janw@inmet.UUCP (02/24/87)
[campbelr@hpisof0.UUCP ] /* ---------- "Re: Fragility of technology Re: Jam" ---------- */ [On political implications of technology] >Could Russia exist as it does now if information moved easily and >every house had desktop publishing? (Not to start a >Capitalist/Communist debate) A good point. I think she couldn't. In Russia, they keep their Xerox-type copiers under lock and key - and keep them few. And every typewriter sold has its "signature" - each individual type- writer has tell-tale irregularities - registered at the KGB. Which shows that technology is not politically neutral - but powers that be may (or may not) find ways to cope with it. E.g., the existence of radio makes it difficult to keep a society to- tally closed. In Russia they jam foreign broadcasting in languages that are understood there (recently they toyed again with reducing the number of channels jammed. These policies vary). This is *partially* successful, but it costs a lot. Some technologies favor the individual (like the car and Xerox); others favor the state (like trains and telegraph). Today king George III could have shipped his Hessians much faster to where he needed them... unless it was in outer space. But space coloni- zation ought to work against centralized power. Jan Wasilewsky