1AC advantage claims seem persuasive because we have been conditioned to take them at face value. Alternative relationships to technology are not utopian, voting negative snowballs

(Erica Etelson is a recovering human rights attorney and environmental activist and writer. , 9-19)

There are 7 billion people on this planet, many of whom have been conditioned to expect their standard of living to improve. Certainly, most of them will be disappointed to learn that it would take five planet earths to enable everyone to live like a North American. Putting aside that fantasy, the question becomes: What technologies can most safely, effectively and efficiently meet the world population’s basic needs for clean water and adequate food, hygiene, shelter, clothing, medicine, birth control, education, arts and transportation? A secondary question is: What additional technologies should be used exclusively by people uniquely in need of them? Examples might include personal vehicles for elderly and disabled people and air conditioning for people with certain health conditions. And lastly: What technologies might we share as a community rather than each owning our own (e.g. computers, vehicles, phone booths – remember those)? Appropriate technologies are those that meet human needs and enhance people’s lives and communities, without exploiting or endangering workers and without damaging the environment. The best go one step further and actually restore damaged ecosystems. Examples of restorative technologies include permeable pavement that allows for rainwater to replenish aquifers and mycologist Paul Stamet’s remarkable use of fungi to clean up toxic spills and radiation. The good news is: We already have most of what we need to live comfortable and healthy lives. Many of the technologies that serve us the most safely and effectively are toward the low-tech end of the spectrum and have been around for decades if not millennia – composting, gray water, indoor plumbing, fermentation food storage, greenhouses, irrigation, herbal and homeopathic medicine, acupuncture, condoms, electrolyte solutions, bicycles, trains, LED lights, solar panels, windmills, printing presses. We know how to thrive without nuclear reactors, fossil fuels, pesticides, air cargo and smartphones; we’re just not doing it on a societal scale. Take the need for human waste disposal for the billions of people who don’t have flush toilets: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored a toilet design competition. The winning toilet is a nifty, high-maintenance $2,000 contraption involving a solar-powered electrochemical reactor and hydrogen fuel cells. That toilet might be just the ticket for one of the Gates’ vacation homes but, for a rural dweller in a developing country, there are already cheap, sanitary, low-tech toilets available through organizations like SOIL. The hubristic toilet competition encourages innovation for the sake of innovation, an egotistical trap that blocks viable, existing solutions from widespread adoption. Evaluating the appropriateness of new and existing technologies is no easy task, and it’s easy to see how one’s biases can distort the process. A writer, for example, might be quick to conclude that the benefits of personal computers outweigh the environmental and spiritual damage they cause. The following questions might serve as a good starting point: Who owns and controls the technology? What are the benefits? To whom do they accrue? Has the technology been proven safe beyond a reasonable doubt (the precautionary principle)? Who is sponsoring the research and do we trust them? Who are the subjects of safety tests? Have they given informed consent or are they a marginalized population being exploited to test new substances or procedures? If they are animals, do the benefits justify the animals’ pain, suffering and captivity? What are the downsides and risks? Are there risks of catastrophic harm that can never be mitigated (e.g. nuclear accidents)? Does the technology bring us together or drive us further apart? Is there a less energy-intensive alternative? Does the technology deplete finite resources? Does manufacture or operation endanger worker or consumer health and safety? Can the technology be applied to weaponry or spying? Would widespread adoption of the technology displace and render obsolete classes of workers? What mental and physical capacities will atrophy when we adopt the technology? Can all 7 billion of us adopt it and, if we do, what are the consequences? Can an ethical argument be made for adoption by some subset of the global population and, if so, who, and who decides? What About Communications Technology? I’ve touched on some of the benefits and pitfalls of communications technology in this essay, but there are others, so many in fact that the exercise of evaluating these technologies is quite challenging. I don’t hold myself out as the arbiter of whether smartphones and Wi-Fi and Facebook do more harm than good. I simply argue that these technologies are not exempt from the same risk-benefit analysis I suggest all technologies undergo. What’s a Neo-Luddite to Do? It’s all well and good to undertake individual assessments of the merits of various technologies, but how do we translate our formulations into law and policy? There are no easy answers here, and the path wends through terrain familiar to many progressive causes. In a crony capitalist system in which corporate interests determine which technologies to develop and bring to market, the public interest is, by and large, irrelevant. So, what’s a neo-Luddite to do? Organize. Given such unparalleled heights of corporate power, the “Move to Amend” movement to strip corporations of constitutional personhood is essential so as to enable the enactment of draconian campaign finance reforms, the more draconian the better, given how thorough corporate political control has become. It should be noted that Move to Amend has already galvanized widespread support, thanks to the convenience of online petitions and other “netroots” tools. There’s a push for states and, ultimately, the federal government to adopt the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) as a more holistic and accurate measure of social and economic well-being than the GDP. The GPI would take stock of several of the risk factors technology presents, including environmental impacts, physical and mental health, divorce rates, educational achievement, etc. Emerging technologies are approved and regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and other government agencies run by scientists and policy makers who worked in the past – and will likely work again in the future – within the very industries they are entrusted to regulate. To pick just one example of many, Tom Wheeler served as the head of two telecommunications lobbying groups before being sworn in as FCC commissioner in 2013. Until the revolving door is firmly shut, there’s little hope of regulation in the public interest. Ultimately, sound decision-making about emerging technologies may not be possible in a market versus a planned economy. By its very nature, market economies are technologically driven, with corporate players constantly racing to be the first to bring new technologies to market. Absent a system in which accountable elected officials oversee economic development and conduct risk-benefit analysis of proposed new products, the odds will always be in favor of new technologies. Be skeptical. Technology certainly can address some problems, but don’t assume the proposed techno-fix is the answer just because it’s receiving breathless media hype. Reporters love innovators and startups and their megalomaniacal founders, sometimes going so far as to portray them as supernatural heroes (Steve Jobs). Caught up in the techno-topian dream as much as any of us, reporters tend to pen glowing odes to the latest and greatest invention or product and avoid penetrating questions about its utility, safety and environmental impact. Don’t believe the hype. As Ralph Waldo Emerson forewarned, “Don’t trust children with edge tools. Don’t trust man, great God, with more power than he has, until he has learned to use that little power better. What a hell we should make of the world if we could do what we would.” Reject scare tactics. Putting the brakes on the rollout of new technologies will not, as the technocracy and their libertarian champions would have us believe, destroy the economy any more than any form of regulation, which is to say, not at all. Will it “disrupt” (to use a techie term) business as usual? You bet it will; that’s the whole idea. In its stead, people-powered and eco-friendly technologies and businesses will arise and will hire new workers, lots of them. If technocrats find some of their wealth, power and mythical prestige diluted in the process, that is all to the good. Opt out. If all 7 billion of us cannot live large, American-style, why should any of us? Contemplate and discuss with your family and community what you really need to live a healthy, meaningful and resilient life. Experiment with how close you can come to that standard of living voluntarily, and be prepared to accept involuntary cutbacks that are surely in store for us all, either in the form of a carbon tax, economic crisis, war, disease pandemic or ecological collapse. In the meantime, don’t be so fast to download the newest app or buy the latest device. Ask yourself both what the app or device will give you and what it will take away. Small acts of resistance and the adoption of new/old lifestyles will, eventually, coalesce into a force that can arrest our civilization’s race toward the cliff’s edge. Change seems to unfold slowly, but that’s only during the early, underground stages. Once the shoots break through the surface, things can change very quickly. Who foresaw the dismantling of the British Empire? Who in 1965 expected cohabitation of unmarried couples and recreational pot-smoking to become commonplace within 20 years? Who predicted a black president and the acceptance of gay marriage in the first decade of the 21st century? Once a tipping point in human consciousness is reached, once a noticeable number of people start rejecting what is cruel and destructive and begin reinventing their beliefs and lifestyles, things can change very quickly. With respect to our current predicament, they have to.