Accountability of Representatives

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Technological Nightmares (Lecture): Accountability of Representatives

April 2, 2008, 3:29 pm

Series: Pardee Center Distinguished Lecture Series
Date: October 2003
Location: Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Boston University, Boston, MA

Accountability of Representatives

As technology becomes more arcane and specialized, political decisions require training and understanding confined to very small circles. Questions such as “what is the correct missile system” or “how much should the exchange rate be varied (or left to market forces)?” are highly technical. Must then technocracy replace democracy. If so, how can technocrats be made socially sensitive and politically accountable? Or are we to be delivered into the band of what C. Wright Mills called “technological crackpots?”



This is a chapter from Technological Nightmares (Lecture).
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Citation

Longer-Range, F. (2008). Technological Nightmares (Lecture): Accountability of Representatives. Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/Accountability_of_Representatives