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

I was outraged by what my professor, with a certain satisfaction,was calling "chains of translation." He seemed to take great pleasurein seeing huge intcrests drift off toward little laboratories. For my part,I was deeply shocked by that sordid, self-interested yision of the, ,engineer's work."It's just a way of talking about priming the pump, if I understandcorrectly," I said with more feeling than my professor usually permitted(it was never a good idea to let him think one ",, -as naive). "Bardet ismaking money by making silk purses out of sows' ears. He's a cynic.But what would a real engineer have done in his place?""My dear young friend, I forbid you to speak, or even to think,ill of Bardet. He's a great engineer, a real one. You're always jumpingfrom one extreme to another. You show up here convinced that technologyis neutral and beyond question. You get your nose rubbed in aproject-for your own good-and you conclude that it's all a matterof pork barrels and white elephants. You move too fast. You really dohave a lot to learn. An engineer has to stimulate interest: that's the longand the short of it. And he also has to convince; that's the Law and theGospel. You can't put any real engineer 'in Bardet's place' (as you termit) except a bad one, some imbecile who doesn't interest and doesn'tconvince and whose kinematics has never gotten beyond the end of itstransfer function."In contrast, look at the beauty of Aramis and PRTs. It's a fantasticinvention. To discourage residents from taking their cars, you mergecars "vith puhlic transportation. There's only one wav vou Can do that:, , ,you have to get people to see public transportation the way they doautomobiles, so they11 take public transportation instead of their mvncars. It's a matter of mimicry, just like in the jungle. The worn-downcitydweller stops distinguishing between his private car and his Aramiscar. He literally takes one for the other! Let's give collective transportationsome of the automobile's most interesting features---point-topointservice, no transfers, comfort, intimacy-plus all the advantagesof public transportation: speed, train service that copes with the trafficflow, low cost (to the user), lack of responsibility (again, for the user).No one will want to do without it. Just look at these great interestM-J EXCIIING INNOVATION