Fictional American president in the movie Dr. Strangelove

You’re talking about mass murder, general, not war!”

The Unit 4 Assignment will further examine how the implementation of current technological innovations positively and negatively affected U.S. society.

An interesting intersection of technology and society is the notion that technology can be a fix for current and future social problems. The term for this, “technological fix,” was first coined by Alvin Weinberg, who became one of its leading proponents. Weinberg was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II and later joined the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (one of the laboratories subsidized by the Department of Energy). According to Weinberg, a technological fix is “a means for resolving a societal problem by adroit use of technology and with little or no alteration of social behavior” (Weinberg, 1978). Weinberg believed that social problems are quite challenging to solve because it is difficult for a government to motivate (or force) people to act in a rational manner. Because of those complications, he viewed technology as a possible solution.

During World War II, the American Manhattan Project sought to construct the world’s first atomic bomb. During the first test of the A-bomb in New Mexico, theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer recalled words from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” (Freed, 1965). Like all the observers that day, Oppenheimer understood that this was unlike any other military technology. The United States would use the A-bomb twice against Japan in early August 1945, finally ending the deadliest war in human history. Questions remain, however, on why President Truman ordered the bombings. Some historians have argued that this was a warning to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Basically, “look what we have Uncle Joe! Better behave.” Other historians believe that Truman’s rationale was to avoid an American invasion of Japan, as he thought back on the dreadful casualties during the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific.

With the end of the Second World War, a new conflict emerged between two of the victors, the United States and the Soviet Union. By 1949, the Soviets had exploded their first A-bomb. At the same time, the Americans were trying to build a thermonuclear bomb. A thermonuclear weapon is

a nuclear weapon designed to use the heat generated by a fission bomb to compress a nuclear fusion stage. This indirectly results in a greatly increased energy yield, i.e., the bomb’s “power.” This type of weapon is referred to as a hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, because it employs hydrogen fusion. (Lumen, n.d.)

There was a good deal of controversy about whether the United States should construct such a device, as an H-bomb can be 1,000 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. James Conant, General Advisory Committee member (the GAC was a scientific advisory panel to the Atomic Energy Commission) and president of Harvard University, argued against the development of the H-bomb, claiming that it “might become a weapon of genocide” (Blacker, 1987).Robert Oppenheimer was also against developing such a technology. President Truman, however, believed the United States should attempt to build it. In 1952, the first H-bomb was detonated. After this test, the physicist Herbert York commented: “Fission bombs, destructive as they might have been, were thought of [as] being limited in power. Now, it seemed, we had learned how to brush even these limits aside and to build bombs whose power was boundless” (Rhodes, 1995, p. 511). A year later, the Soviet Union exploded its own hydrogen bomb. Now, the two Cold War competitors were armed with weapons of unimaginable destructive power.

Weinberg believed that the development of the H-bomb was a technological fix. He viewed this technology as solving the concept of large-scale war during the Cold War. Leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States did not suddenly grow more tolerant of each other and embrace peaceful coexistence. No, the horrifying reality of exchanging H-bombs kept a direct confrontation between the two superpowers off the table because self-preservation trumped political and ideological animosities (Weinberg, 1966). This was the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) and why this conflict stayed “cold.” There was no winning a conflict with hydrogen bombs, so no war was fought. Winston Churchill encapsulated this new understanding in a speech he made in the House of Commons in 1955: “It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a state in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation” (James, 1980).

Of course, not every technology is developed because there is a pressing societal concern that needs to be addressed or solved via a technological fix. Quite often, technologies are invented to make scads of money. The iPhone® is a good example. What problem was the iPhone solving? This touches on the idea that many technologies we enjoy today are nonessential in nature. These technologies are something we desire, not something that we need. Companies understand that and play on our desires by introducing wonderful new gadgets for our enjoyment. The PlayStation® 5 video game console is a fun technology, but it is not essential for human survival. It does not address any pressing problem.

For this assignment, you will write a 500-word expository essay on the topic of technology, history, and society. Your essay should have a clearly established and sustained viewpoint and purpose. In addition, your writing should be well ordered, logical, and unified, as well as original and insightful. Following are the content requirements of the essay:

Select one of the following emerging technologies: nanotechnology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
Describe the emerging technology.
What problem was this emerging technology addressing?
What were the political effects of this emerging technology?
Describe at least one positive political outcome.
Describe at least one negative political outcome.
What were the social effects of this emerging technology?
Describe at least one positive social outcome.
Describe at least one negative social outcome.
What were the economic effects of this emerging technology?
Describe at least one positive economic outcome.
Describe at least one negative economic outcome.
Overall, do you believe the tradeoffs of your example were worth it for society? Why or why not?