pluralitybook / plurality

Root repository for ⿻數位 Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy by E. Glen Weyl, Audrey Tang and the Plurality Community
https://www.plurality.net
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Improve STS references #23

Open pluralitybook opened 1 year ago

pluralitybook commented 1 year ago

Footnote 24 alludes to the Science and Technology Studies literature with some citations, but they may be biased and poorly chosen. Improvement is welcome.

pluralitybook-dao commented 7 months ago

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Fossj117 commented 5 months ago

(Some open-ended thoughts in case helpful; can take a pass at integrating this if it seems like reasonable direction)

Assuming this is regarding this footnote: https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/blob/ac582317c84f62a945ca52f5219dadc98171ec7d/contents/english/02-00-information-technology-and-democracy-a-widening-gulf.md?plain=1#L234

Which is cited here in the book:

But science fiction writers are not alone. The primary theme of the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), including the philosophy, sociology, and history of science, has been the contingency and possibility inherent in the development of science and technology and the lack of any single necessary direction for their evolution[^STS].

If we want to connect this more to STS / philosophy of tech world, I think a key term is "technological determinism" (science/tech proceed according to their own necessary logic & have a unidirectional effect on society). That is the viewpoint being criticized here.

I'm not deeply familiar with all of the references in the footnote, but certainly a classic STS cite on this in the context of technology is:

This piece is also in the Bijker, Hughes, & Pinch anthology already cited in the footnote; but should probably cite this specific article, which established the 'social construction of technology' (SCOT) paradigm? (wiki has a decent summary). Winner "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" is also a classic on how social forces shape the direction of technological development.

Could also potentially cite Bloor who helped establish the "strong program" in the sociology of knowledge which informed SCOT (more about knowledge/science than technology):

Various ideas/cites from Sheila Jasanoff could fit in here as well. Her idea of "co-production" is basically a suggested analytic alternative to tech determinist frame. A cite discussing that:

There's also some good discussion in the intro of:

Jasanoff & Kim's concept of a "sociotechnical imaginary" also seems potentially relevant to some of the book's framing:

[sociotechnical imaginaries are] collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures, animated by shared understandings of forms of social life and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and technology

From this piece (PDF online here):

That definition is a bit wordy, but basically just this idea of: collectively held visions of desirable futures that are posed as reachable through technoscientific development, and which shape present choices about the direction of technological development.

Seems like the book has moved away from talking about "Abundance Technocracy" (AT) and "Entrepreneurial Sovereignty" (ES) explicitly (and Plurality as an alternative), but I was basically thinking of these as examples of sociotechnical imaginaries.