SOCI 235 Week 3: Technology & Society - Skyler Wang - McGill University PDF

Technology & Society Solutionism Skyler Wang Asst Prof, McGill University [email protected]  Overview 1 Check-in activity 2 Opening remarks + Q&A 3 Lecture & discussions 4 Wrap up What are some of the most useless apps you ha...

Technology & Society Solutionism Skyler Wang Asst Prof, McGill University [email protected]  Overview 1 Check-in activity 2 Opening remarks + Q&A 3 Lecture & discussions 4 Wrap up What are some of the most useless apps you have ever come across? How would you define solutionism?  Recasting all complex social situations either as neatly defined problems with definite, computable solutions or as transparent and self- evident processes that can be easily optimized.  These are the kinds of problems that, on careful examination, do not have to be defined in the singular and all- encompassing ways that “solutionists” have defined them; what’s contentious, then, is not their proposed solution but their very definition of the problem itself.  Solutionism presumes rather than investigates the problems that it is trying to solve, reaching “for the answer before the questions have been fully asked.” How problems are composed matters every bit as much as how problems are resolved.  Getting rich by saving the world Gamified society  Imperfection, ambiguity, opacity, disorder, and the opportunity to err, to sin, to do the wrong thing: all of these are constitutive of human freedom, and any concentrated attempt to root them out will root out that freedom as well.  The perfectly engineered and controlled social environment makes dissent not just impossible but possibly even unthinkable.  There is value in imperfections and inefficiencies.  Here is modernity in a nutshell: We are left with possibly better food but without the joy of cooking.  To subject it fully to the debilitating logic of efficiency is to deprive humans of the ability to achieve mastery in this activity, to make human flourishing impossible and to impoverish our lives. A more appropriate solution here would not make cooking less demanding but make its rituals less rigid and perhaps even more challenging.  "Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” -Susan Ertz  How did the logic of the internet become the exemplar for how we ought to think about our future at large?  Why social media comes to represent politics and civic engagement; why online reviews come to represent criticism Questions? Thank you! [email protected]