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Chargement... Monsters: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Birth of Pathological Technologypar Ed Regis
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. This book presents a fascinating approach to "pathological technology," advancements that are inherently foolhardy and dangerous yet are so cool that people persist in perpetuating it anyway. The main focus (about 2/3 of the book) is on the Hindenburg, and that's where the book excels. Regis shows the evolution of airship tech through the 19th century and the vital role played by Zeppelin, and how the "Delirium" induced by airships caused his company to flourish despite sequential airship disasters. The details on the Hindenburg disaster are fascinating and well-written. Where the book feels less persuasive is in chapters on atomic advancements and future space technology, especially the latter. Maybe I've simply succumbed to science fiction "delirium" myself, as a writer in the genre, but I felt like he was sneering at scientific developments that don't exist yet and had no right to judge them as "pathological yet." While not a perfect book, it is a fairly quick read and certainly worthwhile for the data on the rise and fall (literally and figuratively) of airships. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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"Oh, the humanity!" Radio reporter Herbert Morrison's words on witnessing the destruction of the Hindenburg are etched in our collective memory. Yet, while the Hindenburg--like the Titanic--is a symbol of the technological hubris of a bygone era, we seem to have forgotten the lessons that can be learned from the infamous 1937 zeppelin disaster. Zeppelins were steerable balloons of highly flammable, explosive gas, but the sheer magic of seeing one of these behemoths afloat in the sky cast an irresistible spell over all those who saw them. In Monsters, Ed Regis explores the question of how a technology now so completely invalidated (and so fundamentally unsafe) ever managed to reach the high-risk level of development that it did. Through the story of the zeppelin's development, Regis examines the perils of what he calls "pathological technologies"--inventions whose sizeable risks are routinely minimized as a result of their almost mystical allure. Such foolishness is not limited to the industrial age: newer examples of pathological technologies include the US government's planned use of hydrogen bombs for large-scale geoengineering projects; the phenomenally risky, expensive, and ultimately abandoned Superconducting Super Collider; and the exotic interstellar propulsion systems proposed for DARPA's present-day 100 Year Starship project. In case after case, the romantic appeal of foolishly ambitious technologies has blinded us to their shortcomings, dangers, and costs. Both a history of technological folly and a powerful cautionary tale for future technologies and other grandiose schemes, Monsters is essential reading for experts and citizens hoping to see new technologies through clear eyes. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)303.48Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Social Processes Social change Causes of changeClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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I don't even necessarily think the author's theory is wrong or uninteresting, but the examples he chooses seem spectacularly ill-advised and not internally consistent. He also presents an extraordinarily narrow of view of how science happens and what benefits any individual project or research brings.
Written two centuries earlier, one can imagine the scorn brought onto "electricity" — imagine the immense expense of installing wires into every home simply in order to give light, which we already have with fire. How could one possibly hope to harness such a fundamental energy of the cosmos?
Extra bonus raspberries are due for attempting to sarcastically damn with faint praise a DARPA project as having an "original" way of doing things because the agency funded an outlandish idea (a 100-Year Starship program) in the hopes that something good might come out of it — in other words, every DARPA project, ever. ( )