The best way to introduce this book is to quote the first sentence of the blurb: “Techno-Fix challenges the pervasive belief that technological innovation will save us from the dire consequences of the 300-year fossil-fuelled binge known as modern industrial civilization“. Stinging, provocative, and radical, Techno-Fix puts its fingers on many a sore spot with its searing critique.
Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment, written by Michael Huesemann and Joyce Huesemann, published by New Society Publishers in September 2011 (paperback, 435 pages)
You might ask why, in 2021, I would bother reviewing a book published ten years ago. Both for the prosaic reason that I have had this book for some years without reading it, and because I am working on a little something that I cannot divulge yet. Plus, as it turns out, because this book is still relevant despite having been published in 2011.
The Huesemanns, Michael a biotechnologist with an interest in sustainability, Joyce an academic and activist, pull no punches in Techno-Fix. Our technology has brought us tremendous affluence and a world population growth spurt, but it also has unintended consequences that are both unavoidable and unpredictable. Some examples discussed here are climate change resulting from the generation of energy, the unknown effects of most synthetic chemicals, the pollution accompanying industrial activities, or the way the introduction of the car reshaped the world.
Even more outspoken is their statement that most technology is exploitative, abusing ecosystems, animals, and other humans. The industrial and globalised nature of much technology blunts us to this by creating distance in either space or time between exploiter and exploited. Do you know where your stuff comes from and who made it? Do you have a care for the planet your grandchildren will inherit? With the same fury that would later characterise Abundant Earth, the authors speak of the human domination of nature and the brainwashing by television and other mass media. The frequent references to TV might seem outdated given how online social media has ballooned in the last decade, but it has arguably not changed the beast much. And where free-market trade does not get us the needed resources, “high-tech military technology plays a key role in ensuring the continued exploitation and control of natural resources that are essential to maintaining the materialistic consumer lifestyle” (p. 68). Theirs is a bleak outlook on our modern society indeed.
“”high-tech military technology plays a key role in ensuring the continued exploitation and control of natural resources that are essential to maintaining the materialistic consumer lifestyle” (p. 68). Theirs is a bleak outlook on our modern society indeed.”
Surely, new technology can fix the problems old technology created? To the Huesemanns, counter-technologies such as geo-engineering schemes are like handing you another spade as you are digging your own grave—they come with their own unintended consequences. Furthermore, they write, efficiency gains (e.g. dematerialisation) have their limits and are often followed by increased consumption, a phenomenon known as the Jevons paradox. Ironically, despite increased affluence in the developed world, psychological research shows that happiness and well-being have not increased. Instead, we are stuck on a hedonic treadmill, furiously desiring ever more. The profit motive behind most technological developments results in solutions that benefit corporations and their shareholders, not the public at large.
Since these drawbacks are known, why does the belief in technological progress persist? The authors draw parallels between religious faith and techno-optimism, with the latter rising as the former waned. Furthermore, seemingly objective practices such as risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses are skewed towards continued technological development, downplaying or neglecting externalized costs. Finally, they take serious issue with the uncritical acceptance of new technologies due to the widespread belief that progress is inevitable and that technology is value-neutral, i.e. just a tool that can be used for good or evil.
Up to this point, much of what they write resonates with me, but I found their proposed solutions a mixed bag, strongly disagreeing with some of it. Since we cannot hex our way out of our problems with more technology, we need, I agree, a paradigm shift. They draw an interesting parallel with Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Just as scientific dogmas disappear not because minds are changed but because the old guard dies, future generations will change the way we live. Current generations will, by and large, be too set in their ways, too unwilling to give up their affluence. Plus, expect pushback from industries and corporations that stand to lose the most.
“To the Huesemanns, counter-technologies […] are like handing you another spade as you are digging your own grave—they come with their own unintended consequences.”
I think it should be stressed at this point that the Huesemanns are not technophobes advocating a return to the caves (although some of what they say is not far off). Technology has a role to play if it is employed more responsibly. To avoid stepping off the Seneca Cliff into wholesale collapse, they envision a transition to a steady-state economy that acknowledges planetary boundaries (some Planetary Accounting might help) and practises long-term sustainability.
The latter would require three things. First, 100% renewable energy generation. This, they admit, brings its own share of problems, one of which they remarkably do not even mention: the need for a vast infrastructure constructed from non-renewable materials. Speaking of which, second, we need to use renewable resources exclusively and phase out non-renewable resources, or fully recycle them where this is not possible. Other than the difficulties—if not impossibility—of finding replacements for most non-renewable resources (including basic ones such as all metals), they pass over the fact that materials cannot be endlessly recycled, requiring a constant input of virgin material. Third, waste can only be discharged at rates than can be assimilated by ecosystems, and those that cannot be biodegraded (read: most synthetic chemicals) should be discontinued. They acknowledge that, clearly, this would require a sea change in our attitudes: a society that embraces self-limitation rather than unfettered abundance. All of this is necessary, I agree, but it also seems almost unimaginable. If the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed one thing, it is how willingly people will relinquish liberties and accept restrictions imposed upon them.
There were a further three issues raised here that I mildly to strongly disagree with. First, they are justifiedly very critical of the corruption of medicine by the so-called medico-industrial complex, specifically pharmaceutical companies. Rather, we should focus on prevention and lifestyle changes (sure), accept the inevitability of death (agreed), and embrace holistic medicine (hmmm). Once they start talking of the power of placebo effects and the body’s innate ability to heal itself I become a bit uneasy. There is a kernel of truth in there but, in my opinion, you are at the top of the slide that reads “pseudoscience this way”. Second, they appear to contradict themselves by stressing the importance of efficiency in saving precious resources but also wanting things to go small-scale and local again, holding up organic agriculture as a shining example (something of which I am sceptical). You cannot have it both ways, we scale up production processes for more than just profitability. Third, they surprisingly really have it in for genetic engineering. Other than completely ignoring the pervasiveness of horizontal gene transfer (one could say nature invented genetic modification billions of years before we did), they are unwilling to acknowledge it will be one of the necessary tools to keep feeding the world, deal with the impact of climate change on crops, or that we can take the best of both approaches.
“the Huesemanns are not technophobes advocating a return to the caves (although some of what they say is not far off). Technology has a role to play if it is employed more responsibly.”
The Huesemanns acknowledge human overpopulation at several points: “More people generally translate into more problems” (p. 44) and unless “the size of the human population [is] stabilized and reduced, and the materialistic consumer lifestyle largely abandoned, there is little chance that our environmental problems will be solved” (p. 83). This is more than most authors do. Shame, then, that they do not dedicate a chapter to the thorny questions of whether we should control world population, what population size is optimal for the planet, and how many children to have (if any).
Instead, their last chapter felt to me like barking up the wrong tree. It calls for “critical science” (sensu Ravetz), which would stand in opposition to current scientific practice. Scientists need to take responsibility for their work, refuse dubious research financed by corporations, and abandon the excuse that they are not responsible for the end-uses. These are some really good points, but to put the onus almost completely on scientists struck me as, frankly, ridiculous. Some of their claims here really irked me. People choose this profession because of the relatively good income? Or the claim on page 329 that scientists and engineers do not really mind that problems are not solved as it guarantees their long-term employment? I normally hear a related version of that argument from climate-change deniers. I do not know what planet the authors live on, but my personal experience in academia showed me a world where you routinely work 60 to 80 hours a week on grant money or (if you are really lucky) a 40-hour contract while chasing short-term projects (known as PhD and postdoc positions) well into your forties before having a shot at a permanent position. When conditions are this exploitative it is no wonder many choose the job security and decent income offered by companies. If you want to keep scientists out of the clutches of well-paid corporate jobs and have them act as whistle-blowers you will have to properly reward and protect them, something only briefly acknowledged here.
In light of my criticism, would I recommend Techno-Fix? Yes, there is much I thoroughly agree with here. I applaud the authors for tabling controversial ideas and challenging readers with probing questions and assignments in an appendix. Furthermore, the book is thoroughly researched and annotated, very readable (including regular, useful summaries), and still relevant.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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Out of the first crop of books relating to the coronavirus pandemic, this one seemed especially relevant. Author Richard Horton is the editor of the leading medical journal The Lancet which has been an important publication outlet for new research results on both the virus SARS-CoV-2 and the disease COVID-19. Having also served at the World Health Organization (WHO), Horton thus has had an insider’s view of the pandemic and here brings a sharp critique to bear on the sluggish political response in Europe and the US.
The COVID-19 Catastrophe: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Stop It Happening Again, written by Richard Horton, published by Polity Press in June 2020 (paperback, 133 pages)
As I have done previously, let me just briefly comment on what is not in the book. The COVID-19 Catastrophe really focuses on the science-policy failures that have allowed this disease to rampage out of control. At only 133 pages, this does not leave much room for anything else, so for a primer of the biological details known so far, I once again refer readers to Understanding Coronavirus.
Something that other books have only touched upon, but that Horton reveals more about here, is what happened in China in early January: how early warnings from doctors were gagged before the news reached Beijing, and how the WHO got involved. This culminated in the WHO issuing a PHEIC, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, which is the most serious warning they can send into the world.
“Horton […] focuses primarily on the lessons not learned from the 2002–3 outbreak of the SARS virus. A painful highlight is the 2016 […] tabletop exercise Cygnus which simulated a scenario of pandemic influenza, showing that the UK was not prepared.”
Other books such as Spillover and COVID-19 have pointed out that virologists have been warning of the threat of pandemics for decades, and both books give detailed histories of previous pandemics such as HIV, Ebola, SARS, MERS, and others. Horton mentions these briefly but focuses primarily on the lessons not learned from the 2002–3 outbreak of the SARS virus. A painful highlight is the 2016 UK government tabletop exercise Cygnus which simulated a scenario of pandemic influenza, showing that the UK was not prepared. Even so, nothing much has been done with all this information. Horton blames it on a combination of factors. Complacency in the face of warnings. A widespread arrogant attitude that Western societies are somehow above nature, untouchable by disease. And the political unwillingness to place public health ahead of economic growth, which shows in the lack of stockpiling of medical supplies and protective equipment, the lack of investment in research and disease surveillance, and, worse still, continuous budget cuts in the health sectors of most developed nations.
When the inevitable finally did happen, subsequent actions, or lack thereof, only made things worse. This is where Horton is at his most strident, pointing out the weeks and months that passed in which governments did not prepare themselves, thinking they could somehow escape unscathed as if viruses respect borders; the too-little-too-late attempts to contain the virus through lockdowns; the political blame games rather than international collaboration; the confused, contradictory, and sometimes misleading messages from politicians towards the public (the UK and the US are mentioned in particular); the lack of protective equipment for medical personnel etc. If you have followed the news, this has become a sad but recognisable litany of failures by now.
“[…] months […] passed in which governments did not prepare themselves, thinking they could somehow escape unscathed as if viruses respect borders.”
The publisher described this book as hard-hitting, one reviewer mentioned it pulls no punches, The Guardian called it “a polemic of the first order”, and Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century “uncompromisingly scathing”. Horton labels Trump’s decision to cut funding to the WHO as a crime against humanity. The UK government’s claims that protective equipment was being delivered to the front lines and that healthcare workers were safe are called bare-faced lies. The failure of governments to protect their citizenry, gross incompetence. Perhaps by British standards Horton is outspoken, but the blunt Dutchman in me sees factual statements here, not hyperbole. I am not sure how you can come to any other conclusion.
Where the roles of China and the WHO are concerned, Horton is balanced. There were questionable things happening in China, and the Chinese government was downplaying the situation or actively suppressing information at various levels within its hierarchy. “There is a gap in the timeline of the pandemic […]” (p. 19) and we need “[…] a more detailed explanation of what took place in Wuhan” (p. 22), writes Horton. But at the same time, Chinese scientists, policymakers, and health workers have been extraordinarily committed and effective in acting and collaborating to contain and defeat this disease. The WHO is similarly described here as an imperfect bureaucratic institution, but one that nevertheless did what it could within its limitations (MacKenzie provided useful background information on these limitations in COVID-19, which Horton omits here). But do not be fooled by governments who are seeking to deflect attention, writes Horton: “to blame China and the WHO for this global pandemic is to rewrite the history of COVID-19 and to marginalise the failings of Western nations” (p. 88). If you take just one thing away from this book, this might well be it.
“”to blame China and the WHO for this global pandemic is to rewrite the history of COVID-19 and to marginalise the failings of Western nations“. If you take just one thing away from this book, this might well be it.”
In the final few chapters, Horton looks towards the future and becomes rather philosophical. He asks what the effects of COVID-19 are on human society so far and turns to the ethics of anthropologist Didier Fassin, highlighting an ethical trend of “biolegitimacy”, of seeing human life in purely biological terms, without considering the political conditions within which it exists. And he draws on the writings of Michel Foucault and Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the panopticon* when pondering what the need for enhanced disease surveillance will mean for our personal freedom. These sections feel somewhat sketchy. I am sure much more could be said about this, but Horton does not develop these themes further here. His list of what our post-COVID world should look like, coupled with his concerns about what will likely happen instead, are pages to take to heart though.
This short and punchy book contains some incisive reporting on how countries failed to act in the face of this pandemic. No doubt, future reporters can explore this topic in far greater depth for many more countries. But we must start this now. Horton has seen first-hand how political disinformation campaigns are already trying to rewrite the narrative of the pandemic. We must document these attempts, he writes, which makes The COVID-19 Catastrophe an urgent and timely book.
In closing, you might wonder how this book compares COVID-19 by journalist Debora MacKenzie, the subtitle of which is very similar to this book. A longer book, it provides more background information on previous pandemics, as well as the role of bats and the complexity of societies in the current one.
* The panopticon is an architectural design for prisons that allows complete surveillance by one security guard without prisoners knowing whether they are being watched.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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“The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread“, written by Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, published by Yale University Press in January 2019 (hardback, 266 pages)
Fake news and lies have a long history (see e.g. Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News and the forthcoming Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullsh*t). Take, for example, the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. The idea that lambs grow on trees seems absurd now, but for centuries it was one of the many hybrid beasts populating mediaeval bestiaries. Learned men were convinced of its existence, based on nothing more than hearsay. And that problem remains, in spite of communication technologies allowing the rapid, global spread of information. Our knowledgebase long ago already became too vast for people to construct their worldviews from first principles. So all of us, scientists included, largely have to trust what other people tell us. And that is where things can get messy.
I was prepared for a lot of concerned hand-wringing. But The Misinformation Age offers something far better than that: an incisive analysis in four chunky chapters of how social interactions influence false beliefs, starting with scientists. “Wait now,” I hear you cry “aren’t scientists supposed to be the good guys?”. They are, and that is exactly why we start with them. After all, here is a community of well-informed, highly trained information gatherers and analysts, who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of knowledge – “the closest we have to ideal inquirers” in the words of the authors. And even they are fallible.
By modelling simple communication networks, i.e. individuals exchanging information to decide which of two options to choose, the authors show how consensus is reached, but also how social factors quickly complicate the picture. Evidence presented by others is judged not just on its merits, but also on the trust we have in the presenter. And we are prey to the psychological phenomenon of conformity bias: we are uncomfortable disagreeing with others and like to fit in. Both can rapidly lead to polarization, with groups having different convictions.
“Our knowledgebase long ago already became too vast for people to construct their worldviews from first principles. So all of us […] have to trust what other people tell us. “
And this is before we consider real-life complications of industry interests who will bend the truth to further their own fortunes. “Doubt is our product”, wrote a tobacco company executive once in an unsigned memo, and it is one of the best-known examples of how industries sow discord and confusion (see more in e.g. Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health, the famous Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, and Creating Scientific Controversies: Uncertainty and Bias in Science and Society). Data fabrication is the blunt strategy, but, as O’Connor and Weatherall show, there is an insidious sliding scale to ever more subtle forms of propaganda. From biased production (i.e. industries funding or doing their own research but selectively reporting only the desired results) or increasing the productivity of certain research groups by funding them, to quoting academics out of context or selectively publicising only certain research findings. And this is before we get to the weaponisation of people’s professional reputations (see also Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research and Tainted: How Philosophy of Science Can Expose Bad Science).
Particularly problematic is that industries can simply exploit existing weaknesses in current scientific practice. Academic journals are biased towards publishing novel or positive results. And there is a host of factors stimulating salami science: the publication of more but smaller and statistically underpowered studies, rather than fewer but larger and more powerful ones. These include limited funding, limited time due to short tenures, and the importance attached to publication volume and citation metrics when hiring scientists. The resulting reproducibility crisis and the temptation of doctoring data offer easy pressure points for industry interests (see also my reviews of Stepping in the Same River Twice: Replication in Biological Research and Fraud in the Lab: The High Stakes of Scientific Research).
“”Doubt is our product”[…] is one of the best-known examples of how industries sow discord and confusion.”
Meanwhile, in the “real world”, many of these mechanisms play out, often amplified, in how society at large forms their beliefs. The authors highlight journalism – its ethical framework of fairness and representing-all-sides-of-a-debate can backfire spectacularly. In the UK, for example, the BBC has been lambasted for giving equal weight to lobbyists and scientists in its coverage of climate change, creating the illusion of a debate where there is none. And online social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook can isolate us in so-called filter bubbles (see The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From You, but also Are Filter Bubbles Real?), though I found the authors’ coverage of the algorithms driving these sites fairly limited (for introductions see e.g. Outnumbered: From Facebook and Google to Fake News and Filter-bubbles – The Algorithms That Control Our Lives and my review Rage Inside the Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms, and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All).
You would be forgiven for thinking that two philosophers reporting on modelling work could make for a boring read, but nothing is further from the truth. O’Connor and Weatherall write in a breezy style, making it very easy to follow their argument, and they make good use of diagrams when they discuss their network models. Furthermore, they nicely balance the book with interesting and relevant case studies. I found the finer details on the controversies surrounding ozone depletion and Lyme disease particularly fascinating.
“when applied to scientifically-informed decisions, democracy is a “tyranny of ignorance”. Evidence is simply not up for a vote. “
The authors are outspoken when offering recommendations on how to combat false beliefs. They consider as dangerous and patently false the notion that truth will triumph when allowed to compete with other ideas in the proverbial “marketplace of ideas”. Scientists could organise themselves better (yes), journalistic standards can be improved (sure), and legislative frameworks such as defamation and libel laws could be extended to prohibit industries from spreading misinformation (why not). But then, in the last three (!) pages of the book: “Isn’t it time to reimagine democracy?”
Right, I was not prepared for that one.
They follow Philip Kitcher (see his books Science, Truth, and Democracy and Science in a Democratic Society) by arguing that, when applied to scientifically-informed decisions, democracy is a failure. Most voters have no idea what they are talking about, making democracy a “tyranny of ignorance” or worse, as people are often actively misinformed and manipulated. Evidence, they say, is simply not up for a vote. Given that I have Brennan’s Against Democracy sitting on my shelf here (which champions the idea of an epistocracy, a rule of the knowledgeable), I was all ears.
The Misinformation Age is fantastically readable and makes a convincing case for the importance of social factors in the spread of knowledge. Whether you are interested in the communication of science or worried about the epidemic of false beliefs, this book comes highly recommended.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
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