Exposing the limitations of conventional approaches to the engineering and regulation of technology, Vanderburg suggests that the solution lies in a preventive strategy that situates technological growth in its human, societal, and biospheric contexts.

Why does modern technology succeed so brilliantly in some respects and simultaneously fail in others? While he was completing a doctoral thesis in mechanical engineering in the late 60s and early 70s, Willem Vanderburg became convinced that the environmental crisis and the possible limits to growth would require a fundamental change in the engineering, management and regulation of technology. In this volume he exposes the limitations of conventional approaches in these fields. Modern societies urgently need to rethink the intellectual division of labour in science and technology and the corresponding organization of the university, corporation, and government in order to get out of a self-destructive pattern where problems are first created by some than then dealt with by others, making it almost impossible to get to the roots of anything. The result is what he calls the labyrinth of technology, a growing patchwork of compensations that merely displace and transform problems from one place to another. The author's diagnosis suggests the remedy: a new, preventive strategy that situates technological and economic growth in its human, societal, and biospheric contexts, and calls for a synthesis of methods in engineering, management, and public policy, and of approaches in the social sciences and humanities. He also suggests that this same synthesis can be applied in medicine, law, social work, and other professions. The Labyrinth of Technology is a unique and invaluable text for students, academics and laypersons in all disciplines, and speaks to those who are torn between the benefits that modern technology provides and the difficulties it creates in our individual and collective lives.

From the very beginnings of their existence, human beings have distinguished themselves from other animals by not taking immediate experience for granted. Everything was symbolized according to its meaning and value: a fallen branch from a tree became a lever; a tree trunk floating in the river became a canoe. Homo logos created communities based on cultures: humanity's first megaproject. Further symbolization of the human community and its relation to nature led to the possibility of creating societies and civilizations. Everything changed as these interposed themselves between the group and nature. Homo societas created ways of life able to give meaning, direction, and purpose to many groups by means of very different cultures: humanity's second megaproject. What Das Kapital did for the nineteenth century and La technique did for the twentieth, Willem H. Vanderburg's Living in the Labyrinth of Technology seeks to create for the twenty-first century: an attempt at understanding the world in a manner not shackled to overspecialized scientific knowing and technical doing. Western civilization may well be creating humanity's third megaproject, based not on symbolization for making sense of and living in the world, but on highly specialized desymbolized knowing stripped of all peripheral understanding. Vanderburg focuses on two interdependent forces in his narrative, namely, people changing technology and technology changing people. The latter aspect, although rarely considered, turns out to be the more critical one for understanding the spectacular successes and failures of contemporary ways of life. As technology continues to change the social and physical world, the experiences of this world 'grow' people's minds and society's cultures, thereby re-creating human life in the image of technology. Living in the Labyrinth of Technology argues that the twenty-first century will be dominated by this pattern unless society intervenes on human (as opposed to technical) terms.

This book presents an evolutionary theory of technological change based upon recent scholarship in the history of technology and upon relevant material drawn from economic history and anthropology. It challenges the popular notion that technology advances by the efforts of a few heroic individuals who produce a series of revolutionary inventions owing little or nothing to the technological past. Therefore, the book's argument is shaped by analogies taken selectively from the theory of organic evolution, and not from the theory and practice of political revolution. Three themes appear, and reappear with variations, throughout the study. The first is diversity: an acknowledgment of the vast numbers of different kinds of made things (artifacts) that have long been available to humanity; the second is necessity: the belief that humans are driven to invent new artifacts in order to meet basic biological requirements such as food, shelter, and defense; and the third is technological evolution: an organic analogy that explains both the emergence of novel artifacts and their subsequent selection by society for incorporation into its material life without invoking either biological necessity or technological progress. Although the book is not intended to provide a strict chronological account of the development of technology, historical examples - including many of the major achievements of Western technology: the waterwheel, the printing press, the steam engine, automobiles and trucks, and the transistor - are used extensively to support its theoretical framework. The Evolution of Techology will be of interest to all readers seeking to learn how and why technology changes, including both students and specialists in the history of technology and science.

Exposing the limitations of conventional approaches to the engineering and regulation of technology, Vanderburg suggests that the solution lies in a preventive strategy that situates technological growth in its human, societal, and biospheric contexts.

The Labyrinth is a unique vision of a dystopian future from one of the most sought-after visual storytellers in the world. A world covered by ruins and ash, the remnants of an otherworldly phenomenon that has ravaged the earth’s atmosphere and forced the few survivors deep underground. Matt, Sigrid and Charlie leave the safe harbour of the enclave for an expedition onto the wastelands of the surface world. During their journey they are forced to confront dark secrets from the time before civilization’s fall. Simon Stålenhagis the internationally acclaimed author and artist behind Tales From the Loop, Things From the Flood and The Electric State. He is world-renowned for his highly imaginative images and stories depicting illusive sci-fi phenomena in mundane, hyper-realistic Scandinavian landscapes. Perfect for fans of everything from Stranger Things to Jurassic Park to Westworld. PRAISE for SIMON STALENHAG 'Tales has the magic. It's got the robots, the weirdness, the dinosaurs. But most of all, it has the wonder. No one who picks this book up will be the same person when they put it down again' NPR on Tales from the Loop 'No words to describe this novel in pictures. Stahlenhag defined a whole new aesthetic for scifi in the 21st century' Damien Walter on The Electric State 'A chilling, unforgettable visual and narrative experience' Locus on The Electric State Stalenhag's 'stories crawl into my brain and mess with my memory of history, time and place' NPR on The Electric State

Ideal for professors who want to provide a comprehensive set of the most important readings in the philosophy of technology, from foundational to the cutting edge, this book introduces students to the various ways in which societies, technologies, and environments shape one another. The readings examine the nature of technology as well as the effects of technologies upon human knowledge, activities, societies, and environments. Students will learn to appreciate the ways that philosophy informs our understanding of technology, and to see how technology relates to ethics, politics, nature, human nature, computers, science, food, and animals.