>Technosolutionism is a way of understanding the world that assigns priority to engineered solutions to human problems. Its first principle is the notion that an app, a machine, a software program, or an algorithm offers the best solution to any complicated problem.
Critics of "technosolutionism" as the author calls it often end up committing the same mistake backwards. Why implement an unpopular, slow, inconsistent and/or expensive social reform when a perfectly good technology does exist?
One example is noise pollution. We continue to build buildings with thin walls where even the "recommended" STC 50 means that you can hear "loud speech" through the wall, to say nothing of music:
Then we waste inordinate amounts of time and energy fining noise violations, which fails to actually prevent noise, but does do a good job of making young people hate the cops. After more than 10 years living in what passes for multi-unit housing in the United States, I still lie awake at night wishing for technosolutionism to put a proper wall between me and my neighbors.
An aside: to say we should use technology build to better sound insulation is one thing, but first we have to build at all, which some American cities cannot even manage. This old 1920s-built 3 bedroom 1 bathroom unit I live in rents out at $3500/mo. Renovation is vastly cheaper than demolition/reconstruction (assuming such a thing could even be approved).
Critics of "technosolutionism" as the author calls it often end up committing the same mistake backwards. Why implement an unpopular, slow, inconsistent and/or expensive social reform when a perfectly good technology does exist?
One example is noise pollution. We continue to build buildings with thin walls where even the "recommended" STC 50 means that you can hear "loud speech" through the wall, to say nothing of music:
http://commercial-acoustics.com/common-wall-stc-values/
Then we waste inordinate amounts of time and energy fining noise violations, which fails to actually prevent noise, but does do a good job of making young people hate the cops. After more than 10 years living in what passes for multi-unit housing in the United States, I still lie awake at night wishing for technosolutionism to put a proper wall between me and my neighbors.