Technology and Moral Panic 262
pbahra writes "Why do some technologies cause moral panic and others don't? Why was the introduction of electricity seen as a terrible thing, while nobody cared much about the fountain pen? According to Genevieve Bell, the director of Intel Corporation's Interaction and Experience Research, we have had moral panic over new technology for pretty well as long as we have had technology. It is one of the constants in our culture. '... moral panic is remarkably stable and it is always played out in the bodies of children and women,' she said. There was, she says, an initial pushback about electrifying homes in the U.S.: 'If you electrify homes you will make women and children vulnerable. Predators will be able to tell if they are home because the light will be on, and you will be able to see them. So electricity is going to make women vulnerable. Oh and children will be visible too and it will be predators, who seem to be lurking everywhere, who will attack.' 'There was some wonderful stuff about [railway trains] too in the U.S., that women's bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed,' she says."
Vatican is still againt condoms !!!!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Vatican is still againt condoms !!!!!!
BS (Score:2, Informative)
The reasons listed in this study are a lie. Electrifying homes had other reasons for scaring people than whats said here. Go read about Tesla and Edison, why are modern studies filled with such dribble? Especially American ones?
War of the Currents (Score:5, Informative)
War of Currents [wikipedia.org]
Re:People fear what they don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Re:why modded down. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:People fear what they don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In My Opinion, More So a Lack of Understanding (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Written by an industry insider? (Score:3, Informative)
Well then here's your first. http://www.680news.com/news/local/article/248658--alannah-myles-shares-tragic-health-news-with-canada-day-crowd [680news.com]
TORONTO, Ont. - The crowd at Woodbine Park cheered loudly as Canadian rocker Alannah Myles was about to take the stage at one of the summer festivals taking place on Canada Day.
However, the tone changed as the "Black Velvet" singer was carried on and helped seated onto the piano bench using two canes. Although she seemed unable to move her head or neck, her voice sounded great as she played a few songs that really got the crowd rocking.
Finally, Myles explained to the audience that she had overdone chiropractic treatments, having some 500 treatments over three years, and had suffered some severe spinal damage.
She is unable to move her neck and head.
Re:Written by an industry insider? (Score:4, Informative)
Not [quackwatch.org] one [msn.com] single [chiropracticstroke.com] injury [youtube.com]
EVER [whatstheharm.net]
Re:Transference (Score:5, Informative)
That's not quite the entire story though.
One not-very-surprising conclusion of psychological research is that parents will do just about anything that they think will benefit their children, even if they're suicidal. Parent's love of their kids basically short-circuits the reasoning part of their brain. Love of the spouse is not quite as strong, but still very effective at short-circuiting reasoning.
Why does that matter? Because it means that if somebody wants to short-circuit the reasoning part of your brain, one way to do it is to present the threat or benefit as being to your children or spouse. That's why there's massive amounts of BS tossed around as "for the children" and "to protect women": the last thing you want a propaganda target doing is thinking carefully.