Frankenstein Today

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Frankenstein Today

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• Self, Society, and Technology
• Scot D. Yoder

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Overview

• Technology and its myths -- Aeschylus, Shelley,
  and Tenner
• Tenner on technology and revenge effects
• A response -- technology and the tragic view
• Technology and its myths -- final comments

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Aeschylus -- Prometheus Bound

• Protagonist -- Prometheus -- the creator
• The story tells us something about technology and
  the human condition.
• Humans are special, possess a divine spark
• Technology liberates -- resistance to tyranny
• Revenge
• personal
• punished by the gods, not by his creation
• Moral lesson -- avoid hubris

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Shelley -- Frankenstein

• Protagonists -- Frankenstein and the monster --
  the creator and the creation
• Humans and technology -- technology can oppress
  as well as liberate.
• Revenge
• personal
• Punished by his creation, not by God
• Moral lessons -- avoid hubris, be responsible

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Tenner -- Why Things Bite Back

• Protagonist -- technology itself, the creation
• What does Tenner want to tell us about humans and
  technology?
• Revenge
• impersonal
• not punishment at all
• Moral lesson(s)?

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Things biting back
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More things biting back
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Tenner on revenge

• The real revenge is not what we do
  intentionally against one another. It is the
  tendency of the world around us to get even, to
  twist our cleverness against us. Or it is our
  own unconscious twisting against ourselves.
  Either way, whenever we turn we face the ironic
  unintended consequences of mechanical, chemical,
  biological, and medical ingenuity -- revenge
  effects, they might be called (Tenner, 6)

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What are revenge effects

• Consequences of our ingenuity
• These are problems we bring upon ourselves as a
  result of trying to solve other problems.
• Unintended and unforeseen
• Ironic
• The unintended consequence is what we were trying
  to avoid in the first place.
• This is what distinguishes it from a mere
  trade-off.

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Types of revenge effects

• Rearranging effect
• Repeating effect
• Recomplicating effect
• Regenerating effect
• Recongesting effect

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Revenge in Shelleys Frankenstein

• Revenge effect -- creation of life leads to
  unintended death.
• Shelley
• Technology and unintended consequences.
• The malevolent machine.
• Systems -- revenge effects require systems
• Frankensteins fateful error was to consider
  everything but the sum of the parts he had
  assembled (Tenner, 14).

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Todays technology systems

• Charles Perrow on technology systems
• Loose vs. tight coupling
• Late 20th-century systems are tightly coupled and
  complex.
• This makes systems inherently unsafe.
• Complexity makes systems unpredictable
• Tight coupling spreads problems once they begin
• Example the August 2003 blackout

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A complex system
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Revenge effects require systems
A machine cant appear to have a will of its own
unless it is a system, not just a device. It
needs parts that interact in unexpected and
sometimes unstable and unwanted ways (Tenner,
15).
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Systems make revenge effects inevitable
The complexity of mechanical systems makes it
impossible to test for all possible malfunctions
and makes it inevitable that in actual use, some
great flaws will appear that were hidden from
designers (Tenner, 16).
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Murphys Law

• If theres more than one way to do a job and one
  of those ways will end in disaster, then somebody
  will do it that way.
• If anything can go wrong, it will.

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Technological progress and hazzards

• Two sides of technological progress
• Multiplies and amplifies hazards
• Increases our ability to reduce and control them
• Two types of hazards
• Acute or catastrophic problems
• Chronic
• Tenner claims we have been trading acute or
  catastrophic problems for chronic problems.

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One response

• Samuel C. Florman, Technology and the Tragic
  View (1981)
• Rejects
• techno-optimism
• techno-pessimism
• Claims the appropriate response to technology is
  the tragic view.
• more realistic and balanced

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The tragic view
... practically every technological advance had
unexpected and unwanted side effect. Along with
each triumph of mechanical genius came an
inevitable portion of death and destruction.
Instead of becoming discouraged, however, our
forebears seemed to be resolute in confronting
the adverse consequences of their own
inventiveness. I was impressed by this pattern
of progress/setback/renewed-creative-effort.
(Florman)
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The tragic view

• Not world-weary resignation, but resolution.
• Values pride and ambition, but recognizes the
  danger of hubris.
• Reluctant to blame.
• Problems arise from decent people trying to act
  constructively.
• Accepts responsibility
• We are responsible both for what we do and what
  we fail to do with technology.

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The value of tragedy
Tragedy is uplifting. It depicts heroes
wrestling with fate. It is mans destiny to die,
to be defeated by the forces of the universe.
But in challenging his destiny, in being brave,
determined, ambitious, resourceful, the tragic
hero shows to what heights a human being can
soar. (Florman)
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Technology and its myths -- final comments

• We are technological creatures -- using
  technology is part of the human condition.
• Technological power human ambition both great
  achievements and horrible disasters.
• Unintended consequences are inevitable.
• Nevertheless, we are responsible both for what we
  do and what we fail to do with technology.