@pluralistic As I've mentioned before Bernhard J. Stern's 1930 take on this remains a great reference:

https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105018223638938521

The document itself is at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39

And my hand-typed Markdown rendering (use with Pandoc to generate PDF or format(s) of your choice):

https://pastebin.com/raw/Bapu75is

There's a reasonable render (though footnotes are grungy) here: https://rentry.co/szi3g

Again, Stern's research assistant on this, through whom I'd first heard of the story, was Isaac Asimov.

#BernhardJStern #ResistancesToTechnologicalInnovation

@ajroach42 There are technologies which are (in at least direct effects) force dampeners / dispersers. Though in general application those ... are probably still force multipliers as they're more available to those with an extant resource / capability advantage. These include shields, camouflage, and other types of mechanisms.

Otherwise, I tend to agree.

If I've not already pointed to it, see Bernhard J. Stern's "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations" (1937) which discusses how entrenched interests often oppose emergent and disruptive technologies, often with the cycle repeating itself, e.g., as with the telegraph industry against telephones, and telephony against the Internet.

Hard-to-read Internet Archive scan: https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39

Hand-typed version (Markdown): https://rentry.co/szi3g

Pass the source through pandoc to generate a version with proper footnotes in your preferred format (e.g., PDF, ePub, HTML, etc.)

#BernhardJStern #ResistancesToTechnologicalInnovation

@kravietz Resistance to technological innovation goes back a ways.

See "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations (1937)"
https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39

Berhnard J. Stern's student research assistant would talk of this work later. He went on to use concepts in his own writing. You may have heard of Isaac Asimov.

I've retyped the document in Markdown, available for reading here:
https://rentry.co/szi3g

#BernhardJStern #ResistancesToTechnologicalInnovation #Technology #Luddism #IsaacAsimov

@pluralistic I've previously mentioned Bernhard J. Stern, a largely-forgotten mid-century sociologist with a famous research assistant.†

Stern's 1937 article "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations" addresses housing specifically:

When recently the mechanized industries, particularly in metal, entered the housing field with the production of “prefabricated houses”, they were met by the resistance of property holders, especially of the banks, who hold mortgages on about 58 percent of all 1933 value of all urban real estate, and who fear that an influx of cheap modern dwellings would subtract substantially from the market value of existing structures. These banks and loan companies have been unwilling to finance prefabricated houses except in rare exceptions and then on a limited basis. ...

Planned public housing projects such as slum clearance which afford the most efficient methods of utilizing advanced technologies in the building industry, crash against the wall of vested private-property interest. They meet the combined opposition of the owners of obsolete buildings, that nonetheless are still profitable, of landowners who demand prohibitive prices, of holders of mortgages who fear a depreciation of housing values through the increase in available homes. Achievements in building technology lie sterile in the face of the opposition of these interests.

https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39

(I've re-typed the paper for easier reading / formatting in Markdown: https://pastebin.com/raw/Bapu75is)

Sound familiar?

Notes:

† Isaac Asimov.

#BernhardJStern
#capitalism #AssetAppreciation #EconomicRents

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