Kranzberg’s First Law: Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.

Kranzberg’s First Law reads as follows: Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.

Von Melvin Kranzberg im Text Technology and History: «Kranzberg Laws» (1986)

Bücher zuoberst.

Ich musste kürzlich bei erneuter Lektüre des entsprechenden Artikels feststellen, dass ich Kranzberg's first law falsch in Erinnerung hatte. Anders als von mir gedacht, drückt es nicht aus, dass Technologie eine Sichtweise der Welt in sich trägt, sondern dass Technologie in unterschiedlichen Kontexten unterschiedliche Wirkung haben kann.

Von Beat Döbeli Honegger, erfasst im Biblionetz am 19.04.2022

By that I mean that technology’s interaction with the social ecology is such that technical developments frequently have environmental, social, and human consequences that go far beyond the immediate purposes of the technical devices and practices themselves, and the same technology can have quite different results when introduced into different contexts or under different circumstances.

Von Melvin Kranzberg im Text Technology and History: «Kranzberg Laws» (1986)

I think that my first law - Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral - should constantly remind us that it is the historian’s duty to compare short-term versus long-term results, the utopian hopes versus the spotted actuality, the what-might-have been against what actually happened, and the trade-offs among various &dquo;goods&dquo; and possible &dquo;bads.&dquo; All of this can be done only by seeing how technology interacts in different ways with different values and institutions, indeed, with the entire sociocultural milieu.

Von Melvin Kranzberg im Text Technology and History: «Kranzberg Laws» (1986)

Kranzberg’s First Law helps to clarify this situation: technology is neither good nor bad - nor is it neutral. At the risk of spoiling its Zenlike nature, let me propose an interpretation: a technology isn’t inherently good or bad, but it will have an impact, which is why it’s not neutral. Almost every applied technology has impact, and that impact will have a good side and a bad side. When you think of transportation technologies, for example, do you think of how they enable a delightful vacation or get the family back together during the holidays - or do you think of traffic jams and pollution? Are books a source of wisdom and spirituality or a way to distribute pornography and hate? Do you applaud medical technology for curing plagues or deplore transportation technology for spreading them? Does encrypted e-mail keep honest people safe from criminals or criminals safe from the police? Are plastics durable conveniences or everlasting pollutants? Counterfeiting comes with money, obscene phone calls come with the telephone, spam comes with e-mail, and pornography comes with the Internet. Every law creates an outlaw. 4