Vietnam War

The examples that McDermott uses are the bombing programs used in Southern Vietnam.  One being the conventional attacks on targets, enemy troops, fortifications, medical centers, vessels, etc.  The other bombing program is quite different and is by far more important.  American lives during Vietnam were very expensive, American weapons and Vietnamese lives were very cheap.  This bombing program was created because it was the most rational form in this scenario.   It uses a complex intelligence system that gathers all kinds of data of all kinds of reliability.  This information is fed into a computer which then models the best and most probable targets to  hit. To accomplish this procedure, incredible amounts of labor and time were exerted.

This system seems as though it will not work that well.  Much poor information is evaluated and therefore mishandled, causing many poor targets to be devastatingly bombed. Many small children and women were killed.   Is this what the American people want.
 
The "negative externalities" in Mesthene's terms would then be the lives and well-being of many Vietnamese and the feelings and opinions of the less important Americans that don't have a voice on the subject.  In this case the Vietnamese are the enemy and should be excluded from consideration.  To utilize this system to it full effectiveness, an enormous amount of resources had to be used.  Money being the most, then technicians and engineers, all these systems were extremely expensive and required frequent repair.  For the bombing procedures alone a thousand specialized aircraft were used.  Is this "capital intensive" technological program that beneficial to the American people.

This intensive use of capital, technique, and management flows over into hundreds of other areas touched by this system.  The same properties will therefore be transferred to the intelligence, maintenance, supply, coordination, and training areas which support this system.  Likewise these system are all expected to improve and rationalize its performance, reliability and management.

From this system follows some of the main and organizational characteristics of technology today:
    The increase in scale and complexity of operations that they demand and encourage
    The quick and thorough diffusion of technology to new areas
    The diversity of activities which can be directed by central management
    The increased ambition of management's goals
    Growing resistance to the influence of "negative externalities"

Technology in it's simplest and concrete meaning refers to "systems of rationalized control over large groups of men, events, machines by small groups of technically skilled men operating through organizational hierarchy."  The opportunities provided by that control and the ability to filter out those "negative externalities" are illustrated by extreme cases in which a technology can suppress the humanity of it's armed forces and kill as part of its rationality.  "The Vietnam bombing program fits technology to a "T".

So - How is Technology antidemocratic anyway?
 
 

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