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Hi Robert et al,
I want to disagree with the following analysis:
[Robert Neunteufel wrote..]
>Jay Hanson wrote:
>>
>
>> I do not understand why people assume that justice can only by
>> served by a so-called democracy. IMHO, there isn't a chance of
>> a snowball in hell that any kind of "democratic governance" can
>> lead to anything but total disaster. Moreover, I see no a priori
>> reason why an autocratic government can not produce at least as
>> much justice as our present plutocratic government.
>>
>> Does anyone want to discuss any of the following items?
>>
>> =================================================================
>>
>> Current assumptions:
>>
>> #1. The scientific community is correct -- that we have now
>> exceeded the carrying capacity of our planet, and that
>> continued "business as usual" will result in a global
>> population crash in less than 35 years -- billions may die
>> untimely deaths. [ http://dieoff.org/page5.htm ]
>
>Experts from different scientific fields are in a high degree
>responsible for the major problems we are confronted with.
>It seems to me, that experts are specialists in their field, who are not
>able to think about the possibly negative effects of their special
>solutions for the social or ecological system.
>When I was a students representative, some 25 years ago, I tried to
>establish a compulsary program for technology assessment in the study
>program for mechanical engineering at the Technical University in
>Vienna.
>But we were not successful, as the academic teachers and the
>representatives of industrial companies said, that there was not enough
>time for such unimportant questions.
>
>On the other hand, Austria ( a small country in the heart of Europe) is
>the only country I know, where due to a plebiscit a nearly completed
>atomic power plant was not allowed to start operating and no new atomic
>power plants can be constructed.
>
>I am quite sceptic, that experts without the necessary responsibility
>can create a better future.
>
>How should those experts be educated and how can they be controlled?
>
>Robert Neunteufel
>
>
I do believe that experts share some of the responsibility for society's
ills, but then, so do the rest of us.
Most experts I know of work on whatever will pay them a living. Those
who pay those experts bear the heavier responsibilities since the
results might be the same even if many experts declined to participate.
In other words, those with the will to spend toward some end will be
able to find someone to do the necessary work. In democracies like
ours, the voters also bear responsibilities for allowing their
governments to permit such acts that have degraded our future.
But remember too, those experts have done much to enhance our welfare.
They did that when the money was there to pay their way. I am not
suggesting that experts are in any way not responsible at all, just
that they are hardly the ogres.
The suggestion that technologists be better trained in the social
consequences of technological advances is a very good one. Another
educational improvement would be to train technologists how to become
entrapreneurs. This would allow them to be able to resist the lure
of the major corporations who supply the paychecks and define the
projects for so many of our scientists and engineers.
FYI, there have been no new atomic power plants in California for more
than a decade and there are none in sight.
Dennis Paull,
Los Altos, California
