Dan Lyons: Are Luddites Confused? (1979, Inquiry)

INTRODUCTION
Lyon's definition of Luddism

General opposition to tech "progress"
General presumption that tech 'progress' is bad for us, so tech innovation not a true achievement
Luddism is not just opposition to this or that tech

Lyons attempts to provide a systematic justification for a general dislike of tech progress
Definition of technology not all that important

"Any set of techniques that make possible dramatic new ways of changing world suddenly in pursuit of a definite goal"
If poetical technique could outdo engineers in changing world by spreading new religion, he'd be more concerned with it

Lyons' goal: Not to prove Luddism correct, but show it is deserving of serious consideration and is not ridiculous position many paint it to be
SYNOPSIS OF LYONS' DEFENSE OF LUDDISM
Tech powers misused will cause more harm than good
Such harmful misuse is likely
Dramatic ½ blind changes resulting from tech will damage world's (human and natural) systems swamping their adjustment mechanisms
Tech powers likely to be misused because

Superhuman powers go sour with merely human wisdom
Know-how tends to inherently pull ahead of know-whether

Know-how without know-whether is dangerous incompetence

Dangerous to further empower a fallible humanity
IS TECHNOLOGY NEUTRAL?
Opponents of Luddism (technophiles=lovers of tech) claim science/tech is neutral; should blame people not tech

Even if bad things have happened that would not have happened in pre-technical society, foolish to blame these troubles on tech
Blame people who use tech for evil, not tech
"Blaming the tech is like blaming the crucifixion on existence of hammers and nails"
No new development is either peaceful or warlike (good or bad); anything can be used in a variety of ways

Worries about the tech is neutral idea
- This is like saying that if guns get in the hands of children we shouldn't blame guns, but rather blame the children

What about blaming the adults who allow this?

Do we want to say that nuclear bombs, guns, or poison on the one hand, and guitars and bikes on the other are equally neutral?

LYONS CRITIQUE OF THE SUPPOSED NEUTRALITY OF POWER (TECHNOLOGY)
Technology is the major contemporary form of power
Power (tech) is a hypothetical good/evil
- Rejects idea that power is valueless until used for good or ill
Power should be positively or negatively valued in a context, depending on how it is LIKELY to be used (and not how it could be used)

So tech/power is not neutral, but has a value given a context
That power might be used for good doesn't make it valuable (nor does fact it might be used for bad make it disvaluable)
How power is likely to be used is what counts
Example: 8 year old with a car might take a sick person to hospital, but since bad results are much more likely, his having this power in this context is bad

Power not itself to be admired, only power/tech used well

Power/skill not a good in all circumstances
We pity, not admire, someone who can achieve her short range goals (has power), but this very success blocks her long range goals
Unlucky/bad to posses the power that destroys you

Powers are multipliers: Increases value of wisdom and disvalue of folly

Speed a defect in a blind horse even before he uses it; better if blind horse is slow
To a fool, power adds disvalue to his folly; Fool better off weak

Karate expert example

Person learns karate, grows overconfident, picks fight with a man w/gun and dies
He knew how to fight with armed man in safest way possible
Forgot that safe wasn't safe enough
Didn't know enough not to fight at all
Blame his fighting skill for this bad end

Overconfidence from karate skill caused his death by tempting him into a fight he could not survive.

Such a skill was bad for this person

Know-how is incompetence without know-whether

Questions:

Are humans too clever/powerful given our lack of wisdom?
So the power/tech to go into outer space that humans have developed is not to be admired for its own sake, but only if it is used well (or likely to be?)

Is this an example of a power we should admire for its own sake?

PRESUPPOSITION OF LYON'S ARGUMENT: BLIND CHANGE HELPS ENTROPY (=DISORDER)

Random changes are enemy of system (organization)
There are more ways for a system to change for worse than for better

Kid asking father why his things are so often out of place
More places for things to be out of place than in place

Random/blind changes more likely to make matters worse (in organized systems)
E.g.: Blind man thrusting screwdriver into a watch to fix it more likely to wreck it than do it any good

LYONS' ABSTRACT ARGUMENT FOR WHY FUTURE TECH LIKELY TO BRING MORE HARM THAN GOOD

Our acts (tech innovations) have two types of results: Blind (unforseen) and sighted (foreseen)

(If we are rational) foreseeable consequences are likely to be good (Why?)

Unforseen consequences of dramatic innovations will be both good and bad, but they are more likely to be bad

Because such innovation is blindly impinging on human and natural systems and blind change tends to bring disorder to systems

So when unforseen consequences far outweigh the foreseeable ones, net result will be bad (do more harm than good)

Unforseen consequences of recent tech far outweigh foreseeable ones (a crucial difference between modern and traditional techs)

Reason: Because they are so powerful

Therefore, it is likely that future tech developments will cause more harm than good; thus Luddism is rational

EXAMPLES OF UNFORSEEN CONSEQUENCES

(Do they outweigh foreseeable ones?)

Cars: People saw that car would give us new mobility, no one predicted startling effect on family, city, atmosphere, and world-crises in middle east

Lyons' argument explains fear of Global Warming: We should be worried about global warming as most of the consequences are unforeseeable. Thus we should expect them on balance to be overall bad (though some good will come about too). (Could be that human-caused changes to atmosphere will do more good than harm, but why expect blind lunges into natural systems to be beneficial?) Natural and human systems adapted to current climate. To expect good/bad consequences to counterbalance each other like expecting two malfunctions in a watch to cancel each other.

REASON TO HOPE THAT OUR PARTIALLY BLIND INTERVENTIONS WON'T BE SO BAD

One: Hope blind intervention is puny comparted to magnitude of systems they effect

Big volcanoes when erupt put more particulates in air than human pollution and yet atmosphere seems okay

Two: Hope that natural and social systems are resilient enough--have sufficient adjustment mechanism--to counter our negative interventions

E.g., Hope atmosphere can produce more ozone as we destroy it or that earth will find ways to cool itself as we warm the planet

But modern tech interventions have such force/speed not likely for ecosystems to have evolved response mechanisms to such assaults
There are limits to this resilience; at some point our acts/tech will swamp adjustment mechanisms of important natural systems

Three: Hope we can notice signs of damage to natural systems and repair them

But it is chancy to intervene half-blindly in mysterious systems (e.g., atmosphere or ecosystems) and try to repair the damage from our previous mistakes

E.g., Mongoose introduced into Hawaii to kill rats that humans brought there (but mongoose fed by day and rats by night); mongoose wiped out several bird species

Our repairs often unhelpful

Is this true of species extinction, ozone, global warming?

LYONS RESPONSE TO CLAIM HUMANS OBVIOUSLY BETTER OFF TODAY (AND THUS TECH HAS BEEN OVERALL GOOD)

REPLY: NOT CLEAR GIVEN INCREASE IN TOTAL MISERY

Who is better off: Middle class Westerners? Most people? Average person? Worst off people?

Even if greater numbers or greater % today better off, absolute numbers of people are worse off

More people live without electricity today due to increased population than before this technology
Before sci revolution, ½ billion lived w/o electricity; today billion or more do

In absolute terms, human misery increased since sci/tech revolution

Deformed child analogy:

Which is better?
Family with two deformed children who are miserable, one healthy happy child (2/3 miserable)
Or family with four deformed miserable children and eight healthy happy ones? (Only 1/3 miserable)
Is this an improvement? (Lyons thinks not)
That we are better off today is supported by one's chances of being born well off today are better in this example

If in 2010, ½ of 6 billion are miserable due to famine, this would be 6 times the misery of before the advent of modern science (½ a billion)

Also we now have threat of nuclear war (or terrorism); even if doesn't happen this is a possibility

We are in a predicament not encountered by earlier people
Tech now left us to face possibility of annihilating ourselves

Not ridiculous to say humans are worse off collectively in scientific age

MISCELLANEOUS

Know-how w/o know-whether is incompetence (a weakness, not a strength)

Know-how = cleverness

Skill of achieving narrow well defined objectives; effectively gets you what you want at any given moment
Know-how advances quickly and easily
Specialized tunnel vision advances knowledge quickly

Know-whether = wisdom

Broader, more difficult kind of knowledge, predicting and evaluation all relevant consequences
Know-whether includes getting right values/virtues (carrying about future's and others interests) and predicting all consequences of our actions/tech
Humans show no noticeable progress in getting these virtues

Knowledge of the consequences of using our technologies always lags behind knowledge of how to build them

Very difficult knowledge to achieve

No reason to expect know-whether to catch up with know-how

And without it, know-how will go bad

Too bad we got so clever

If not yet too clever to survive w/o wisdom, we are close
We should be in no hurry for more cleverness (i.e., technology)

We now have staggering powers, only a small defect in know-whether (prudence, beneficence) will produce a catastrophe
Examples suggesting we don't have enough wisdom

Better if not developed factory fishing vessels given "strip mining the seas"
Africanized bee example

Scientists used 50 times more care ever used before
But not enough (need 100 times the care)
Scientists not blamed for not taking enough care

He was promoted

Human standards of due care rise slowly
Unlikely enough care will be used with new materials/tech requiring huge new increases in care/safe handling
We should not deal with materials that require quantum jump in caution to handle safely
Can't expect requisite caution to be exercised

How Karate expert example supports Luddism

If mod tech is likely to do more harm than good, rational to think it is bad for us and should oppose our acquiring this ability
For parents of karate expert rational to feel revulsion for whole martial arts business
Want to keep hot-head younger brother from getting exposed to these skills
Reasonable for one who thinks tech likely to be misused to feel disenchanted with whole sci-technological world