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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."
I don't really believe this theory about changing relationship to time, space and other people. Personally I find it more to be about understanding. I am always cautious of things I don't understand. From computer software to mechanical things to ... well, anything at all. Those five hour energy drinks? Not for me. Probably safe. But I don't understand it so I'm not doing it. Do they change my relationship to time, space and other people? Not at all.
And I think that's where moral panic comes from. Why even call it "moral panic" when it's really just a matter of a large amount of change coming from something that's hard to understand sparking extreme caution and sometimes panic. World of Warcraft is really scary to older people who don't play it. Electricity is really scary to people who don't understand it. Hell, it'd look like magic to me if I had never encountered it before. And your knee-jerk reaction is caution.
I think simply informing people alleviates this and -- in some cases like cellular phones -- when you can't effectively communicate to the masses you will suffer from this panic.
My work here is dung.
'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"
Yeah, nothing worse than riding on the bus or a train when, all of a sudden, whoa flying uterus!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Vatican is still againt condoms !!!!!!
There will always be somebody that gets freaked out by something they don't understand. Humans can be herded very easily with fear. Just look at the US political system.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
The laws of probability forbid it!
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?
Hey, long time no see..
BTW, you forgot to add the chiropracy to the list of things we found out are bad for people!
I realize that you are the resident quack-doctor-troll; but here goes:
Asbestos: Wonderful stuff for serious fireproofing/insulation applications. Just don't bloody breath it. (And, incidentally, don't let those sociopathic fuckers we call 'lobbyists' anywhere near public policy. The curious little quirk of physical geography that puts some of the major asbestos deposits in Quebec, whose always-restive local government the national government is always trying to placate, made for decades of obfuscation, stalling, and straight-out lies about the stuff's safety...)
Thalidomide: Crazy teratogenic(which is why the evil, evil, FDA didn't approve it in the US). On the other hand, as long as you aren't pregnant, it shows a great deal of promise in the treatment of Leprosy and certain cancers. Use as Directed, kids.
Obviously, not all new technologies are good, and there is always the risk that we either won't know that, or that the people who do know that will have an interest in ignoring the fact(Thanks for all the lead, Ethyl Corporation...). That doesn't mean that many of them aren't progress, though.
Have you ever noticed that many movies are made about new technologies? In the 1950s it was all about nuclear and/or space travel. Later we had stuff about bio-technology like Andromeda Strain , and Jurasic Park. In the original movie, Frankenstein was brought to life by electricity, in the origianal book it was chemistry. As computers, and internet progress, we get movies like "War Games" and "Colossues."
Led by researcher Daniel Favre, the alarming study found that bees reacted significantly to cell phones that were placed near or in hives in call-making mode.
I think its also been shown that when cell phones are placed in moving cars in call-making mode that it leads to a significant increase in human deaths.
War of Currents
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Its a panic because it represents a change. And people don't do well with change. Its moral because we can't come up with a reasoned argument not to do it, or at least to take it slowly. Making things a moral issue creates a taboo that we are not supposed to question. Or we might be on the slippery slope to having sex with animals or some such nonsense.
When I hear 'panic', I step back and weigh the pros and cons. When I hear 'moral', I start looking for a group seeking to control society to suit their own agendas.
Have gnu, will travel.
can be viewed as an invasion of privacy
an invasion of privacy invokes the ancient primate evolutionary panic of some other male inseminating the female you are paired with, which means you are stuck devoting all of your time and resources raising some other man's child
so yes, the battlefield is the woman's body when it comes to fear of the unknown, and especially something that is sticking tendrils into your house or creeping out over the ether and grabbing and inseminating YOUR WOMAN
AAAAAAAHHHHH
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That study was bullshit pseudoscience that wasn't even done with proper controls. If you look at the original Daily Mail article that your link links to, you'll see that an expert on bees notes that you can do the same damage simply opening a hive and stuffing things in it, cell phone or otherwise. You can't get a meaningful conclusion from that.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
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it is always played out in the bodies of children and women,
This sounds like "I'm not worried for myself, but I am concerned of the effect <whatever> could have on other people". So men would transfer their fears, ignorance and paranoia onto concern for womem. Women would transfer it onto children (and presumably children would transfer it onto the family dog). I'd guess that a significant proportion of people are simply resitant to change. Not because they necessarily like living in the dark, suffering from deficiency diseases or being socially isolatedd. It's just that they've learned to cope with those conditions (and more importantly: they recognise that everyone else is no better off than they are). When change happens, it's possible that other people will get to grips with it, or exploit it's value before they do - or they are shown up to be stupid by their lack of understanding - sooner than they do, leaving them at a disadvantage.
Since they can't admit their own fears, they express them as concern for others. Presumably people whom they consider inferior (physically, or in some other way) and can therefore show their compassion and concern, while still pursuing their intention of preventing other people from gaining an advantage over themselves.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Disruption afford opportunities for opportunists, and some of them are dishonest. Balances worked out over many decades that represent some kind of rough fairness between competing interests are brushed aside in a twinkling, and the new technology creates a chance for early colonizers to make a successful power grab. The ordinary citizens understands intuitively that new technology is used against him first, then checks and balances are worked out later.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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/
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
The mad scientist is named Victor Frankenstein, and I don't remember him having his doctorate when he created the monster. The monster gives himself the name Adam, but he is Victor's "son" (in a way), so I guess the name Adam Frankenstein isn't too far off the mark.
I grew up in a heavily conservative environment. Each new piece of technology was seen as a new way for the devil to attack, signaling the arrival of the anti-christ. This included...
Credit cards: Banks want you to use credit cards because it assigns you a number, and numbering the people was something that the anti-christ did.
ATM Machines: Something about not carrying cash was evil. Not sure what that was about.
RFID: They want to implant them into your body. The resulting scar was the mark of the beast.
If they couldn't find a rational reason to explain their fear of a new technology, they blamed it on the anti-christ.
My favorite "protect the women" argument has to do with the introduction of anesthesia in the 19th Century. Use of ether or chloroform, while risky, began to receive widespread acceptance after its introduction in the 1840's, and any number of physicians and surgeons worked to perfect it. One in particular, John Snow, recognized its possibilities during childbirth. He developed techniques for cutting back on pain (analgesia) without knocking the prospective mother out completely. Queen Victoria is known to have employed him for several of her numerous deliveries.
His work was raved against in many pulpits because it was perceived to be in violation of the book of Genesis, which states "you will bring forth your children in sorrow." Fortunately, rationality in tandem with numerous upper-crust British ladies, eventually prevailed.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
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.
Actually, I don't think it's just misunderstanding. There are historical examples of people having moral panics or outrages over things that didn't involve any special maths to understand.
E.g., the funniest was one monk having a long rant against the printing press, back in Gutenberg's days. Among other things, apparently copying books by hand builds character and appreciation, according to him, so obviously this newfangled printing press will cause some generations of wimps and illiterates. Actually it was one factor that caused literacy and access to literature to go up.
I don't think he needed any special knowledge to understand what a printing press does. He just feared the change it would cause.
But an even more common factor is: follow the money. You'll find that a lot of scaremongering over new technologies can be traced to people fearing:
A. Loss of income. Remember the whole scare campaign the Edison waged against AC, just because he stood to lose sales of his DC generators that had to be placed every couple of houses. That was sales of thousands of generators he stood to lose, should people switch to AC.
The same can be seen for many other scares. E.g., TV and radio stations making scare stories about computer games? Oh gee, I wonder why that is... ;)
Even in the case of bringing electricity to homes that is quoted in TFA, remember that there was a whole industry to supply lamp oil and/or gas for lighting. A couple of electrical wires and lightbulbs would have put them out of business. And historically it did. Quick: how many whaling companies are there in the west to supply whale oil for lamps? None, eh? Well, now you know why they raised a stink and dressed it in some moral outrage BS.
B. Loss of status symbols.
Sometimes if I can get X while the Joneses can't get X, it's a symbol that I'm better than the Joneses. It can be a fur coat for the missus, or a sports car, or historically affording a well lit home or a book. Or whatever. What matters is that I have something that the Joneses can't afford. Historically we even once made a fashion thing to be deathly pale, to make a "look, I can afford to stay indoors all day, while the Joneses work in the fields" status point, and switched to it being fashionable to be tanned when most jobs moved indoors, so now the better point was "look, I can afford to go to the beach". Etc.
So, yes, expect a lot of people to oppose anything that would lower the price of something and devalue its status symbol value. If the Joneses can get X too, then my having X isn't worth any status symbol points any more.
Look at electricity and lit homes again. At one point having a well lit home was a status symbol. The poor would have at most a candle or small lamp and spend all evening clustered around it, while the rich could flaunt their having a whole mansion lit like day. The prospect that in a few years every plebeian could have the same... you can see how that would make a lot of ad hoc "moralists" raise a stink.
Only of course, they can't just come out and say, "you fucking plebs should fucking stay in the dark so I can keep bragging about affording light!!!" They had to pack it in some "it's for your own good" kind of bullshit.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Nope
Not one single injury
EVER
Any technology advancements that can challenge religious beliefs are taboo!
If bringing someone back from cryopreservation was made possible then it would raise serious questions about the state of the human soul while the body was in stasis. Teleportation also challenges the existance of the human soul. In "Star Trek", during dematerialization, is the body considered gone, freeing the soul to pass on, and then during rematerialization does the soul relize it's mistake and comes running back?
Genetic engineering is considered playing God by many. While we might not be designing our next generation, we do check for genetic defects, and then potentially aborting when they are detected. Eventually, with in vitro fertilization, we can selectively choose the ones we like best, which is getting close to genetically engineering our kids.
Led by researcher Daniel Favre, the alarming study found that bees reacted significantly to cell phones that were placed near or in hives in call-making mode.
Does this explain the calls I've gotten lately, where I pick up the phone and just hear buzzing at the other end? Why are the bees calling me? Do they want their honey back? It's too late; I already ate it!
I'll give you that you finally turned up your claims of additional tests. Now here's what's wrong with them. The Punjab University study (the full, original, published study, not some digested article from the mainstream news) mentions but gives no statistics for its blank group. This is highly suspicious, because it was subjected to all of the physical stress save the EM radiation of the phones. If the EM radiation were so significantly responsible, they would be shouting from the rooftops that even in the colony where they ripped shit up and dumped dead phones in, nothing significant happened. Instead, that they did a blank study is barely mentioned, and all the statistics are compared between the aggregates of the active tests with the absolute control group that had nothing done to it whatsoever. That is bad, bad science. What's the point of having a blank group if you're not going to report your findings? Because that would have undermined their bullshit, as apiologists already know that just sticking things in hives damages them.
The link I provided earlier already debunks the Favre study, so I see no need in rehashing it. The full, original, and published study is here, for those who want to assess it for the lacking elements discussed by Skepchick.
I forget who said it, some professor of a graduate program somewhere I roughly recall, but there is a fitting insight for this contrast. To paraphrase, undergraduate students tend not to question. They do research and when they find information in papers they take it as some kind of divine inspiration handed down from on high. When a person with a PhD does research and finds information in a study, they immediately pick up a hammer and start whacking to see what breaks.
If you want a true scientific perspective, you need to ask questions about what you're being told. If somebody came in here and started saying that bees are absolutely not impacted in any way by EM radiation, I would say that current studies are not conclusive, that there are flaws in their methodology that should be fixed and the studies run again before any verdict can *usefully* be reached. You want to believe that bees are detrimentally impacted because you have a green agenda. I am not arguing for or against an agenda, I am simply pointing at the flaws of these studies. When one is done that is completely transparent, properly controlled and documented included all times and statistics for all groups, then I will be satisfied.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
http://www.springerlink.com/content/bx23551862212177/fulltext.pdf">The article you linked to provides some fairly convincing evidence of localized electromagnetic fields affecting bee behavior, as compared with inactive cell phones (in standby mode) to control for the assertion that this is just because scientists are jamming phones into hives and observing the bees get pissed about it.
What I'm not seeing is how this problem should be exclusive to cell phones. The proposed mechanism is strong emf fields, but radios, walkie-talkies, TV transmissions, etc. should also be affecting bees if this were the case. Of course, it's entirely possible that it wasn't until cell phones became commonplace that the effects of emf on bees became noticeable.
With these data, were I a policymaker, I'd be convinced to fund more research in the area, but it doesn't immediately strike me as the smoking gun for "Ah hah! This is the reason bees are dying!"
Anything in excess leads to tragedy.
- Dan.
Except moderation. Take moderation to the extreme!
Fixed that for you.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini