Techno Demonology 1: The politics of designed artifacts

[morality_play]

turkishb left a comment in my recent cautionary tale about political centrism in the US, directing me to the work of an author that has inspired me to articulate some thoughts on technology, politics, the relationship between morality and design, and a critical failure of market libertarianism. The explanation is necessarily complex, and will meander

Comments

[morality_play]

Your meaning isn't quite clear to me Turkishb. I suppose I'm concerned with what you intend by "narratives of consciousness." You seem to be alluding to my remarks on "design" in the life sciences. Of course, my only point there had been that the life sciences are unique among the sciences in that their adopted nomenclature uses teleological statements about "design intent" to describe evolutionary phenomena. And of course, they only use this for want of a better nomenclature. It's awkward to talk about the formal qualities of a tree without alluding to "design." I wanted to emphasize this distinction between a designed artifact and an emergent organism.

But by narrative of consciousness, you intend...
Narrative _from_ consciousness?
Narrative _about_ consciousness?
Narrative _intrinsic to_ consciousness?

I think your remark "not for yummy but for strong" is intended as a teleological reading of the tomato plant's purposes, and how they would be popularly misunderstood? For example, the plant's formal qualities service the end of reproductive success. Not haute cuisine?

I hope this doesn't appear terribly dense of me. Hopefully, I'll be able to wrap up my thoughts on Szerzynski's techno demonology over the weekend. I'd love to hear your observations if you have an opportunity.

[turkishb]

I was agreeing with you... my meaning is simply that we select certain things to be part of memory from consciousness, and then part of new consciousness from memory, giving a narrative... you see? But also this is important because the narratives of other consciousnesses are encoded to us as myths and conventions of our culture. I was just trying to infuse what I feel from my own media text critiques intrinsic to my undergrad major... More later.