'Risk and Danger' in "Risk and Blame" by Mary Douglas
"This is not because the public does not understand the sums, but because many other objectives which it cares about have been left out of the risk calculation."
"Centrally managed social plans misfire...when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not—and cannot—be fully understood."
Next up are my six "most impactful and now foundational to #STS as a discipline (after the person graduated from the field)"
*OTHER than @langdonw's "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" because it has been discussed already*
*Just my opinion, so eager to hear what others might choose*
Dikes and Dams, Thick with Politics by Wiebe E. Bijker of @wtmc_net
"Recognizing that things are thick with politics also draws
attention to the crucial relation of things to people, of things needing to be embedded in a culture if you want them to work." researchgate.net/publication/23…
'Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea' by @SJasanoff & Sang-Hyun Kim
Policy Paradox: The art of Political Decision Making - Deborah Stone
"Paradoxes are nothing but trouble...Two contradictory interpretations can't both be true. A paradox is just such an impossible situation, and political life is full of them."
Tried to link accessible versions so anyone could read. @internetarchive has a lot of the older ones, but to find any newer ones then this @AStrasser116 flowchart is really useful for anyone without access.
"There is no such thing as digitization without surveillance. The very act of turning what was not data into data is a form of surveillance."
"Privacy is important because it protects us from possible abuses of power. As long as human beings are human beings and organizations are organizations, abuses of power will be a constant temptation and threat. That is why it is supremely reckless to build a surveillance
"Scientists warn world ‘is heading in wrong direction’ amid rise in nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane"
“As the most urgent priority, we have to slash carbon dioxide emissions, which are the main driver of climate change and associated extreme weather, and which will affect climate for thousands of years through polar ice loss, ocean warming and sea level rise.”
"This new report, produced in partnership with ACLU SoCal, reveals how sheriff’s departments across the state engage in patrol activities that undermine community safety, waste tremendous public dollars, and inflict devastating harms on communities of color. Highlighted counties
include Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, and Riverside.
Examining data made available by the Racial & Identity Profiling Act, the report unpacks how sheriff’s departments use minor vehicle equipment and administrative issues to profile, harass, and extract economic
"Humans may encounter a staggering 80,000 or more toxic chemicals as they work, play, sleep and learn – so many that it is almost impossible to determine their individual effects on a person, let alone how they may interact or the cumulative impacts on the nervous system over a
lifespan.
Some contact with environmental toxins is inevitable given the proliferation of plastics and chemical pollutants, as well as America’s hands off regulatory approach, but exposure is unequal.
In the US, communities of color, Indigenous people and low income families
1. The Power of Top-Down Processing 2. The Skye Blue Café Wall Illusion 3. Confetti 4. The Rice Wave Illusion 5. The Tilted Road Illusion 6. Lightness Illusion
7. The Dynamic Ebbinghaus 8. The Dynamic Müller-Lyer Illusion 9. The Train Illusion 10. Rotating Rings 11. The Spinning Dancer 12. The Starry Night
Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction?
At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe.