[my own commentary is in brackets]
Technosciences and ICT in Society
"Tensions, contradictions, and ambiguities are consitutive of any technology in any society"
[this is a pretty basic, general summary]
in democratic society and technology today
Tension 1: btw logic of innovation and change and existing forms of life and social values (ex: biotech)
Tension 2: btw logic of economic markets and of political democracy (ex: liberalism, private appropriation vs collective)
- corporate innovation vs defense of commons
- we have to wait for new technologies to be implemented to understand their effects
- time delay in reaction to techology
Tension 3: Technologies, markets, and social orders always need to be governed and managed
- complex relationship between individual freedom and collective assessment -- everything needs to be regulated, framed, [designed]
Tension 4: There are always tensions around the many regulations that make any democratic order
- but different orders of technology have different logics, and the regulations and tension are different
- ex: creation of soda industry around Marseille in 1810 - disastrous pollution, followed by experts in consultation. experts torn between obvious devastation and desire to defend French industry and not allow it to fall behind other countries'. And then the battle went to court. But the logic of the court is not that of the expert committee. And the courts forced the companies to install systems to control pollution.
What is New and Not-So-New with ICT and the 'Cognitive Economy'
1. A dematerialized world, open to all, free and ecologically better?
[he quotes Chandra Mukerji! I LOVE Chandra Mukerji's work: The material existence, we do not renounce it when we surf the net. We do not renonce the exigencies of our territorial life -- we have produced a world that is produced by concrete borders which is sufficients guaranteed to forget them. We can forget that we are sensually and bodily consituted.
2. The 'cognitive economy', 'knowledge societies,' and property
- The 'cognitive economy' is also 'a new way to do business and redirect profits' -- but this feeling and logic happened before, in the 18th and 19th century. In 1790, for example, the first establishment of patents. And in the 1980s the rule of patents was transformed. So "now" is important, but there are earlier moments which resemble this one.
3. Usage and bottom-up innovation
- Ascendent innovation is valuable and needs to be defended
- has always been at the core of technological innovation (ex: radio, not made by a big company, invented by users along with companies)
- has always been studied by business to improve products -- we know that
4. [and then he finished very quickly!]
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