Technodevelopmental Determination

Upgraded and adapted from the Moot:

While it would be wrong to propose a universal rule here, I think in general the capacities alleged to inhere in any given device or technique radically underdetermine their actual historical deployment to progressive as against reactionary ends. The determination is ultimately political, not technical. That is why moral, ethical, social, cultural, political discussions of technoscientific change -- and hence any discussion of progress -- should always substitute (at least in your own head) for the deranging false generalization "technology" the admittedly gawkier more awkward phrase technodevelopmental social struggle of a diversity of stakeholders to technoscientific change.