The Critical Engineering Manifesto

[freebeard]

Meanwhile there are also examples of long-term successful worker-owned cooperatives around the world. Some of the most notable would be the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, the Brukman Factory in Argentina, and the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burley_Design

Burley Design (previously Burley Design Cooperative) LLC is a company in Eugene, Oregon, United States that has produced outdoor family products since 1978.[1] Its blue and yellow children's bicycle trailers were among the first on sale, in the early 1980s. In the past, Burley also made bicycles, tandem bicycles, recumbent bicycles, and rain gear.

Burley was run as a worker-owned cooperative from its inception until June 2006, when the company converted to a private corporation. In September 2006, Burley Design was purchased by Eugene businessman Michael Coughlin.[2][3] Production of bicycles and apparel ended that month, and the company turned to child, adventure, and pet trailers.

Darigold - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darigold
The cooperative was founded in 1918 as the United Dairymen's Association, and it bought the Consolidated Dairy Products Company in 1930. A contest among dairy families produced the cooperative's brand name, "Darigold" in 1920.

Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Assn

Do you have a moment to talk about social anarchism?

[California98Civic]

The domestication of horses and the invention of the wheel were technological moments, the creation of prosthetic devices that enhanced human ability of movement. We made these technologies and then they reshaped us. Ancient people, fought in new and different tactics and strategies. They pursued game and forage across new ranges. They built new infrastructures to make and maintain the technologies.

Our cars are an extension of that ancient history. We created them and we became dependent on them. Making them more efficient changes only minor aspects of our dependence. Regardless whether we move to a rural place and live near work and shopping, the world has become dependent. You walk to the grocery store in a world dominated by hundreds of millions of cars, few of them in your proximity. Such historically-minded criticism of engineering, or of technology, is an effort to promote thinking about future forms of dependency before we become dependent on them.

Autonomous cars of the future may be more efficient and safer, but we will be part dependent on them in lots of new ways. Remember how much easier it was to be alone in the world in your car before the cellular communications developments? Now work can find me while I commute, or on a vacation road trip. The autonomous car will leave us fewer excuses to avoid that email, text, or call. More of us will take it, or even make the call ourselves, enhancing productivity. We don't have to drive, so why not make that call to that client?

Here is a clever piece that reflects on similar themes:
Adrienne Mayor, "Gods And Robots: Time-traveling back to antiquity might help us think about the human transformations of the future," Cal Poly Ethics & Emerging Sciences Group June 18, 2020: https://www.noemamag.com/gods-and-robots/

[freebeard]

Good article, creepy lead pic.

Those ancient Greek gods development process would never survive a modern software development cycle.

Originally Posted by FTA

What other creatures have the facilities of language and “wind-swift thought” of “all-resourceful” humans, “ceaselessly contriving ways to escape the forces of nature”?

7K years ago, Sophocles presages R. B. Fuller.