History of anti-technology movement

Hello,

I wasn't exactly sure where to post this question, so I'm posting it here. I'm writing an essay about merits of banning technologies, which some consider deleterious or unethical (e.g. biotechnology/cloning, nanotechnology/self-reproducing micro-machines, AI/robotics).

Please help me find the following: incidents throughout history when certain technology was prohibited or opposed due to religious or other reasons.

If you know about such incidents, please write!

Thank you.

Reply to
StoneCutter
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I've just been reading Dud Dudley's Mettalum Martis of 1665, he's very keen on qualities and quantities, keeps his trade secrets as to how he smelts and refines the various irons using Pit-coale and Sea-coale, and complains about the militant charcoal burners who are forever trying to smash his coal fired furnaces and force him back to the old ways.

Reply to
Robin G Hewitt

--Find a book called, IIRC, "Giving up the gun" about the era when the Japanese shogun banned firearms in that country. Neat read. Worked for a while...

Reply to
steamer

Well, Leonardo Da Vinci got into a lot of trouble with the Vatican by doing autopsies and medical examinations, and conducting research that tended to suggest that man was, in fact, nothing more than a machine, built of matter and composed of working parts, and not in fact a divine creation beyond his own comprehension. It's a miracle he wasn't executed straight away, for such absolutely heretical suggestions and actions. Of course, had the notion of man being merely a physical device, and hence repairable and even enhancable or modifiable by his own hand, not gradually been adopted, medicine as we know it today could not exist. This has a possible knock-on effect that the industrial revolution may not have occured, or at least occurred much later than it did - an important factor in the industrial revolution was advance in medicine, which increased the density that populations in cities could reach without disease becoming prohibitive. This allowed larger workforces to live close to mills and factories, increasing their chances of financial success and so the success of the concept of industrialisation as a whole.

Interestingly, one bizarre factor that meant that the industrial revolution occured here in Britain, and not any of the other developed countries in Europe where it might easily have occurred instead, was the thing the British are so famous for - afternoon tea. This is because tea is actually a natural antiseptic, and when the fashion for regularly drinking the stuff swept the nation, this had obvious effects. There was a fascinating documentary series that investigated why England, of all places, was where the industrial revolution started, called "The Day the World took Off". I strongly recommend anyone interested in this topic attempt to see it. Another interesting factor was the very English concept of the Gentleman's Club - these were places both educated men, and ambitious, practical or successful men could meet, and highly productive brainstorming often occured in these places, in a way that it couldn't in more theoretical and less involved places like universities, where there is a whole lot of intelligence but not always that much ambition.

Just a few rambling thoughts.

Incidentally, I very sincerely hope that you ARE writing a serious essay on this, and not merely one of the trolls that have been trying to get attention by posting anti-technology diatribes all over the place recently.

Tom

Reply to
Tom McEwan

StoneCutter wrote: : Hello,

: I wasn't exactly sure where to post this question, so I'm posting it : here. I'm writing an essay about merits of banning technologies, which : some consider deleterious or unethical (e.g. biotechnology/cloning, : nanotechnology/self-reproducing micro-machines, AI/robotics).

Steam engines, medicine, herbal doctors, surgery, astronomy, printing press, logic, physics, literacy, theology and "corrupting the youth." How on Earth could you have grown up not knowing anything about history? Man if you don't know about the history of trying to supress knowledge then you are either monumentally ignorant of history or simply a troll.

: Please help me find the following: incidents throughout history when : certain technology was prohibited or opposed due to religious or other : reasons.

The "authorities" or some religious fool has tried to suppress knowledge and technological advance since we first crawled out caves and shook our fists at the universe. It never works for long because man is simply too curious to be held back forever. However, said idiots have managed to slow us down, which in hindsight might not have been a bad idea. Without power-hungry religious groups and similar institutions we would have been on the moon by the 17th century and who knows where by now!

: If you know about such incidents, please write!

If you don't, then please read!

DLC

Reply to
Dennis Clark

------------------- China, banned gunpowder because of the Emperor's terror of commoner opposition to rule, and so then lost the world to the west!

-Steve

Reply to
R. Steve Walz

------------ And like China, lost them the world.

-Steve

Reply to
R. Steve Walz

If you don't want to take the time to read so very intristing history then go to your local library and check out the video tape section. At some librarys are some execlent older PBS technology and science history series. The best are "Cosmos" by Carl Sagen and several series by James Burk. James Burk goes into very enertaning series of how and why technology was discovered or developed. Some of the series are called "The Day the Universe Changed", "Conections" and "Conections 2". All very iluminating, enertaning and don't require reading.

- Edward Rupp

Reply to
Edward Rupp

search for luddite

Reply to
Alan Holt

R. Steve Walz wrote: : And like China, lost them the world. --Yup. The equivalent experiment in west was referred to as the "Dark Ages".

Reply to
steamer

------------------- "Anyone who says the Dark Ages are over should be hit in the face with a brick!" - Steve Walz 1996

-Steve

Reply to
R. Steve Walz

Meaning someone has stolen the term "Dark Ages" and stuck a new meaning on it which has nothing to do with post Romano Britain.

I do wish people would have the wit and imagination to think up new terms of their own. Recycled terms are so confusing

Robin G Hewitt

Reply to
Robin G Hewitt

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