there are technologies that seem to be introduced with the stated purpose of achieving one objective, yet have the larger objective of changing human populations. Take, for instance, the infamous case of Nestle’s infant formula strategy in Africa. Company reps masquerading as health workers introduce infant formula to a population that had not used it previously. The suggested purpose is to provide nutrition and humanitarian aid. But when women stopped lactating and suddenly found themselves forced to pay for the product or watch their children starve, a much more radical technical innovation becomes apparent–the forced creation of a new social web in service of corporate interests
Davin Heckman warns us of prototyping as a form of social manipulation:
Typically, a prototype is a discrete thing which is created with the intention of being tested. Certainly the way the prototype is tested is a) the object itself is put through various challenges that are anticipated uses and stresses, and b) the general integration of the thing into the system is also tested at that point (how the thing might fare in light of unanticipated uses and stresses). The distinction I was trying to draw was the coercive potential of innovations. Where there is less an interest in testing an individual thing with the intention of improving it…. and more of an interest in introducing an innovation with the intention of forcing adaptation in the population.
I was less concerned with individuals modifying themselves through, say, education or societies changing populations through educational institutions. These things, on their face, have the intention of shaping the person and society. They are, at least in principle, geared towards the preservation of individual and social existence. Or, at least, they do insofar as they are generated by a public in service of the ideal public which they represent.
On the other hand, there are technologies that seem to be introduced with the stated purpose of achieving one objective, yet have the larger objective of changing human populations. Take, for instance, the infamous case of Nestle’s infant formula strategy in Africa. Company reps masquerading as health workers introduce infant formula to a population that had not used it previously. The suggested purpose is to provide nutrition and humanitarian aid. But when women stopped lactating and suddenly found themselves forced to pay for the product or watch their children starve, a much more radical technical innovation becomes apparent–the forced creation of a new social web in service of corporate interests.
More current (and relevant) examples might be the sort of biological innovations that have been spurred by petrochemical industries as ubiquitous products (plastics, agricultural products, drugs, etc) saturate ecosystems with chemicals that interfere with hormone production across the food chain, resulting in an explosion of diseases requiring treatment. I don’t know that I know enough to say that there is anything resembling a conspiracy here…. other than the sort of conspiracy of opportunistically imposed apathy and ignorance. But the general recklessness of big business seems to suggest that there is something intentional about turning quick profits, letting major catastrophic accidents happen, and then profiting further. Habituating people to live in a precarious state of withered consciousness seems to have been the real “value” uncovered by the pervasive barrage of technical innovations…. human beings can be turned into quivering beasts who will tolerate any injustice simply to hope for another day, and in many cases, who will tear at each other’s throats in defense of the paymasters responsible for this exploitation.”