Innovation,
as well as innovative policies, are often blindly celebrated. Game changing,
some would call them.1 Need I remind you how many of us raised our
hands when Niko, during his presentation, asked how many of us think innovation
is a good, necessary, thing? And why wouldn’t we? I mean, who wouldn’t want to
celebrate innovation? Without it we wouldn’t have some of the luxuries that we
currently take for granted.
Chapter 9
of Frank’s book, The Blue State Model,
is dedicated to sarcastically illuminating the blind value we place on
innovation, as well as noting its downfalls. Some of the points he makes can
very well be applied to one of the newest innovations to date: autonomous war
drones, a video of which can be found here.
Ironically, it is the Pentagon that has developed this new technology. A
State-run agency, the very State that Mazzucato2 praises in her book, has led to
the development of one of the most unethical innovations that breeds
inequality.
 |
| Perdix Micro-Drone Demonstration |
The title
of a recent article in Popular
Mechanics says it all, and the article itself provides more information about
how the drones work. The Pentagon’s autonomous war drones, called Perdix, are extremely
unsettling, both for obvious reasons and those that may not occur to you at
first thought. Aside from other uses, these drones can be loaded with explosives,
thus making them capable of attacking enemies (a loosely defined term) without direct
human involvement. Is this something we should be celebrating? These drones do
not take human lives, or their value, into account. Furthermore, the inequality
that it breeds can be excused by the ideologies surrounding innovation, which
celebrate making the rich richer and not worrying about the rest.1 Is
it fair to attack other nations with these technologies if they don’t have
similar resources to either fight back or protect themselves? As Frank (194)
put it “favouring innovation has meant bulldozing the people in its path.”1
The potentially innocent lives that could be taken at the hands of these drones
are ignored in favour of progression. When it comes to innovation, it seems
that logistics often take a back seat in support of moving towards the future.1
And, if these innovations support the economy, the more the better – right?
Maybe it’s
not all bad. An outline of some of the major pros and cons of the
implementation of such a technology can be found here. Perhaps they might sway your opinion in a direction other
than that I have outlined. For example, drones can increase wartime efficiency.
With that in mind though, increased efficiency could lead to an increase in
war, which could wreak havoc on the American economy. This runs fairly contrary
to the goal of innovation, which is to stimulate the economy.1 These
drones, a result of innovation, could therefore create more problems than it
could solve.1 A consideration of morals and the ethics of equality comes
into play in these types of situations. Is this truly a progressive innovation?
And finally, should we continue to fetishize and accept innovation with wide
open arms, or be more critical about it?
1. Frank,
Thomas. “The Blue State Model.” Listen,
Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? Metropolitan
Books, 2016, pp. 176-196.
2. Mazzucato, Mariana. The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, Anthem Press, 2015.
This is an interesting post as just the other day it came up in another class of mine. But the drone was first introduced during the Vietnam War and I don't know if you're familiar with Daniel Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers - But he whistle blew on President Nixon confirming how the continuous bombing of Vietnam was morally incorrect and hidden from the people. So yes, I believe anything concerning the U.S military is barbaric and unethical in a sense. But thats beside the point..
ReplyDeleteThe drone opens up a huge market, whether its surveillance of an off limits jurisdiction from a birds eye view, delivering packages through Amazon, or obtaining video footage to edit. To answer your question, I do think we should be more critical concerning innovations but also take into consideration how they can be commodified and altered to serve other purposes.
Definitely war drone's are a good example to support Frank's argument against innovation. We often blindly celebrate tech and innovation, crediting it with the ability to advance human development, without taking in to consideration some of its negative implications. For example, as Frank points out in his article, the same finance, stock, and banking tech innovations that were praised initially in the 1990s are what actually made the financial crash of 2008 possible.
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