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Abolition of Technologies for Social Justice

Friday, 21 October, 2022 - 01:31

This is the core of my contribution to a Nethope 2022 seminar at the invitation of Oxfam US.

 
The Abolition of Some Digital Technologies Is Essential to Human Development and Social Justice
 
a) Technology abolition is not only possible – it is commonplace
 
b) Technologies of all kinds are regularly abolished - and have een throughout history.
 
c) Abolition is not only common – it can be considered to be a measure of social progress
 
d) Every generation identifies new social evils and abolishes them
 
e) We are all familiar with many examples of abolition – historical and current
 
f) These include the abolition of technologies of production including child labour and, slavery; technologies of torture including the rack, pillory, breaking wheels and the instep borer; weapons technologies including, cluster bombs, nerve gas, and biological weapons; and industrial technologies that contained carcinogens or other toxic materials such as lead and asbestos.
 
g) Not only is abolition commonplace, and progressive, the methods for achieving abolition are well known and well established 
 
h) Abolition is achieved when citizens name injustices, build coalitions, raise awareness, influence political processes, reform laws and abolish social evils
 
i) When abolition is framed in this way as a feature of social progress, it then...

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