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From: pmd@cbdkc1.att.com (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Why can't WE change society?
Message-ID: <1089@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: Mon, 23-Nov-87 17:48:36 EST
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Posted: Mon Nov 23 17:48:36 1987
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This reminds me of the popular reasoning, "We can put a man on the moon
by we can't [solve a paticular social problem]".  I don't know if this
is the reasoning being used here but, in any case, it's important to
realize that human social problems are much harder to solve adaquately
than problems of a more purely technical nature.  Technical problems
tend to exclude moral issues (rightly or wrongly) as being out of the
scientific domain.  I don't know what kinds of "social solutions"
are being referred to in science fiction literature, but I suspect that
those we might think are good examples do not fully take into account
the moral complexity of human beings.  Surely that technology that is
available for good use is also available for evil--and there are many
example of that as well in the literature.

Would anyone like to share their ideas on the implications of treating
social problems as technical ones?

Paul Dubuc