Technology and Moral Panic

pbahra writes "Why do some technologies cause moral panic and others don't? Why was the introduction of electricity seen as a terrible thing, while nobody cared much about the fountain pen? According to Genevieve Bell, the director of Intel Corporation's Interaction and Experience Research, we have had moral panic over new technology for pretty well as long as we have had technology. It is one of the constants in our culture. '... moral panic is remarkably stable and it is always played out in the bodies of children and women,' she said. There was, she says, an initial pushback about electrifying homes in the U.S.: 'If you electrify homes you will make women and children vulnerable. Predators will be able to tell if they are home because the light will be on, and you will be able to see them. So electricity is going to make women vulnerable. Oh and children will be visible too and it will be predators, who seem to be lurking everywhere, who will attack.' 'There was some wonderful stuff about [railway trains] too in the U.S., that women's bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed,' she says."

Comments

Vatican is still againt condoms !!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Vatican is still againt condoms !!!!!!

BS

[Anonymous Coward]

The reasons listed in this study are a lie. Electrifying homes had other reasons for scaring people than whats said here. Go read about Tesla and Edison, why are modern studies filled with such dribble? Especially American ones?

War of the Currents

[Comboman]

War of Currents

Edison carried out a campaign to discourage the use[13] of alternating current, including spreading disinformation on fatal AC accidents, publicly killing animals, and lobbying against the use of AC in state legislatures. Edison directed his technicians, primarily Arthur Kennelly and Harold P. Brown,[14] to preside over several AC-driven killings of animals, primarily stray cats and dogs but also unwanted cattle and horses. Acting on these directives, they were to demonstrate to the press that alternating current was more dangerous than Edison's system of direct current.[15] He also tried to popularize the term for being electrocuted as being "Westinghoused". Years after DC had lost the "war of the currents," in 1902, his film crew made a movie of the electrocution with high voltage AC, supervised by Edison employees, of Topsy, a Coney Island circus elephant which had recently killed three men.[16]

Edison opposed capital punishment, but his desire to disparage the system of alternating current led to the invention of the electric chair. Harold P. Brown, who was being secretly paid by Edison, built the first electric chair for the state of New York to promote the idea that alternating current was deadlier than DC.[17]

When the chair was first used, on August 6, 1890, the technicians on hand misjudged the voltage needed to kill the condemned prisoner, William Kemmler. The first jolt of electricity was not enough to kill Kemmler, and only left him badly injured. The procedure had to be repeated and a reporter on hand described it as "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging." George Westinghouse commented: "They would have done better using an axe."[18]

Re:People fear what they don't understand

[Verdatum]

Shame on you. Frankenstein's Monster. Frankenstein is the Doctor's name. He was brought to life in the traditional manner.

Re:why modded down.

[ElectricTurtle]

Did you pay attention to your own search results? Half of them discredit the study, and I don't even see additional studies in them. I did however find a very nice debunking article in a chain of links off your weak Google-fu: http://skepchick.org/2011/05/bees-ccd-and-cellphones-still-no-link/

Re:People fear what they don't understand

[canajin56]

Actually, Dr. Frankenstein never explains how he animated Adam, for fear that his work could be duplicated. But he says that he came to his discovery while studying galvanism (the effect of electricity on muscles).

Re:In My Opinion, More So a Lack of Understanding

[ElectricTurtle]

You might want to learn some history before you try to make arguments with it. A majority of both parties supported both the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act. More or less as many Republicans as Democrats opposed the measures.

Re:Written by an industry insider?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then here's your first. http://www.680news.com/news/local/article/248658--alannah-myles-shares-tragic-health-news-with-canada-day-crowd

TORONTO, Ont. - The crowd at Woodbine Park cheered loudly as Canadian rocker Alannah Myles was about to take the stage at one of the summer festivals taking place on Canada Day.

However, the tone changed as the "Black Velvet" singer was carried on and helped seated onto the piano bench using two canes. Although she seemed unable to move her head or neck, her voice sounded great as she played a few songs that really got the crowd rocking.

Finally, Myles explained to the audience that she had overdone chiropractic treatments, having some 500 treatments over three years, and had suffered some severe spinal damage.

She is unable to move her neck and head.

Re:Written by an industry insider?

[whargoul]

Nope
Not one single injury
EVER

Re:Transference

[dkleinsc]

That's not quite the entire story though.

One not-very-surprising conclusion of psychological research is that parents will do just about anything that they think will benefit their children, even if they're suicidal. Parent's love of their kids basically short-circuits the reasoning part of their brain. Love of the spouse is not quite as strong, but still very effective at short-circuiting reasoning.

Why does that matter? Because it means that if somebody wants to short-circuit the reasoning part of your brain, one way to do it is to present the threat or benefit as being to your children or spouse. That's why there's massive amounts of BS tossed around as "for the children" and "to protect women": the last thing you want a propaganda target doing is thinking carefully.