• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. technology>

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson
December 29, 2022
information technology
d3sign/Getty Images

Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.

The internet and social media have provided organizations and people with a great many windows on the world compared to the three major television stations of the 1950s.

There have been positive and negative implications of this information technology development. On the positive side, everyone is a publisher and an advocate. You do not have to be NBC to reach 3 million or even 30 million people with a story. You might be a celebrity or an environmental advocate who reaches 50 million or even 500 million people with a tweet. Citizens have more power as a result of having a laptop or smartphone at their fingertips.

Moreover, everyone can access news, stories and blogs that are of interest to them. The information technology smorgasbord, like humility according (to T.S. Eliot), is endless. Information technology has also led to the development of countless new forms of medical technology, defense technology and consumer goods.

On the negative side, the internet and social media frequently spread lies and false statements. They enable authors to fabricate claims and stories with digital tricks. Hacking and other forms of cybercrime are everywhere. Moreover, experts have observed that citizens can easily channel information that only represents one point of view. This leads to political polarization and can foment prejudice and hostility along racial, gender, sexual identity and religious lines.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The internet and social media have been blamed for helping to create a red coat/blue coat war in which there are very few centrists in our government. And while there are more centrists amongst citizens themselves, they lack representation in Washington.


We continue to live with this chaos – boundless freedom, endless capacity to learn, clear tendencies for rigidity, intolerance, polarization and even violence.

Is there a way out? No, there is no way out.

Information technology, like industrialization, is at once a blessing and a curse. The industrial revolution changed the world. It accelerated the development of capitalism and gave birth to new forms of transportation, communication, food production, medicine and consumer goods. It also led to poverty, exploitation, alienation, pollution and class war.

We have not resolved the inherent tension within 19th century industrialization, and thus we should not expect to resolve the inherent tension within late 20th century information technology either.

But what can we do?

Perhaps the main thing we can do is recognize that information technology, like industrial technology, is inherently conflicted. Indeed, there have been two IT revolutions, not one: first industrial and then information technology. Nuclear technology has the same tension. IT1 and IT2 are neither inherently good nor inherently harmful.

This recognition must be made more explicit in our politics. We need a Congress and a president, and state governments, that accept the tension and work weekly to balance it, recognizing that it is impossible to overcome it. Several things that could be done include: establish a congressional oversight committee and a presidential commission to devise metrics to measure and track the two IT tensions. The media can also create scorecards.

Various newspapers and media oversight websites have "fact check" services. There could be a monthly scorecard on the "technology balancing acts." What is to be avoided at all costs is dismissing or oversimplifying the two IT tensions.

Wisdom involves accepting the tension but working constantly to balance the values of efficiency, economic growth, freedom, equality, safety and stability that are at stake in our country and civilization itself.

From Your Site Articles
  • Keep the faith: History shows dark night of politics will end ›
  • Our democracy is a boxing match. It will take more than one election to make it a foot race again. ›
  • Podcast: What does it mean to be a good citizen in the United States? ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • How Does Technology Impact Politics? | Acquia ›
  • People think technology impacts politics positively and negatively ... ›
  • Issues on the Frontlines of Technology and Politics - Carnegie ... ›
technology

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

The conservative mind at 70

Michael Lucchese

Fulcrum Rewind: How to get along at Thanksgiving

Debilyn Molineaux
David L. Nevins

How reforming felony murder laws can reduce juvenile justice harms

Margaret Mikulski

What if neither party can govern?

John Opdycke

The case for the 4th, from a part-time American

Flora Roy

How to critique a Schedule F revival

C.Anne Long
latest News

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Lennon Wesley III
7h

Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Ashley Houghton
Deb Otis
7h

Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Kevin R. Kosar
7h

Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

David Levine
Louis Savoia
28 November

How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

Jay Evense
28 November

Podcast: America’s political orphans

Our Staff
28 November
Videos
Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Our Staff
Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Our Staff
Video: The power of young voices

Video: The power of young voices

Our Staff
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Lennon Wesley III
7h

Podcast: Dr. F. Willis Johnson in a rich conversation with Patrick McNeal

Our Staff
14 November

Podcast: Better choices, better elections

Our Staff
23 October

Podcast: Are state legislators really accountable to their voters?

Our Staff
06 October
Recommended
Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Podcasts
Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Big Picture
Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Big Picture
Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

Contributors
How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

Big Picture
Podcast: America’s political orphans

Podcast: America’s political orphans

Big Picture