Automatically translated from Basque, translation may contain errors. More information here. Elhuyarren itzultzaile automatikoaren logoa

Fear, change and science

In the early 20th century, there was a great resistance to electrification in the UK. While in France and Spain electrification was already underway in 1920, in England it did not start until 1940. The reason: gas companies pushed the fear of electrification among citizens not to lose the market.

This time I want to address the use of fear of technological change in the history of socialization. Fear, unlike anything, is a tool to mobilize human beings as a mechanism to ensure our well-being. Historically, we have been frightened, or our fears have risen to the level of ignorance to promote changes in those cases where change itself was not understood as positive. That is, fear has also been used by those who want to promote change and by those who want to prevent it. In these cases, science has been understood as an instrument of light. Unfortunately, doing science is not in everyone’s hands, and the paths he has worked are closely linked to the funding obtained.

The time when we live in the digital world brings to mind the case of English electrification. On the one hand, there are those who promote fear of security, the model that defends the coordination of infrastructures: “Our infrastructures are safe, they are in one place, a fortress that no one can access.” On the other hand, there are people who seek the distribution of infrastructure, and the fear promoted in this case is the lack of privacy and control: “The business model of large infrastructure hub corporations is based on their data and can influence your life for the benefit of their customers.” We citizens have bilateral messages. What to do? Continue with the cloud services of big corporations or analyze new ideas from those proposing distributed networks? Where is science today? How is this topic being analysed? Unlike nature, some human technologies are closed, not auditable, and it seems that science can't give birth there. Will we have to live in a new model of ignorance?

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