It would seem from what we have said so far that the quest for energy is a positive force that results in new, sometimes revolutionary technologies that greatly improve the quality of human life. Many people believe that societies can meet their growing energy needs by continually investing in more sophisticated technologies. This approach has led to the development of huge nuclear-power plants to replace oil-fueled generators, and it is widely hoped that investment in fusion, an even more complex technology, will eliminate the dangers posed by nuclear power.
This view is subject to considerable criticism, however. Amory Lovins, for example, distinguishes between “hard” and “soft” energy paths. The former “relies on rapid expansion of centralized high technologies to increase supplies of energy, especially in the form of electricity.” The latter “combines a prompt and serious commitment” to efficient use of energy and rapid development of renewable energy sources.” Present and proposed energy policies favor the “hard” path, which involves intensive use of available coal, oil, and natural gas plus heavy investment in nuclear power. These are “capital-intensive” technologies because they rely heavily on sophisticated equipment (capital) rather than labor power.
“Soft” energy technologies depend on renewable sources like sun and wind and tend to be labor-intensive in that larger numbers of people are needed to produce a given amount of energy. They are more diverse than “hard” energy technologies and are more directly matched to energy needs. (Solar energy, for example, can be used to heat water without first being converted into electricity.) But the major difference between the two paths, according to Lovins, is that whereas the soft path depends on “pluralistic consumer choice in deploying a myriad of small devices and refinements, the hard path depends on difficult, large-scale projects [e.g., nuclear-power plants and fusion reactors] requiring a major social commitment under centralized management.” Such projects are characterized by a “remote and … uncontrollable technology run by a faraway, bureaucratized, technical elite who have probably never heard of you.”
Whether or not one accepts Lovins’s thesis, the trend toward greater use of nuclear power to generate electricity has become a major social and political issue. Underlying the conflict over the safety of nuclear-power plants is the issue of control. In the ancient world those who controlled the irrigation systems were the ruling elite; in the United States the “robber barons” of the late nineteenth century often gained both wealth and political influence from their control of oil and coal supplies. Thus, much of the opposition to nuclear-power plants stems from the recognition that control over energy supplies is a key source of economic and political power.
11. Technology in Everyday Life
In a review of research on the impact of new technologies on the daily lives of Americans, Claude S. Fischer found that such research has not kept pace with technological innovation. Even revolutionary innovations like the automobile and the telephone remain poorly understood. Conflicting claims abound. For example, in 1936 Helen and Robert Lynd were told by residents of Middletown that automobile use seemed to be decreasing church attendance and generating conflict within the family. But other studies suggested that the automobile was increasing church attendance, especially among more isolated people who found it easier to get to church on Sunday.
Given such gaps in our understanding of the impact of technology on social life, Fischer argued that sociologists should avoid assuming that the effects of innovations are experienced by everyone in more or less the same way. Instead, he believes that technologies should be thought of as facilitators of human action rather than as forces that dictate what we do. Often, for example, our uses of technologies do not conform to what their innovators believed possible or desirable. A case in point is the growing incidence of computer crimes and the use of home antenna dishes to tap into satellite video transmissions. 感谢您阅读《ScienceandTechnolo 》一文，出国留学网(liuxue86.com)编辑部希望本文能帮助到您。
