Bruno Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology, PDF - Dss-edit.com

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Porno 2000PrometheusPRTQuinRofoleRail DivisionRATPA PRT system which is based on the same principleas the ski lifts at mountain resorts and the cable carsin San Francisco. Each car, which is small and has nodriver, is automatically linked to a continuouslv runningcable and circulaes between stations. Th systemhas been operating for several years in the Frenchtown of Laon.The code name for a European Community project todevelop " smart cars."Personal Rapid Transit: the adaptation of mass transportationto the needs of the individual or smallgroups of passengers , in order to fight the hegemonyof automobile transportation. The concept of PRT becamevery popular during the Kennedy administration,but it has since fallen out of favor somewhat.Aramis was the longest-running PRT project. In recentyears there has heen a renewal of interest in thistechnologya hybrid of car and train.Claude Quin was a member of the Communist Party,an elected representative from Paris. He headed theRATP from 1981 to 1986.A military aircraft developed by Dassault amid muchcontroversy over its cost and specifications. LikeAramis, it was a symbol of France's high-tech ability.The "Ferroviaire" : one of the two major divisions ofthe RATP (q.v.). The other is the " Routier, " the BusDivision.Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens: the operatingagency responsible for the subways and buses ofthe city of Paris and its immediate outskirts. Its statusis intermediate between that of a private t'nterpriseand that of an administration. Like the SNCF (q.v.), itfunctions as both buyer and client: it is responsiblenot just for transporting passengers but for designing,commissioning, and ordering the means of transportation.The ministry that supervises it has only limitedcontrol over its operations. The agency is the productof a merger between two companies-one involvedwith aboveground transport and the other with undergroundtransport-which had completely differentmissions and technical cultures, This diffe rence is stillapparent in the fact that the RATP has two branchesthe Rail Division (" Ferroviaire") and the Bus Division(" Routier" )-and it played a role in the Aramis case,since Aramis is a hybrid creature, bothferroviaire (itruns on tracks) and rourier (it has a buslike construc-
tion). See Michel Margairaz. Histoire de la RATP: ra singuliereaventure des trampons parisiens (Paris: AlbinMichel, 1989).refre&h timeRERRoissy RailSACEMSaunier·Se·iteSchneiderSKSNCFSNECMAThe speed with which the data in a computer or on ascreen are brought up to date.Rescau Express Regional (" Regional Express Network"), a mass-transit system that is saturated duringrush hours in its central Paris stations, especially onLine A, which runs east-west. Two major competingprojects are slatcd to reduce the pressure on the RERnetwork: the RATP's Mcteor (an automated metro systemfor which Matra won the contract), and the-SNCF's Eolc.A traditional rail system that links Paris with Charlesde Gaulle Airport. Its major disadvantage is that passengersmust take a bus to reach the terminals.An automated gUidance system used on traditionalmetros (RER). It allows trains to approach each othermore closely than human drivers can permit them todo: it overrides the safety instructions and enablestrains to follow each other at the hair-raising intervalof one and a half minutes. It was developed at thesame time as Aramis and involves much the same kindof software.Alice Louise Saunier-Selte, right-Wing minister ofhigher education and research; the bete noire of rcsearchers,who compared her to Margaret Thatcher.A manufacturing company that made some of theRATP's first buses.A short-distance transportation system, a kind of horizontalcahle car much like the one in Morgantown,West Virginia. The SK can be seen in the VillepinteExhibition Park north of Paris.Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer: the Frenchstate-owned railway company. Like the RATP, it is responsiblefor transporting passengers, as well as for designingmeans of transportation, having them constructed,and ordering them. It thus combines thefunctions of buyer and client, and enjoys a large measureof administrative autonomy.Societe Nationale d'Etude et de Construction deMotcurs d'Aviation (" National Company for the Studyand Construction of Aircraft Engines"): a major high-lOSSARY
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ARAMISTHE LOVE OF ECHNOLOGY
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Copyright © 1996 by the President
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TO SIMON SCHAFFER 7/
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By publishing this hook, I would li
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exemplary meditation on the difficu
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PROLOGUE: WHO KILLED ARAMIS?The fir
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PROLOGUE•cember 1987. A promising
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[DOCUMENT: EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE
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"You see," he went on during one of
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"But during that period I found out
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-"There's one small problem," I sai
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1973: Test site at Orly; three-vehi
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1985: Scale model of two-car Aramis
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in a mass transit network, with no
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come true. Since every study has to
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load fa ctor, Professor? Your isola
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if by magic. An electronic calculat
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to be invented, if we are to track
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---) TransporterTime IS . ; To Char
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assembly line? You said "transfer"?
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primly, without acknowledging my cl
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defensive about playing "amusing me
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curves: DATAR, the RATP, Paris, bef
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fellow. It's like the Galileo affai
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Time To-1 2 3 4 5CJIII __ _ Time T1
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fic off the roads , it improve s tr
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ter-who speaks in the name of the g
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are solemnly and eternally committe
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me, Aramis isn't a PRT Iype of tran
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Aeroport de Paris said. IF you map
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IS ARAMIS FEASIBLE?"Now we can go o
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workshop, a control post, a recepti
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the optical sensor so it will maint
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evolutionary system of transportati
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"For my part, " the motor declares,
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-otherwise, it instructs the car to
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not only determined the laws accord
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Lamoureux, r
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they have to change the motor, mult
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there would be a lot of new functio
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"The idea was that it was seductive
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know who, among the engineers, exec
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of admiring the architecture, the s
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control room, by Ferbeck (who is al
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has the massive dimensions it takes
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come back to print. The whole passa
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"Do you comprehend the crime, the u
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS)At Matra headqu
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M, Parlat, proi
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Stationl00o
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destinations: that's the idea that
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the network, all the problems of au
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Etienne, hea
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ody can commit himself; it's imposs
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configuration on the board. Besides
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to the real transportation system,
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As a young engineer, I refused to c
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS)In M. Hector's
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Parlat is sp
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did his field work in the Amazon ra
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What counts, in a technological pro
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"That's an interesting theory all r
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"With VAL, we moved gradually from
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hard; you'd need to build it into t
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also VAL; Ficheur, the contracting
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completely ignores economic conditi
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INTERPHASE :THRE E YEARS OF GRAC E"
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construction of the Center for Tech
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]At the Ministry
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every year?* You could pay for Aram
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A "trashable explanation" ! The exa
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II est passe par iciII repassera pa
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uilding reliable, predictable, conv
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public funds vampire-fashion and th
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"Number 7 is incompatible with numb
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"Yes, we 've made a lot of progress
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Orly-Val], and then Montpellier. We
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Norbert's sociology, he respected m
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"In fact, I should have spent a cou
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The rationality of technologies wri
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Why not go see Ronald Reagan, or th
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"I called several meetings to verif
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the World's Fair; then they said it
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attaching to me dozens of poor devi
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3. In 1973, in a beet field near th
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7 The control room for VAL in Lille
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1 I. Aramis really does exist now;
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] 5. [n March 1987, seven months be
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19. Since no engineer could prove m
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we are often the first to see, in a
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"The RATP said to itself, 'I'm behi
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agree. "They're aiming at VA L in s
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"He agrees with me," I remarked mod
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viewpoints, goals, and desires, so
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If the actors in a project define n
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With a technological project, inter
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gers impatient to show up at Bercy
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allies. Thus, not only is the actor
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from one extreme to another. If you
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isn't the only one who doesn't know
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"Aramis has a lot of advantages bec
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hour. The human being in these scen
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the subway, by virtue of its access
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even includes direct quotes! A prot
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Regie Autonome des TransportsParisi
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etween us had evaporated with Norbe
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ITY OF THE INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIE
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opinion of the capitalists had "per
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An accusation that's so watered dow
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epistemological; it talks and talks
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conception, which exists in fact on
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put it. If Aramis existed, you woul
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"So we had to increase the absolute
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[SUMMARY OF A GROUP INTERVIEW]The s
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engineering, all the ingenuity, all
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"We've found the hidden staircase,"
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dominated by, people. But there is
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-Vehicle110,000f-PCC spervisio Stat
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]-M. Freque, pro
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problem. This task, for the project
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"What I think is that the Matra eng
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"As for the automation, I agree wit
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inappropriate, as if it were clear
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PIaorm 1X" StationI / Plaorm 2Subst
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"Level III: the fixed equipment, ea
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But since you're not human, I'd be
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--wheels, supply information about
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little I was becoming the Aramis mo
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the cars located in the sector, as
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So it givesa recalibration that'sre
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OrdinateViewpoint of mobile unit/I-
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Phonic wheelCoded equidistant cross
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"Here deceleration has to be factor
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[DOCUMENT]code 5800 .2ORI 10 0 0 00
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Norbert woke up terrified.The next
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This is the case for the Matra comp
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This figure, in the context of the
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short-term vision. 'As long as ther
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1. What M. Brun needs; what hechoos
Page 282 and 283: ecause if someone says, 'After fift
Page 284 and 285: Well then, that's reassuring. I sta
Page 286 and 287: thing, give or take a nuance or two
Page 288 and 289: that's too bad Obviously, to go fro
Page 290 and 291: They sound awfully sure of themselv
Page 292 and 293: "Either they didn't put enough ener
Page 294 and 295: Phase 1: Concept development5phose
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Page 300 and 301: 7. Aramis has been perfected as a m
Page 302 and 303: of a network, to the extent that th
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Page 306 and 307: "But then why not say it was resear
Page 308 and 309: when we talked about it. The electe
Page 310 and 311: "No, no, not enough love! Love and
Page 312 and 313: ahout each other in strict confiden
Page 314 and 315: "Yet in spite of its fragility, its
Page 316 and 317: to be a line. What more could I ask
Page 318 and 319: things. That's not what brought my
Page 320 and 321: "Obligation to use all appropriate
Page 322 and 323: " Prometheus. ""Prometheus! The 'sm
Page 324 and 325: GLOSSARYA-320 An airplane built by
Page 326 and 327: BertinBienvenueBus DivisionCabinent
Page 328 and 329: tems to be controlled in the car (d
Page 330 and 331: E:'2the ministry's technical dossie
Page 334 and 335: sniffer planeSOFRESSOFRETUSouth lin
Page 336: BIUND /ATOUI , 01"""of SOOoIogy, £
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