The Technological Imperative

BY DAVID B. HERTZ
If we are to survive the long-range effects of our
own technology, the author argues, we shall have
to change our ways of problem solving and even
sacrifice some of our most cherished goals, such
as unending economic growth. To achieve this, he
believes, we must train 3 new hreed of
professional technologists, capable of assessing
and evaluating the long-term social and
environmental implications of the projects
they design.
iiNGiNEERS, as we all know, are men who use
scientific principles to solve practical problems
This IS a definition that the profession and the
engineering schools like. In common with most
professions, they also like to use a more or
less rigid set of definitions of what kinds of
practical problems are acceptable to the guild
But, if we agree with the basic definition
and examine the "practical" environmental
problems to which "scientific" principles are
applied, we quickly find that we have moved
far beyond the generally accepted understand-
ing of what engineering does Not that this is
surprising, history has a way of stretching
definitions. The i8th century definition of en-
gineering was purely in military terms, and yet
in those days there were bridge builders, pump
builders, architects, and others who applied
their knowledge of the scientific principles of
the day to solve extremely intricate practical
problems.
Currently, the application of operations re-
DAVID HERTZ, a Director m the New York
office, is responsible for the Firm's management
sciences, operations research, and systems analy-
sis practices His most recent book is NEW POWER
FOR MANAGEMENT (McGraw-Hill, ig6g). This article
was first published in THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN
ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, Vol. }8g.
May xgjo
42 I FALL 1970
search to a great many practical problems of
industry and society is not widely accepted as
"engineering," but it certainly represents the
equivalent professional approach of the mod-
ern technologist In every age, the technologist
has applied knowledge and historical experi-
ence, with more or less rapid changes in the
end products The pace of these changes de-
pends, of course, upon a complex set of inter-
related factors, including not only the advance
of science, but also the evolution of social
structures, education, and economic condi-
tions. Contrast, for example, the rates of
change in bridge building with those of waste
disposal, air travel, or the reciprocating steam
engine.
Figuratively, the technologists have stood
on the banks of innumerable chasms and
found ways of crossing them, with innovations
ranging from vine bridges to moon modules.
Each success was seen as a new "victory" by
man over a natural "enemy"; some roadblock
in the path of progress had been removed, and
man had taken another step on his way toward
the ultimate mastery of nature. Of course,
there were setbacksman-made and natural
but these only demonstrated even more clearly
the nature of the struggle; the difficulties over-
come in the battles that had already been won
foreshadowed those to be faced in battles yet
to be fought. The steady accumulation of ex-
perience and the spectacular nature of each
succeeding technological achievement gave
layman and engineer alike the feeling that,
technologically, there were no objectives that
man could not reach
Forty years ago, an engineer's view of the
characteristics of the true technological ex-
pert included "intellectual and moral honesty,
courage, independence of thought, fairness,
good sense, sound judgment, perseverance,
resourcefulness, ingenuity, orderliness, appli-
cation, accuracy and endurance The engi-
neer IS under obligation to consider the socio-
logical, economic, and spiritual effects of
engineering operations and to aid his fellow-
men to adjust wisely their modes of living,
their industrial, commercial, and governmental
procedures, and their educational process so
as to enjoy the greatest possible benefit from
the progress achieved through our accumulat-
ing knowledge of the universe and ourselves
as applied by engineering."* Who could ask
for more?
In 1919, Thorstein Veblen was clearly con-
vinced that engineers' contributions to the
world's economic structure were impartial, ob-
jective, and overriding. He was sufficiently
impressed to write: "These expert men, tech-
nologists, engineers, or whatever name may
best suit them, make up the indispensable
Alfred D Fhnn, "Professional Engineer," The Encyclo-
paedia Britannica (14th Edihon, New York, 1929), Vol. 8,
P 445
43
General Staff of the industrial system, and
without their immediate and unremitting guid-
ance and corrections the industrial system will
not work.. .. The material welfare of the com-
munity is unreservedly bound up with the due
working of this industrial system, and there-
fore, with its unreserved control by the engi-
neers, who alone are competent to manage
it."*
The Socioeconomics of
Technological Dedsions
This self-adulatory and somewhat delusive
notion of the power of the technologist's abil-
ity to build a bridge across any economic or
physical gap continues to thrive today, coupled
with the notion that the technologist some-
how can rise above the crowd and find the
"right" solution to the problem he is dealing
withbecause he is a technologist or "profes-
sional" practitioner of an art based upon scien-
tific knowledge. To be sure, there is a growing
awareness that the cost-benefit calculations so
painstakingly made by the well-trained engi-
neers have not always included all social costs.
But the technologist's answer to questions
about the larger validity of his proposals, proj-
ects, and designs is that he simply needs to be
given the problem in the larger context, he will
solve it according to the appropriately proven
problem-solving techniques based upon science
and experience, and all will turn out well. If
* Thorstein Veblen, The Engineers and the Price System
(New York, The Viking Press, 1921), p 69
any problem exists, it arises because he has
not been given the appropriate range for his
skills. Defining the problem, in any case, does
not seem to be his business. The problem will
be "given" to him by those in command of his
services ("build a pyramid"), or he will sell
an idea to those in a position to buy ("let's
have these fountains everywhere, boss"), or
he will invent a problem solution and work out
a way to sell the final product ("isn't this rub-
ber greatI call it vulcanized").
Thus, current apologists for technology
can suggest that we possess today the means
for achieving virtually any ends we wish,
whether it be to travel the galaxy, mine the
ocean, replace the human body, or educate,
house, and care for the world's population. The
argument runs about as follows: If we can spot
the problem gap, the solution must thereby
be available. Thus, atomic energy, telecommu- "
nications, space flight and similar feats of tech-
nology. If those, why not others? Of course.
It IS not at all obvious that any of these goals
are even theoretically achievable m the fore-
seeable future, let alone practical. In every in- ,
stance, current empirical evidence is extremely
discouraging. We can build some such bridges,
but they keep falling down.
In any case, optimistic assumptions of the
omnipotence of technology are becoming sus-
pect in today's world, where two major effects "
of technology are becoming visible on a large
scale for the first time: (l) negative "benefits,"
spillover costs, and unrecognized harmful ef-
fects of seemingly good technology; and (2) a
loss in the "decoupling" of people and things
that for so long protected most of the world so
44 I FALL 1970
well from technological side effects and bad
choices.
It is not at all clear from these conse-
quences that man misuses science and tech-
nology. What is clear is that each time man
makes a technological change that significantly
shifts the state of some essential part of the
ecological system in which he lies willy-nilly
embedded, there will be negative as well as
positive effects. If this is so, as all the evidence
seems to say, then our faith in technology's
ability to solve all problems, including the
problems created by technology itself, is mis-
placed. And this misplaced faith can only
hinder our efforts to understand how to solve
the difficult and sometimes tragic problems of
the environment.
Our inescapable dependence on technolo-
gists, along with technological traditions of
social and economic choice, will make it diffi-
cult enough to secure effective change in a de-
cision process for technological options. The
need to include other values will only be met
when the technologists themselves are incul-
cated with such values. Accomplishing this is
a problem of transcendent difficultyas well
as transcendent importance.
The trouble is not that technology is a
"mindless driving force." On the contrary, the
problem lies precisely in the minds of those
who can solve problems, i.e., the technologists
But if the problems are solved as technological
problems are solved today, thereby creating
more problems, the ultimate fate of the human
environment is not likely to be a happy one.
To take only one example: The problem
of atmospheric contamination by fossil fuel
energy plants is dismissed as being solved by
atomic energy plants Yet, it is considered
likely by competent analysts that such replace-
ment would lead, in due course, to deadly
radioactive pollution of the atmosphere.
Growth Versus Spillover
As our technological age has progressed in
its understanding of the economic facts of life,
growth has become virtuous; stability and
equilibrium, dangerous and sinful In every
aspect of human endeavor, growth in size has
become the critical factor in measuring prog-
ress. Part of the myth of progress has been the
equating of science with good, and the size of
engineermg works with their contribution to
mankind's well-being. Yet we are learning that
each step in the growth process is likely to
require more resources per capita, and to pro-
duce more waste products. The ratio of re-
sources used to waste produced, for a given
level of output, can be changed; but the laws
of thermodynamics will not allow the waste or
pollution created to be reduced to zero Some
substitutions or changes may improve the effi-
ciency of production over the short run, but
the longer run effects are not necessarily in the
same direction. For example, it was thought
that improved agricultural processes automat-
ically equalled improved productivity, but we
now know that they may actually only deplete
the soil resources more quickly
Population growth increases the magni-
tude of the problem. For equal per capita out-
put, gross national product naturally increases
45
in proporton to population growth; but, equiv-
alently, so do the resource requirements and
waste production. But the important point to
understand is that growth in itself, with or
without technological innovation, brings about
an increase in the absolute amount of spill-
overs (both good and bad) that the earth must
cope with Each attempt to produce more
efficiently, through improved technology, dis-
turbs some uneasy natural equilibrium, and
this disturbance is soon felt in areas remote
from the original change.
A classic example of resource destruction
brought about by individual decisions that
were clearly in the best short-term economic
interest of those who made them is the so-
called "tragedy of the commons." Here, in a
microcosm, we can see the underlying eco-
nomic drives and the disastrous results that
ensue when the environment is considered a
free good for individuals or groups to "master"
as they please. The commons were pasture
land set aside for public use in early 19th
century England. Elementary economic con-
siderations dictated to each user that he should
utilize the pasturage available to the maximum
extent and expend a minimum on its upkeep
(l.e , maintain the maximum number of cattle,
since each addition to his herd would repre-
sent an added economic benefit as long as he
did not have to contribute too much to the up-
keep of the commons). As a result, the com-
mons were overgrazed and undercared for.
The negative spillover was ultimately appar-
ent in destructive erosion, underproduction,
and the enclosure movement of the late 19th
century. The tragedy develops, as one scholar
puts it, "because the same rational conclu-
sion is reached by each and every herdsman
sharing the commons."* The key word is
"rational."
The same tragic outcome, it seems, can be
developed for virtually every element of man's
environment that is shared and that becomes
scarce. The economist E. J. Mishan has devel-
oped the consequences of similar decisions in
a complex modern setting with respect to pri-
vate versus public transport. He shows that
the roads provided for common use will, in
general, be used up to a point where they are
no longer very attractive and their utility is
reduced by virtue of their overcrowding.
Meanwhile, the public transport services (rail-
roads, buses, etc.) become less effective (fewer
riders, less revenue, etc.), and the utihty of the
total system is reduced for everyone. At the
same time, the private automobile functions
as "the chief agent of rapid urban sprawl and
ribbon building."** To this example may be
added the various spillovers of air pollution,
highway deaths and injuries, abandoned and
discarded car carcasses, among others.
Operating from the simplest of premises-
economic growth is not only good, but neces-
sary, and "let every man take the best possible
care of himself"the chain of negative spill-
over benefits becomes very long indeed, lead-
ing to the current bleak forecasts for man's
future. Naturally, not all spillovers are nega-
tive, but most of the unforeseen spillovers are
* Beryl L. Crowe, "The Tragedy of the Commons Re-
visited," Science, November 1969, Volume 166, Number
3909, p 1103
** E J Mishan, The Costs of Economic Growth (London,
Staples Press, 1967)
46 I FALL 1970
likely to bewhereas virtually all of the posi-
tive benefits that accrue from technical deci-
sions have been taken into account in the pre-
ceding analyses.
The good goals aimed for seem to stand
out crystal clear, but predictions of negative
side effects tend to be so hazy and unconvinc-
ing that any bad end results are obscured from
public, if not private, view.
Once the technical community is united on
an issue, it is obvious that negative decisions
on technical matters can be made. But since
the design of a project is intended to meet posi-
tive rather than negative objectives, this hap-
pens only rarely. Virility, strength, and pride
are all locked into the arguments used to over-
whelm any "weak sisters" whose forecasts
smack of gloom and doom.
Ordinarily, any negative objectives are ex-
pressed in the constraints imposed upon the
technologist. Up to this point in time, most of
these constraints have been economic or nar-
rowly technical (e.g., the tensile strengths of
various materials that cannot be exceeded),
and only grossly social (e.g., the general con-
straint against the location of atomic energy
power plants within densely populated urban
areas in the United States). But there is now a
building awareness that much improved tech-
nological assessment is needed for environ-
mental management.
On the other hand, evidence is also piling
up that the bigger and more extensive the end-
result goals, the more likely are there to be
unfortunate, if not disastrous, consequences.
For example, the use of chemical insecticides
carries an almost endless chain of spillover
effects, includingmore often than might be
thought likelyan actual decrease in produc-
tion of the crop being protected. "In the
Canete Valley of Peru, widespread insecticide
use was promoted in 1949. . . . Seven years
later, the cotton crop had gone down 50 per-
cent and species of destructive insects had
doubled."* The development of pesticide-
resistant insect strains, and toxic effects on
other (including human) organisms, changing
an ecosystem significantly, are now among the
demonstrated consequences of insecticide use.
Again, the building of dams to provide irri-
gation in Africa, Asia, and South America (cer-
tainly a purely technical matter insofar as
design and use are concerned) has resulted in
the spread of bilharziasis, a debilitating and
sometimes fatal malady. Such examples can be
found in virtually every area in which man's
technology has impinged upon the environ-
ment.
The Disappearance of Decoupling
To make the task of choosing among tech-
nological options even more difficult, added to
negative spillover effects is the dimmution of
the decoupling upon which the engineer has
always relied in the pastand often, mis-
takenly, still does.
Historically and habitually, scientists and
engineers have dealt with systems in physics,
chemistry, and biology that were actually or
Robert Cahn, "Ecology and International Assistance,"
The Christian Science Monitor (reprinted by The Con-
servation Foundation, Washington, 1968), p 1
47
supposedly independent of one another. For
the most part, such assumptions have been
valid. For example, a few molecules of gas in a
container may be treated for most technical
purposes as though they were independent of
one another. In other words, they are de-
coupled: there is no need to take account of
any effect one may have on another. As more
molecules are added to the container, interac-
tions among the molecules become more nu-
merous, and at some point the density will be
such as to invalidate technological conclusions
drawn about the behavior of the gas under the
assumption of decoupling.
Most existing engineering designs are
based upon the assumption of closed systems
fully described by the technological inner con-
straints and marked by clear boundaries de-
coupling the systems from other parts of the
environment. But the assumed decoupling is,
in an ever growing proportion of the cases, at
least questionable The technological options
offered by such designs often lead to spillover
effects such as we have described, at the
boundaries and beyond.
Population Growth
If present trends continue, the world will
have a population of over 4 billion by 1980,
6 billion by the year 2000 These are exceed-
ingly large numbers, large enough, in fact, to
make some biologists nervous about the future
thermodynamic (let alone social) capacity of
the planet to keep on operating indefinitely as
a going concem. The fundamental technologi-
cal issue to be faced is how the industrial
achievements of man and the increased per
capita utilization of energy can be brought into
thermodynamic equilibrium. The growth of
population and energy utilization simply can-
not be sustained indefinitely. Therefore, each
engineering change will have to be measured
against and fitted into a scheme of long-term
equilibrium objectives. This will call for a new
form of engineering problem solving and
technological education.
As we have seen, the loss of decoupling
that is effected by the large scale of almost any
engineering work (dams that cause disease,
pesticides that affect far-flung ecosystems, jet
planes that scatter carbon dioxide, hydrocar-
bons, etc.) is also a product of the increased
number of people. As one writer puts it: "Even
if the percent of events that occur doesn't in-
crease, the number of events that occur will
increase. . . . In a highly mobile and communi-
cative society, more people result in more
things happening; these things will happen
more often even if they have a low probability
of occurring. . . . In 1966, only 1 percent of the
baggage checked with the airlines was mis-
handled, but that 1 percent represented 1.7
million bags! So, too, with regional electric
power failures. . . . Anticipating and dealing
with unlikely events will become an increas-
ingly important but especially difficult task."*
In sum, the nature of negative spillovers
and the loss of decoupling among the planet's
ecosystems (due in large measure to the in-
creasing physical and chemical scale of tech-
Donald N Michael, The Unprepared Society (New York,
Basic Books, 1968), p 20.
48 I FALL 1970
nological changes along with the growth in
* population) challenge us all to find ways of
assessing the long-run effects of technological
designs and projects so that they can at least
' " be examined before the fact by the decision
makers, whoever they may be. If we fail to do
so, natureof which, after all, we are part and
parcelmay have some terrible lessons in store
for us.
Technological Assessment
We have no real idea what results the tech-
nological developments being brought to frui-
tion at a rapidly increasing pace will bring.
The art of social forecasting has always held
a fascination for those who would fictionalize
and fantasize about the world's future. In the
past few decades there have been attempts,
largely concerned with the marketability of
specific products, to forecast rationally the out-
come of technological developments and in-
ventions. But only recently have forecasters
begun to take into account the interactions of
population, environment, technology, and so-
cial organizations.
The critical issue is not really "accurate"
forecasts, but rather comprehensive analyses
of proposed or likely changes in any of these
four elements leadmg to evaluations that can
be used to assess alternative courses of action.
In particular, technological options must be
assessed as significant social matters and their
future implications plotted to the best of our
ability. We must neither be overwhelmed by
the enormity of the task, nor allow the tech-
nologists to bypass it by saying these factors
are already included in the technoeconomic
equations Neither the use of historical prece-
dents nor the straightforward extrapolation of
technological or economic trends is likely to
suffice.
It should be clear that satisfactory tech-
nological forecasting is likely to be very diffi-
cult indeed, and technological assessment (i.e.,
evaluation of alternative forecasts) even more
so. The technologist, of course, regularly
makes predictions within a narrow range of
constraints, to evaluate a design in the light of
specific end-result objectives (e g., a faster and
lighter airplane within given operating cost
limits, to be amortized within fixed time
limits). There are clear and present needs for
evaluations of proposed technological devel-
opments under much broader constraints and
much less precise objectivessocial, economic,
and environmental (e.g., a water resource sys-
tem to serve all elements of a geographical
region with maximum limits on its effects on
virtually all environmental factors over an in-
definite time period).
Such tasks, enormously difficult though
they will be, are of a sort that the "systems
analyst" or "systems engineer" would like to
think he could handle Building an adequate
technological assessment will require descrip-
tive and analytical models contributed by the
various branches of engineering, economics,
mathematics, biology, behavioral sciences,
ecology, and operations research, among
others. These models will be used, first, to pro-
vide a "reasonable" picture of the current state
of the world, then to perturb the system with
49
the proposed technological changes and to col-
lect data on the presumed outcome, and,
finally, to evaluate and assess these outcomes
in the light of local and global criteria over
the short and long run.
The job can be done, and very likely must
he done if we are to escape the destiny fore-
told by the present gloomy predictions of en-
vironmental destruction. It is, in fact, the job
that the "systems analysts" have set for them-
selves, so far on a minor scale. Some of the
results have been staftling. But it is a very
small start in a long and trying enterprise. In
addition to the conceptual difficulties of avail-
able analytical tools, data, and technical re-
sources, private-sector assessment systems are
not up to the task, and for the problems at
hand other mechanisms not now available will
have to be brought to bear. The results of
these assessment mechanisms, moreover, are
hkely to be disappointing. Technological tink-
ering with social organizations is not likely to
bring about significant changes in the negative
benefits of technology. A much more funda-
mental change in the nature of professional
technological practice is essential.
Broadening the Perspective
If technological practice is to be changed
then the education of engineers and technolo-
gists must be changed first. The objective
should not, I believe, be to enhance "the social
awareness" of engineers by including human-
istic behavioral and social science material in
their curricula. (Quite a few engineers and
technologists are already sophisticated in the
social sciences, but thus far there have been no .'
noticeable effects on the technological options
proposed.) Rather, we must find ways to make
technologists capable of dealing with the total
problem as we have defined it.
To this end, a new kind of curriculum in
engineering schools and schools of technology
is called for. The attempts thus far to produce
environmental specialists will not completely
achieve the goal. Into the core of virtually all
technological studies must be inserted the re- .
quirement that solutions to problems are ac- '
ceptable only when the broadest thermody- >
namic equilibrium constraints are considered.
Whatever steps are under way to broaden the
engineer's perceptions of the environmental
problems his projects involve must be ex-
panded and accelerated. This is the techno-
logical imperative. f
In fact, the technologists may be the only
group upon whom we can pin our hopes. Tech-
nological proposals will perforce be prepared,
engineering projects will naturally be designed .'
by engineers and technologists. No change in
hierarchy or superstructure can eliminate
them. They will, of course, follow the priori-
ties laid down by their political and economic ^
masters.
On the other hand, evaluation of technol-
ogy is a two-way street. The final decision -
makers are affected by, and affect, the analysts.
And the methods of analysis affect the de-
mands of the decision makers on the analysts.
Therefore, it seems imperative that the engi-
neering curricula begin to provide a new and
broader type of analystnot one with "social
50 I FALL 1 9 7 0
awareness" or "sentimental regrets" about na- Not unending growth but ultimate ther-
tional destruction, but rather one who can modynamic equilibrium would seem to be the
make keen, perceptive, and convincing analy- only possible goal of a human society that is
ses of the environmental effects of technolog- committed to the preservation of the planet
lcal alternatives. and a sane future for its own posterity. ^