🚀 go-pugleaf

[campbelr@hpisof0.UUCP ]
/* ---------- "Re: Fragility of technology Re: Jam" ---------- */

[On political implications of technology]

>Could Russia exist as it does now if information moved easily and
>every   house   had   desktop   publishing?   (Not   to  start  a
>Capitalist/Communist debate)

A good point. I think she couldn't.  In Russia,  they  keep  their
Xerox-type  copiers  under  lock and key - and keep them few. And
every typewriter sold has its "signature" - each individual type-
writer has tell-tale irregularities - registered at the KGB.

Which shows that technology is  not  politically  neutral  -  but
powers  that be may (or may not) find ways to cope with it. E.g.,
the existence of radio makes it difficult to keep a  society  to-
tally   closed.  In  Russia  they  jam  foreign  broadcasting  in
languages that are understood there (recently  they  toyed  again
with  reducing  the  number  of  channels  jammed. These policies
vary). This is *partially* successful, but it costs a lot.

Some technologies favor the individual (like the car and Xerox);
others favor the state (like trains and  telegraph).  Today  king
George III could have shipped his Hessians much faster  to  where
he needed them... unless it was in outer space. But space coloni-
zation ought to work against centralized power.

			Jan Wasilewsky