That Luddite Thing

[Ghetta Life]

Just to add to the non-existent Luddite essay discussion:

>From the current Economist:

IT MAKES planes fall from the sky! It causes explosions at petrol stations! 
It gives you cancer! It helps terrorists! What is this terrible device? Why, 
the mobile phone of course, which is simultaneously the most successful 
digital device on the planet (1.7 billion users and counting) and the origin 
of all sorts of myths and scare stories.

Mobile phones do not make planes crash: on a typical transatlantic flight, 
there are a dozen or so left on by mistake. When was the last time someone 
tried to hijack a plane by threatening to turn on a phone? Their use in the 
air is banned because it would interfere with mobile networks on the ground, 
though this has now been solved, and in-flight calling will be possible next 
year. What of explosions at petrol stations? These are mostly caused by 
static electricity; the ban on phones was introduced by overcautious oil 
firms in the 1980s, despite the lack of any evidence of danger. With the 
industry unwilling to withdraw its warning signs, the myth of phone-related 
explosions has taken on a life of its own (see article). There is no 
credible evidence for a link between mobile phones and cancer. It is true 
that terrorists use mobile phones. But they also use electricity and cars. 
Why single out phones?

On the face of it, there is a contradiction here: mobile phones are 
ubiquitous and indispensable, yet they have also given rise to a curious 
bundle of safety fears. But it is, in fact, quite normal for successful 
technologies to cause concern when they are first introduced. In the 19th 
century, people worried that telegraph wires were affecting the weather, or 
were a form of black magic. Trains were thought to cause nervous disorders. 
More recently, people have worried about the health effects of overhead 
power lines, microwave ovens and radiation from computer monitors—though 
years of research have failed to find evidence of harm. So the reaction to 
mobile phones is merely the latest example of a familiar pattern.

As new technologies emerge and the pattern repeats itself, two things are 
worth bearing in mind. The first is that even when a technology is perfectly 
safe, the nature of scientific proof makes it impossible to verify. It is 
only possible to look for evidence of harm, and if none is found, there 
either is no harm, or it is necessary to look for it in a different way. 
Evidence that mobile phones are dangerous could still emerge, but so far 
they would seem to be safe. (Britain has taken an unusually cautious 
position, but that is because the British government is particularly wary in 
the wake of the mad-cow fiasco of the 1980s and 1990s.)

The second point is that all technologies have both good and bad uses. There 
is currently a debate about whether it is safe to install mobile antennas in 
underground stations, for example, for fear that terrorists will use mobile 
phones to detonate bombs. Last year's bombs in Madrid were detonated by 
mobile phones, but it was the phones' internal alarm-clock function, not a 
call, that was used as the trigger mechanism. Nobody is suggesting that 
alarm clocks be outlawed, however; nor does anyone suggest banning 
telephones, even though kidnappers can use them to make ransom demands. 
Rather than demonising new technologies, their legitimate uses by good 
people must always be weighed against their illegitimate uses by bad ones. 
New technologies are inevitable, but by learning the lessons of history, 
needless scares need not be.

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