IBM, Holocaust

[Joseph Tracy]

To my mind the problem is when there is moral and political collusion to undermine human justice and cooperate with evil.  Slave ships, rigged voting machines, funding murderous despots, spying on US citizens- they all involve technological cooperation. To excuse businessmen, scientists, soldiers, technicians and others because they are making a buck or doing their job doesn't cut it. The killers and their accomplices always find many ways to undermine moral responsibility and legal accountability and the cost is enormous to the tune of many holocausts.  It looks to me that  there are more to come and it is those who refuse cooperation who, as in fascist Europe, present the world with a moral choice.  Thank you MLK, Bradley Manning, Kathy Kelly, James Risen, Dan Elsburg, Ed Snowden, Helen Caldicott, Bill McKibben, and tens of thousands of others.

I agree that the subversion of the word 'technology' to refer only to digital tech is disturbing and puts a crimp in clear thinking about how things work. 








On Oct 8, 2013, at 1:40 PM, Monte Davis wrote:

> [repost]
> Agreed. The IG Farben, Shell and GE of Gravity’s Rainbow are in between the WWII “merchants of death” (Krupp, Vickers, DuPont et al) and the aerospace-centric military-industrial complex of the 1960s and 1970s … which have given ground in turn to the predominantly IT villains – or scapegoats -- of today.
>  
> Tangentially: as a former science writer, I’ve noticed that at the NY Times and quite a few other newspapers, IT has essentially taken over the sections labeled “Technology.”  Coverage of all other technologies -- mechanical, electrical (and non-IT electronic), chemical, materials-science, biotechology, etc -- when it appears, is in the business section, or when applicable in "environmental" coverage. In practice, that means any technology news that isn’t IT and doesn’t [yet] have major business or environmental implications is a hard sell in editorial conferences.  Now, I’ve made much of my living writing about business computing, and have been thoroughly addicted to personal IT since an Eagle CP/M machine in 1979, but that still strikes me as tunnel vision.
>  
>  
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of Carvill John
> Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2013 9:27 AM
> To: Monte Davis; lorentzen at hotmail.de; pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: RE: IBM, Holocaust
>  
> >For me, the enabling role of IT (and IBM) in the Holocaust simply doesn't stand out from the enabling roles of many other technologies and many other corporations. 
>  
> I would suggest that you also need to factor in a consideration of how those particular technologies (and technology companies) have accelerated and grown, in terms of their role in society, between WWII and today. There is often greater focus on their roles due to today's tech-centric world - understandably so.
>  
>  

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