The Engineer as Social Radical

Analysis- The Engineer as Social Radical

Today, humans have to interact with technology on a daily basis. While technology has served in streamlining different aspects of our existence, its use also comes with a burden; we need to understand that the intentions of its creator and only use it ethically. While it sounds easy to ethically use technology, in practice, this intention is hard to implement. That is why humans need to align themselves to the intentions of the engineer who programmed a specific type of technology as highlighted in the article ‘The Engineer as Social Radical’ (Mathes and Donald 119-125)

When developing tools, engineers have to consider the social, cultural and political implications of its use. They develop guidelines of usage and restrictions depending on these targets. In the last 2 decades, technology has advanced in great magnitudes. Today, we have medical appliances treating people and keeping millions of records safely, and the most familiar technology, social media, is been used by nearly half of the entire world’s population (119). While this technology serves the world greatly, using it without duly considering the intention of their engineers leads to precarious implications which can be realized by an individual, or even the entire society. A good example of a technology with negative implications is social media, which is abused by internet criminals, hackers and even terrorists to mine personal information about people or even propagate other Internet-based crimes and terrorism.

On an individual basis, the technology influences a person’s moral, religious and aesthetic beliefs. Its use influences a paradigm shift within them and it determines how they start relating with other humans. As such, in many ways, engineers have intentionally and unintentionally pushed people to evolve through the civilizations of their minds (120). They have initiated changes which come with unprecedented problems and opportunities as they push people to edge further away from their conservative notions of existence.

As such, by looking around today, one is able to identify how the engineers of technology have influenced their lives in terms of the distribution of power and decision-making abilities, their personal relationships with their community members and even their basic family relationships. Technology affects political processes such as democracy and it allows people to access information in a faster and more efficient manner. As such, the vesting of central power in people is evidenced more as people revolt against unruly leadership where they notice incidents of corruption and the lack of care in their leadership. For instance, technology has helped in conducting a revolt against President Maduro of Venezuela, whose state is undergoing an economic crisis currently. While this predicament is productive for processes of ensuring accountable political leadership in doctrines, social engineers need to learn how it enhances its applicability in order to ensure a balance that the merits of a central governing system are also realized. Technology use has also destabilized communal and familial integration (120-121). With many automated processes, people in many parts of the world no longer sit around singing as they work. As such, it has become harder to foster good human relationships outside of the virtual internet space engineers are been advised to undergo training which helps them understand these unintentional and negative implications of their development as a means of ensuring that there is a balance in how technology is applied, for the purpose of maintaining the essence of human connectivity and relations through the advancement of a new socio-technological system (124-125). These system prompts engineers to be more conservative and socially-conscious since their beliefs are what is translated to the community then radicalized by the users of technology

In conclusion, technology is the representation of the mind of an engineer. Its recent development has aided in enhancing different aspects of human existence, by minimizing the need for human labor and automating diverse aspects of human interaction. While these developments remain positive, at times they can have unintentional implications which negatively affect the society individually, and communally as such, engineers need to be trained so that they are more socially-conscious of the implications of their work on the people.

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