channels and has been seen as the force behind the high growth of most economies (Bijker, 350). It has been able to promote growth in all the sectors of the economy. Through technology for example, various convenient and faster ways of doing things have come up. There is more automation in virtually every sector, less human presence and therefore also, less errors. The eagerness to discover and know much about technology is the primary reason why the state allows the inventors to carry on with their work with minimal disturbances.
Significant advancements in technology can be of great importance to the political class as they can use it as a way of commanding power and authority. It is always the aspiration of the politicians to always wield and remain in power. Research shows that some of the sophisticated technological systems are in fact highly compatible with the centralized hierarchical managerial control. With that in mind the issue of responsibility arises and it is imperative to know that people should be responsible for their actions. The main issue in the current international platform has been to do with the control of nuclear warheads, and control of nuclear enrichment programs. Much has and still is being debated, over the nations that are trying to go against the same. It is a clear manifestation of the political class trying to get the power and superiority over the others.
The increased use of nuclear energy limits the powers of the citizen and in return gives the political class extra power. The additional power is likely to be misused especially when the citizens disagree on something which the government is doing. Other than going the nuclear way the use of solar systems would unify everyone in that particular society. Separating all the works of technology from political interference is important because it changes the thoughts of those politicians who may wish to use technology for the wrong reasons.
The Role of Technology in Politics
The growth in technology over the last few decades has been a great achievement. It has brought an ease in both the movement of goods and passengers. Additionally, technology has also created different mechanisms of repairing and maintaining locomotives. Before this technology, a colossal amount of money was used in the employment of managers and supervisors. Their performance was not sufficient as that of technology. Politically there are many advantages of saving money because it could be used for other purposes such promoting education. Failing to recognize that technology is shaped by the social and economic forces leads to failure.
Technology contains political properties, and this can be explained further using the example of Robert Moses who was the senior engineer in the building of all bridges, roads, parks and all other public works in New York. He virtually had a hand in almost all the infrastructural projects that happened in the city. The construction of the overpasses was unique in that it discouraged the presence of buses strictly on the parkways. On trying to find out why Moses had put in place such an arrangement two significant reasons came out. The first goal is that he targeted the whites who were wealthy and would afford automobiles. This therefore, eliminated anyone who didn’t possess such, from these places.
The second reason is that he also wanted to focus the comfortable middle class all with the aim of giving them an opportunity to use the parkways for leisure. Well, the middle class during this time was really a rapidly growing segment of the population, but mainly made up of non-blacks. By doing so, the poor people who were black mostly were kept off from accessing the roads. Such was just one of the various instances where such injustices were observed. The driving factors of Robert Moses, therefore, were more to do with economic segregation. He clearly tried separating people along classes in is infrastructural developments and implementation.
Moses had been involved in the politics of his country or a long time and therefore had an opportunity to interact with some people in offices including governors, ...