knudsen (09/22/82)
While I tend to favor (b) approach (educate everyone) and agree with Rick McGeer's thrice-posted message, I must disagree with his implication that social costs are overestimated at the time of introduction. The major valid argument for the (a) approach, in my opinion, is that social costs of new technology have NEVER (until recently) been considered at all at time of intro; instead, social costs become apparent way down the pike, usually when the social costs of *revoking* the technology and losing its now-accustomed benefits would far outweigh the social costs of retaining it. (Try outlawing cars, for example, now.) Another consideration in favor of (a): To what extent would the cost of revoking a technology after-the-fact be based on that tech's intrinsic value (eg, penicillin), as opposed to the fact that we've all built our lives, cities, etc around it and got used to it (cars, and for us netfreaks, computers)? The value of the (a) approach is to try to asses the costs before we get hooked on a tech. This IN NO WAY invalidates the value of (b). ....whew!