Techno-progressivism
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Techno-progressivism, technoprogressivism, tech-progressivism or techprogressivism (a portmanteau combining "technoscience-focused" and "progressivism") is a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change. Techno-progressives argue that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and accountable authorities to ensure that their costs, risks and benefits are all fairly shared by the actual stakeholders to those developments.[1][2]
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[edit] Stance
Techno-progressivism maintains that accounts of "progress" should focus on scientific and technical dimensions, as well as ethical and social ones. For most techno-progressive perspectives, then, the growth of scientific knowledge or the accumulation of technological powers will not represent the achievement of proper progress unless and until it is accompanied by a just distribution of the costs, risks, and benefits of these new knowledges and capacities. At the same time, for most techno-progressive critics and advocates, the achievement of better democracy, greater fairness, less violence, and a wider rights culture are all desirable, but inadequate in themselves to confront the quandaries of contemporary technological societies unless and until they are accompanied by progress in science and technology to support and implement these values.[2]
Strong techno-progressive positions include support for the civil right of a person to either maintain or modify his or her own mind and body, on his or her own terms, through informed, consensual recourse to, or refusal of, available therapeutic or enabling biomedical technology.[3]
[edit] Contrasting stance
Bioconservatism (a portmanteau word combining "biology" and "conservatism") is a stance of hesitancy about technological development especially if it is perceived to threaten a given social order. Strong bioconservative positions include opposition to genetic modification of food crops, the cloning and genetic engineering of livestock and pets, and, most prominently, rejection of the genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification of human beings to overcome what are broadly perceived as current human biological and cultural limitations.[1][2]
Bioconservatives range in political perspective from right-leaning religious and cultural conservatives to left-leaning environmentalists and technology critics. What unifies bioconservatives is skepticism about medical and other biotechnological transformations of the living world. Typically less sweeping as a critique of technological society than bioluddism, the bioconservative perspective is characterized by its defense of the natural, deployed as a moral category.[1][2]
Although techno-progressivism is the stance which contrasts with bioconservatism in the biopolitical spectrum, both techno-progressivisms and bioconservatisms, in their more moderate expressions, share an opposition to unsafe, unfair, undemocratic forms of technological development, and both recognize that such developmental modes can facilitate unacceptable recklessness and exploitation, exacerbate injustice and incubate dangerous social discontent.[1][2]
[edit] List of notable techno-progressive social critics
- Technocritic Dale Carrico with his accounts of techno-progressivism[2]
- Philosopher Donna Haraway with her accounts of cyborg theory[4]
- Cultural critic Mark Dery and his accounts of cyberculture[5]
- Science journalist Chris Mooney with his account of the U.S. Republican Party's war on science[6]
- Futurist Bruce Sterling with his Viridian design movement[7]
- Futurists Alex Steffen and Jamais Cascio and their Worldchanging blog[8]
- Science journalist Annalee Newitz with her accounts of the biopunk movement[9][10]
- Bioethicist James Hughes of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies with his accounts of "democratic transhumanism"[11]
[edit] Techno-progressive subjects of interest
[edit] Controversy
Technocritic Dale Carrico, an academic known for using term "techno-progressive" as a shorthand to describe progressive politics that emphasize technoscientific issues,[12] has expressed concern that some transhumanist ideologues are using the term to describe themselves, with the consequence of possibly misleading the public regarding their actual cultural, social and political views, which may or may not be compatible with critical techno-progressivism.[13]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d Carrico, Dale (2004). The Trouble with "Transhumanism": Part Two. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/carrico20041222/. Retrieved on 2007-01-28.
- ^ a b c d e f Carrico, Dale (2005). Technoprogressivism Beyond Technophilia and Technophobia. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/carrico20060812/. Retrieved on 2007-01-28.
- ^ Carrico, Dale (2006). The Politics of Morphological Freedom. http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2006/08/politics-of-morphological-freedom.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-28.
- ^ Haraway, Donna (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-28.
- ^ Dery, Mark (1994). Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture. Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-1540-8.
- ^ Mooney, Chris (2005). The Republican War on Science. Basic Books. ISBN 0465046762.
- ^ Sterling, Bruce (2001). Viridian: The Manifesto of January 3, 2000. http://www.viridiandesign.org/manifesto.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-28.
- ^ Steffen, Alex (2006). Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century. Harry N. Abrams, Inc.. ISBN 0810930951.
- ^ Newitz, Annalee (2001). Biopunk. http://web.archive.org/web/20021220190353/http://www.sfbg.com/SFLife/tech/71.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-26.
- ^ Newitz, Annalee (2002). Genome Liberation. http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/02/26/biopunk/print.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-26.
- ^ Hughes, James (2004). Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future. Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-4198-1.
- ^ Jose (2006). Dale Carrico on Technoprogressive Politics. http://memetherapy.net/03/dale-carrico-on-technoprogressive-politics/. Retrieved on 2008-04-19.
- ^ Carrico, Dale (2008). "Technoprogressive": What's In A Name?. http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2008/01/technoprogressive-whats-in-name.html. Retrieved on 2008-04-16.
