All Articles
The Surprising Downside to Driving
The car is the perfect transportation device. It takes me anywhere, anytime I want, effortlessly and fast…
AVs might not be the biggest change coming to city transportation
AVs are being hailed as the solution to our transportation problems. But the biggest wins may lie elsewhere.
We can do a lot without AVs
AVs are coming… but we don’t have to wait
Will AVs replace our cars?
Adding AVs versus taking away people’s cars: What we are likely to see in the coming years…
Big Choices for a Driverless Future
Though it can often seem like technology is speeding ahead and taking us along for the ride, in many ways our choices shape these new technologies as they are developed.
Understanding Autonomous Vehicles
There’s a lot of buzz these days about Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), also known as “driverless” or “self-driving” cars. Here’s a quick introduction on what they are, and why everyone is so excited about them.
Using Autonomous Vehicles to Meet Government and Community Goals
For government officials and municipal leaders, the challenges of accommodating the interests of both residents and businesses often involve factors of transportation.
The Power of Misdirection
Driving back from work one night last summer, I had a very strange technological experience…
The Politics of STS (don’t exist)
Issues of science and technology are intertwined with politics, economics, and social issues. It’s not just about what we do with the power of science and technology, it’s about who holds that power and to what ends is it used. But STS itself is not political…
Two Ways of Thinking About Technological Problems
One of the central issues that interests me in STS is the debate over blaming technology. When we look around us in our modern world and see aspects that have changed for the worse due to some manifestation of “progress”, we necessarily start trying to figure out where the fault lies. This is what brought me to STS. But I concede that the answer isn’t simple. If our technology is making our lives worse, who or what is to blame? Where is the root of the problem?
Digital Disconnections
Resistance and Revolt from Yesterday to Today If you were to take someone from the early nineteenth century and drop them into our present Western society, the most dramatic shock for them would likely be to see the incredible advancements in technology surrounding...
Depth in Digital Entertainment
How Anti-Social Technology Sometimes Wins Us Over We often look at technology, but we don’t always see it. Today, as new ways of viewing and interacting with images proliferate through our society, the most visible new technologies are showing up in the popular use of...
Science, Nature, and Humanity
A long time ago humans (some of them) discovered science. Or depending on your point of view, they created it. The way they did this was by, for the first time, separating culture from nature…
It’s not technology’s fault
Our society's problem isn’t technology. It’s that we’re using technology to do the wrong things, better. To consume and create profits. To focus on ourselves through individualism and narcissistic attention. For entertainment and distraction. To put less effort into...
Technology without Progress is not Technology
What is the job of technology? What responsibilities do technologies have to live up to for us to adopt them and keep them? There are the functions that technologies offer, the dependable interactions we ask of them. But technology must also do more. It must fit into our lives. It must comfort us and maintain a relationship of trust with us. Technology needs to represent progress; advancement from a time when that technology was not available.
Rube Goldberg did not envision examples of techn…
First impressions as I walk in the door: Problems with STS
Being entirely new to the world of Science and Technology Studies (STS), I am both at a disadvantage and an advantage. My disadvantage of course is my inexperience and ignorance. I have much to learn, and I can be certain that in the future I will look back on what I write today with a completely different perspective. It’s entirely possible that I will someday disagree with myself.
However I also hold a certain advantage. Compared to my more experienced and knowledgable colleagues, my biases are those of an outsider, of the uninitiated and the un-indoctrinated. With fresh eyes I can see things in a way that those ahead of me (and my future self) could not.
Why does this matter? Because as I entered the world of Science and Technology Studies, it was obvious to me as soon as I walked through the door that there was an elephant in the room. STS has a huge problem – and no one is willing to admit it.
Discovering STS
The academic field of Science and Technology Studies wasn’t something I stumbled upon by mistake: I was looking for it.
After a number of years working in other industries, with a growing interest in contemporary social, political, and economic issues, I’d started paying closer attention to the evidence around me that the world we live in is changing fast, and not always in ways that are desirable. As our society accepts and becomes used to the developments of modernity, some find themselves lamenting elements of their new lives and missing the way things used to be. Why? How could innovations that we welcome to improve our lives seem like they are creating problems and decreasing our quality of life?
Why we need different rules for different drones
If we want to see the benefits of drones, or Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), we need smart regulations that allow the industry to grow while maintaining safety.