ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology” » April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)

April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)

Plan for the Day

  • Overview of the rest of the semester
  • Talk more about Social Construction of Technology revisions
  • Discuss Technology Project Stuff
  • Wheeler’s From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future (Part I)
    • History of Technology
    • Differences between the linear, “evolution” model and social construction

Wheeler’s From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future

You probably can tell that I’m not in agreement with the claims Wheeler makes about the linearity of technological development and his privileging whig history. Of course, a class on the rhetoric of technology has to explore the common assumptions of technological development to understand how meaning is conveyed and how assumptions are made. I’ll do my best to read with Wheeler today.

For your Final Exam, you’ll need to pay close attention to a question’s context. Consider the following questions:

Example Question #1: Our class discussion regarding the social construction of technology privileges understanding technological advancement as following ______________________________.
a) totally random patterns of development throughout history
b) deliberate, incremental steps of evolution in order to get to the advancements we have today
c) demands, often hegemonic ones, of a culture to produce technologies that fit or can be made to fit prevailing ideologies
d) all of the above
e) none of the above

Example Questions #2: According to Tom Wheeler’s From Gutenberg to Google, technological advancement follows ______________________________.
a) totally random patterns of development throughout history
b) deliberate, incremental steps of evolution in order to get to the advancements we have today p. 16
c) demands, often hegemonic ones, of a culture to produce technologies that fit or can be made to fit prevailing ideologies
d) all of the above
e) none of the above

Wheeler’s “Preface“

  • p. xiii: 1/6th of the national economy, $27.36T (US Bureau of Economic Analysis)–notice the URL
  • p. xiv: “Ultimately, new rules and practices embrace the reality of the future over the practices of the past— but getting there isn’t easy.”
    • “Darwinian connection between the earlier technology and today’s technology.”
  • p. xv: “Combining ubiquitous computing and Big Data has created artificial intelligence.”
    • “I want to convince you that the most important impact of network revolutions is not the network technology but how society reacts to that technology— and how that is something we control.”

Compare that last quotation with Langdon Winner’s definition of technological determinism from : “the idea that technological innovation is the basic cause of changes in society and that human beings have little choice other than to sit back and watch this ineluctable process unfold” (9-10).

  • ineluctable might not be synonymous with “natural,” but I have a feeling Wheeler considers them close enough.

Wheeler’s “Prologue”

  • pp. 1-2: Begins with explaining some new business models and smart devices…same as artificial intelligence? If you asked, “which definition?” you’ll probably do VERY well on the Final Exam.
  • p. 2: “…history’s third great network revolution.”
    • Centers his argument around network changes leading to economic and social changes (economics is a social science).
  • p. 3: “…Darwinian evolution. Technologically, each of the earlier network revolutions was a building block to the networked technologies of today.”
    • There is a true to this statement.
  • pp. 4-5: Always been warnings about new technology
    • Consider the rhetorical nature of warnings.
  • p. 5: Moore’s law from 1965. It’s slowing, but it’s heading towards the singularity, right?
  • p. 6: “We can no longer escape. Once, being out of the office or away from home was an opportunity to bail out. Now you can be away but never apart.”
  • Think of this from a scifi perspective.
  • p. 7: Job loss and digital tracks.

Wheeler’s Ch. 1 “Connections Have Consequences”

  • p. 11: Securing networks–“The U.S. government commissioned a California think tank, the RAND Corporation…”
  • p.12: “If one computer was knocked out, the packets would work their way around the problem by being re- sent to other nodes.”
    • You might not be aware that the US government had plans in place for World War IV:
      The Reagan-approved Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN) was in development (in the 1980s) in order to have “a military infrastructure that can survive a protracted nuclear war” (Hiatt H3).
  • p. 13: From Paul Baran–“We are a network- centric species; the networks that connect us have always defined us. The most powerful external force in the human experience is the manner in which we link ourselves together.”
  • p. 14: “As the railroad supplanted traditional pathways, the telegraph rode alongside[, which]….also introduced instantaneous communications into other aspects of life and business.”
    • “Whereas the railroad compressed distance, the telegraph condensed time. From the beginning of history, the fact that information moved physically meant that it moved slowly, limited to the same speed as human travel.”
  • p. 15: “Electronic messages coordinated industrial production, created a new managerial class, and enabled the rise of powerful market- controlling corporations.”
  • p. 16: The Charles Darwin argument–“The evolution of network technology mimics the step- by- step natural evolution of living things.”
  • p. 16: Debunking the Lone Inventor Myth: “While inventions are often described in terms of one person’s inspiration, in reality they are typically a new assembly of accrued knowledge in a heretofore unrecognized manner for a previously unappreciated purpose.”
    • “…Marconi continued from the point where others had stopped. Such an account contributed to the ‘lone inventor myth’ because it never named other inventors from whom Marconi compiled various components to use in his wireless apparatus” (Toscano 96).
  • p. 17: “The current network revolution is being driven by the ultimate expansion of network dispersal to further move activity away from central points to become fully distributed, ultimately right down to the individual.”
  • Would a discussion of individualism make sense here?
  • Linear, accretive process of technological advancement according to Wheeler:
    “First, a new technology breaks the ongoing incremental, linear evolution of the old technology by reformulating components that have been around for some time. Then the new nonlinear assembly is seized on by others to produce nonobvious results.
    • Let’s revisit relevant social groups,
      • “Another reason why users need to be acclimated to technology is because they are important ‘actors’ or ‘‘relevant social groups’’ that are part of the social construction of technology (Bijker 1995, p. 48). Technology not adhering to cultural values or, at least, not being made to fit cultural values will not become realized.” (Toscano 27)
      • “Being labeled as a progressive technology suggests the wireless ‘spoke’ to the cultural desire to advance through machines. Relevant social groups promoted the wireless as an evolutionary feat, a marker of industrial progress, just as Edison’s electrical works projects were seen in places like San Francisco and Louisville (Bazerman 1999, p. 219)” (Toscano 132).
  • p. 18: “Because new networks dispatch old traditions, they trigger opposition from those who have grown comfortable with the old patterns.”
  • p. 19: “For the first time in history, the new network puts its user in control.”
  • p. 21: “The acceleration of network speeds maps to the pace of technological change and the acceleration of economic and social change.”
  • p. 22: “Making information instantaneously available every where at a speed 100 times faster than delivery by horse further hastened the pace of life and the rate of change.”
  • p. 23: “History has been clear in the expectations it sets for our future. The innovations created by new networks topple old institutions and accelerate the pace of life. The demands of the new and the absence of traditional moorings generate frustration and bewilderment.”
    • Let’s play a game…spot two “truths” in the above passage.
  • p. 24: “…the greatest danger is not the turmoil itself but the attempt to cling to the comfortable ideas and institutions that remain from the last network revolution.”
    • Very futurist…

William Speed Weed’s “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney”

William Speed Weed “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney” used to be a staple in the courses I taught, but I stopped assigning it. I ought to rethink that. In the article, he discusses advertising claims. The claim of “natural” is quite funny, especially when he discusses evolution.

Next Class

We don’t have class on Thursday (4/11, but you know the 4-1-1!) or next Tuesday (4/16). You have Weekly Discussion Post #12 due this Friday (4/12) at 11:00am, and you’ll have Weekly Discussion Post #13 due next Friday (4/19) at 11:00am. Then, you only have one more left!

Works Cited

Hiatt, Fred. “U.S. Military Building Network to Fight World War III—and IV.” The Toronto Star. 3 August 1986, p. H3. Nexis Uni, https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3WJ6-1NF0-00RK-C355-00000-00&context=1516831.

Toscano, Aaron A. Marconi’s Wireless and the Rhetoric of a New Technology. Springer, 2012.

Weed, William Speed. “106 Science Claims and a Truckful of Baloney.” Popular Science, 5 May 2004. https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-05/1o6-science-claims-and-truckful-baloney/