bs2
> .. today's technological society is based upon.. bad habits.. from a reckless industrial past.. habits [List]..
> To oppose these bad habits and the systems that embody them, as well as to suggest reasonable alternatives to them, is enough to get a person branded "anti-technology" and drummed out of town. Again and again, we are urged to celebrate the latest so-called "innovations" regardless of the deranged commitments and disastrous consequences
https://www.langdonwinner.com/about
#LangdonWinner
About — Langdon Winner

Langdon Winner
Nov 30, 2023 at 12:41amWeb
Show threadbs2Nov 30, 2023
> .. the rise of the scholarly field of Science and Technology Studies once promised to address such matters.. its evolution has tended to favor research and theories.. nuanced.. disengaged, academic accounts of "#technoscience" and its .. projects.. what passes for leadership in today's central technological enterprises echoes the corruption of the Renaissance popes.. foreshadows a #NewReformation
#STS #ScienceAndTechonologyStudies
Show threadIngmar LippertNov 30, 2023

@bsmall2 resonates with classical problematisation of the high church, or is that too superficial a glance? Sismondo and his engaged programme indicate an alternative way of thinking about this, I guess. #STS

Or is this a misunderstanding of your post?

Show threadbs2Dec 1, 2023
@i_ngli Thanks for the Sismondo^1 reference. I don't yet understand how you took the post, but if you can help me understand Winner's work I'll be even happier. I just learned of Winner about a month ago through an article by Brian Tokar. Searching for Winner got me to tomato harvesters, STS, and the APM(Automatic Professor Machine!). Tasteless tomatos reminded me of a line from an essay by Alice Waters, and this post has me thinking of Paul Goodman's _New Reformation_
^1 https://www.sismondo.ca/
Sergio Sismondo

Sergio Sismondo
Show threadIngmar LippertDec 1, 2023
@bsmall2 hm, which part of Winner's work do you refer to?
Show threadbs2Dec 1, 2023
@i_ngli Winner's mention of a New Reformation in the quotes above got me thinking of Goodman. Other mentions of his work on Tomato Harvesters decreasing the number of farmers, and pushing the development of tasteless tomatoes got me thinking of an old book of essays by Alice Walker. She wrote that the first time an old black woman picked up a supermarket tomato and was extremely disappointed with it, that was the time to re-think our economy, or society, or civilization. That stuck in my head.
Show threadIngmar LippertDec 1, 2023
@bsmall2 I do not have particular expertise on Winner's work. I read and teach him as part of #STS analyses of technology. Of course his work provides a significant resources for philosophy of technology, too.
Sismondo is relevant within the STS conversation. In my reading, Winner is key to develop forms of critical understanding of power that is materialised within technologies.
Show threadbs2Dec 1, 2023
@i_ngli Thanks, I'll try to read some Sismondo when have time. At first glance his writing seemed more academic(?) or somehow less accessible than what I've seen of Winner's writing. Maybe Winners "Automatic Professor Machine" spoof can help or warn Sismondo? I saw on his site that he teaches an on-line course to 450 students!?! One of the book covers and blurbs got me thinking "Corruptio optimi pessima" and I learned that from Illich's "Text and University" 1991 speech(transcipt) at Bremen.
Show threadIngmar LippertDec 1, 2023
@bsmall2 well, yes, I am quite stuck to the academic world
Show threadbsmall2Oct 26
@bsmall2
🧵 It's a shame Langdon Winner's website seems to have been taken over by spam advertsiing...
#LangdonWinner