In this forward-looking volume the invited authors argue that the world must critically assess the potential pitfalls of new technologies in advance. Many of the developments in modern technology are complex, risky, and, to begin with, cloaked in uncertainty. How should we deal with such developments – that may not only have positive effects (such as an increase of our well-being or an improved ability to control and cure diseases) but also negative effects for human beings and the environment (such as global warming or the medicalisation of human beings)? The fact that technological ‘progress’ often occurs under conditions of uncertainty makes the issue even more pressing. Frequently, we are completely devoid of information concerning the applications of new technologies and what their impact will be on human beings and the environment. History has shown that taking a retrospective perspective by passively awaiting the practical consequences of new technologies is both dangero… More >>

Evaluating New Technologies: Methodological Problems for the Ethical Assessment of Technology Developments.

Since the late nineteenth century, the sounds of technology have been the subject of complaints, regulation, and legislation. By the early 1900s, antinoise leagues in Western Europe and North America had formed to fight noise from factories, steam trains, automobiles, and gramophones, with campaigns featuring conferences, exhibitions, and “silence weeks.” And, as Karin Bijsterveld points out in Mechanical Sound, public discussion of noise has never died down and continues today. In this book, Bijsterveld examines the persistence of noise on the public agenda, looking at four episodes of noise and the public response to it in Europe and the United States between 1875 and 1975: industrial noise, traffic noise, noise from neighborhood radios and gramophones, and aircraft noise. She also looks at a twentieth-century counterpoint to complaints about noise: the celebration of mechanical sound in avant-garde music composed between the two world wars.

Bijsterveld argues that the… More >>

Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century

This entry in the Major Problems in American History series examines the history of technology in America, from colonial times to the present. Each of the 14 chapters contains an introduction, secondary readings, documents, headnotes, and suggested readings.
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Major Problems in the History of American Technology