🚀 go-pugleaf

Thom Gillespie writes:

> there is a definite distancing effect of technology on how we relate
> to suffering.  The best example being the bombing and destruction of
> Iraq compared to the reported destruction of Kuwait.  When we talk about
> Kuwait, we talk about violation, rape, murder.  When we talk about the
> destruction of Iraq we talk about precision, collateral damage, and
> surgical strikes -- and more importantly we are 'shown' the precision of
> our 'smart' bombs flying down air shafts.  
 
I agree on the potential distancing effects of technology but I think
what we're looking at in talking about atrocities in Kuwait and
"collateral damage" in Iraq is the result of who "we" are--not the
technology.

Technology does have a real effect on the performer of the deed--feels a
lot different to drop bombs from a plane than it does to knife someone.
The interested reader is also directed to Shoshannah Zuboff's claims
that computer technology makes work more abstract (Zuboff, Shoshannah
"New Worlds of Computer-Mediated Work" _Harvard Business Review_, 60(5)
September-October 1982).

New technology actually brings a sense of the reality of war closer to
the armchair types--witness discussion of Vietnam as television war and
military censorship in the current conflict.

Rob Rittenhouse