[Dryerase] The Alarm--Re-tool

[Alarm!Wires]

This was a column i attempted to do for three weeks, but dropped it as 
the workload became to high.  It highlights new, not-so-new, and 
emergent technologies and critiques them.  Target technolgies:  cell 
phones, IBM and the "Segway Human Transporter".  They are current, but 
not especially timely, in many cases.  They are not locally-specific.

6-21-02
Segway or non sequitor?
By Fhar Miess
The Alarm! Newspaper Collective
In December of 2001, inventor Dean Kamen unveiled his newest 
development:  a two-wheeled machine called the “Segway Human Transporter 
(HT)”, which looks remarkably like a push mower, but functions as a 
small one-person vehicle.  The machine, which comes in both consumer 
versions and customized versions for corporate clients, weighs some 
65lb. and is able to travel up to speeds of 12.5 mph.  Through some very 
sophisticated engineering and a parallel system of microprocessors that 
surpasses the computing power of many desktop personal computers, the 
machine is able to respond to slight tilts and shifts in weight so that 
it moves forward as the driver shifts forward and stops when he or she 
stands up straight.  The Segway HT can turn on a dime by the use of 
simple handlebar controls.
Segway LLC (the partnership which Kamen formed to develop, produce and 
market his invention) boasts an executive management team with some 
impressive credentials.  Members of the team have cut their teeth 
working for such heavyweight organizations as Subaru, IBM (see last 
week’s Re-tool), the Rand Corporation, Johnson & Johnson Medical, Inc., 
Ford Motor Company, General Electric Company, The Gillette Company, 
Martin Marietta Data Systems and various arms of the United States 
Government.
Segway LLC’s business savvy and its executives’ years of experience in 
corporate culture show through.  Until the personal consumer version of 
the Segway becomes available, the company is focusing on marketing to 
large corporate clients.  The Segway HT’s major selling point, according 
to its manufacturer, is that it “increases worker productivity by 
allowing workers to do everything more efficiently.  Greater speed and 
capacity will enable them to carry more and cover greater distances.  
Machines can be outfitted with customized accessories, allowing workers 
to transport enough equipment to perform multiple operations and reduce 
the need for re-supply trips.”  True to standard corporate rhetoric, 
these machines are represented as “labor-saving devices” which are 
liberating to workers.  The Segway HT is billed as a solution to 
repetitive stress and other work-related injuries, although not in order 
to improve health and safety for workers, but to “allow” them to remain 
on the job longer.  It will not “allow workers to do everything more 
efficiently”; it will mandate that they work more efficiently.  Such 
technological tools do not save labor, they exploit it in order to 
enhance productivity.
As for the personal consumer model, Segway LLC executives remain 
confident that the Segway HT will fundamentally change the way people 
move from place to place in their personal lives, as well as at work.  
They likely derive this confidence from their army of lobbyists urging 
state and federal legislatures to revise laws prohibiting motorized 
vehicles from sidewalks.  Many other individuals and groups, however, 
are not so buoyant about this eventuality.  Consumer and medical groups 
such as the Consumer Federation of America and the American Academy of 
Pediatrics, for example, are pressing for greater restrictions on the 
speed at which these vehicles may travel and the safety gear their 
drivers must wear.
Others are not so circumspect.  “I think the Segway is evil,” says 
Christopher Congleton, half jokingly.  Congleton is a graduate 
researcher at the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis.  
“Like any transportation tool, people don’t think about anything beyond 
the direct experience of the technology itself—they don’t consider the 
effects on public space from a mixed-use environment populated by 
Segways.”  As Congleton notes, the Segway is not without its analogs in 
the realm of motor vehicles:  “The Segway is the pedestrian SUV:  
although lacking the emissions and inefficiency of its larger cousin, 
the Segway caters to similar character traits as most SUV markets.  It 
may encourage a new class distinction with aristocrats atop elevated 
roving pedestals dominating those on foot.  One can imagine a sidewalk 
with varying densities and speeds of traffic, with the Segway 
marginalizing the elderly, the multi-mobile [“the disabled” in common 
parlance], children, and those who cannot—or chose not to—afford the 
Segway.”  Referring to the possibility of road rage spilling over onto 
sidewalks, trails, and other mutli-use and pedestrian areas, Congelton 
claims, “the chance for injuries could be high, quite possibly stemming 
from intermodal aggression.”
But, as noted by Chris Carlsson, one of the progenitors of “Critical 
Mass”, “there’s a huge market for finding ways to move people around in 
ways that negate their ability to propel themselves under their own 
power”.  At first glance, one would be tempted to think that many of the 
wonders of modern innovation are the result of pure laziness.  But, upon 
closer examination, it becomes abundantly clear that innovation has been 
driven by some very industrious individuals who are not content to allow 
simple laziness to determine product demand.  At the same time as these 
individuals manipulate demand for “labor-saving devices” through cunning 
and aggressive marketing ploys, they operate organizations that mandate 
high levels of worker productivity.  Laziness is not an inherent human 
trait; rather, it is a by-product of a sped-up workforce with little or 
no control over its own productive activities.  After working 50, 60 or 
more hours per week in an environment where productivity is paramount, 
is it any wonder that we find it hard to derive satisfaction from such 
quaint activities as walking, kneading dough, growing food, or any 
number of other activities made obsolete and horribly “inefficient” by 
new-fangled techno-fixes?
For the most part, Dean Kamen has in the past stuck to medical gadgetry, 
his most recent invention before the Segway HT being a self-balancing 
machine for wheelchair users.  Of Kamen’s over 150 US and foreign 
patents, this is his first major invention developed without regard to 
any discernible medical condition…or is it?  Is it not possible that the 
Segway HT was developed for a consumer base that has been crippled in 
even more profound—if less obvious—ways?  In Japan, they at least have a 
word for this condition:  karoshi, which roughly translates as “death by 
overwork.”
It is no surprise that a group of career corporate executives such as 
those who populate Segway LLC should find it mutually beneficial to 
partner with a man most well-known for inventing high-end gadgets to 
facilitate the mobility of disabled people.  Why should they limit 
themselves to the congenitally sick and the accidentally disabled when 
there is money to be made from those maimed—with symptoms ranging from 
simple laziness to diagnosable karoshi—by an economic system they have 
invested their entire careers into perpetuating?  After having broken 
our legs, literally and figuratively, they are eager to find someone to 
develop some value-added crutches they can sell to us at a premium.  As 
long as we fail to recognize how the crippling work habits we’ve 
inherited have been foisted upon us, we will remain perpetually 
frustrated by technological solutions that are in fact nothing more than 
disempowering half-measures by design.  This brutal feedback loop will 
not be interrupted by government or industry because both depend on it.  
It can only be interrupted by each of us as producers, consumers and 
living, breathing, loving human beings determined to make our destinies 
together on terms we’ve decided collectively.

 6-14-02
IBM and the impending holocaust
By Fhar Miess
The Alarm! Newspaper Collective
This Tuesday (June 11), International Business Machines Corporation 
(IBM) made an announcement that their researchers had developed a new 
technology for data storage which surpasses the capabilities of any 
other storage technology by 20 times.  This new development comes as a 
result of a technique originally exploited in the 1880s by the founder 
of the company which eventually became IBM.  That technique is the use 
of punched cards as a means of storing, tabulating and eventually 
processing data.  The primary difference, of course, is size.  IBM’s new 
machine, developed by its Millipede program, uses nanotechnology to 
create a pattern of indentations, each measuring only 10 nanometers 
(about 6,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair).
The original punched-card system, developed by Herman Hollerith, was 
first used on a massive scale during the 1890 US Census.   Ultimately, 
the need of the government to accurately gather intelligence on its 
citizenry was what drove the technology (it also enabled Hollerith’s 
monopolistic business practices).  A constitutional mandate in 
combination with large upsurges in population at that time meant that a 
technology needed to be developed which would make the Census feasible.  
The Hollerith system was the solution (true to IBM’s present motto).
When Adolf Hitler ordered a census of all Germans in the first weeks of 
his ascension to power in 1933, IBM’s Hollerith machines were equally 
indispensable for the first steps toward what would eventually become 
the Third Reich’s “Final Solution”.  In fact, Dehomag (IBM’s German 
subsidiary, in which it held a 90% stake) was contracted by the NSDAP 
(the Nazi Party) to conduct the entire census process (with the 
exception of the actual collection of data, which largely fell upon the 
Storm Troopers and SS) in Prussia, Germany’s most populous state.  The 
application of the Hollerith machines, as well as the export of training 
and technical personnel and resources by IBM New York, was not limited 
to this early case, either.  As has been well documented in Edwin 
Black’s IBM and the Holocaust, IBM resources and personnel were used 
throughout the Reich, not least of all in the Race Political Office.  
The Dehomag Hollerith machines’ assistance in the areas of demographics 
and information management is what made the Nazi dream of a Final 
Solution a viable possibility.
In February of 2001, when Edwin Black released his book clearly 
outlining collusion between IBM, Thomas Watson (IBM’s head), Dehomag 
(IBM’s German subsidiary) and the NSDAP, it generated a flurry of 
denunciations and denials from the company as well as great deal of 
overall hoop-lah in the media.  While the historical facts are very much 
significant, particularly in light of the reparations suit filed at the 
same time against the firm, they may possibly pale in comparison to the 
ramifications of the technology IBM is currently developing.
In August of 2000, IBM announced the formation of its new Life Sciences 
Division, dedicated to producing machines and technologies capable of 
serving the needs of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the 
growing disciplines of genomics, bioinformatics and proteomics.  Despite 
the fact that it entailed the allocation of millions of dollars, the 
move went largely unnoticed in the media by all except the business 
press.
One of the stars of the Life Sciences Division is IBM’s “Blue Gene” 
supercomputer.  The machine was developed to be able to efficiently 
manage and process enormous volumes of genetic information.  It will be 
used by various sectors of the biotechnology industry (pharmaceuticals, 
agricultural biotechnology and animal genetics) to map plant and animal 
genomes (including the human genome), analyze and simulate protein 
folding (with applications primarily for pharmaceuticals development) 
and study the roles of certain portions of genetic codes in plant and 
animal development and living functions.  IBM and its Blue Gene clients 
are quick to assure us that all of these new developments will only be 
utilized for the betterment of the human condition.
We “alarmists” are not so sure.  This past week (June 9–12), the 
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) held its annual conference, 
this year in Toronto, Ontario.  For each of the past several years, the 
conference has been marked by protests from activists who consider the 
current trend of biotechnology development anathema to the betterment of 
the human condition, not to mention that of the planet.  This year was 
no exception (see article, page 9).
On the second day of the BIO conference, Carl Feldbaum, President of 
BIO, delivered a speech to the conference in which he outlined his 
ten-point platform for “Biotechnology’s Foreign Policy”.  This platform 
was modeled after Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points, which were meant to 
inaugurate the League of Nations and marked the beginning of an era of 
internationalist liberal democracy and economic development.  Here are 
some highlights:  Point One states, “The industry must work with 
governments and international bodies to integrate biotechnology into 
compelling responses to public-health crises.”  And how is it that we 
should come to conclusions about what constitutes a “public-health 
crisis”?  Well, that brings us to Point Five, which states,  “For 
biotech’s positive outcomes to truly flourish, we need to agree that 
both international and national regulatory regimes be based on 
science.”  Feldbaum goes on:  “As more and more nations upgrade their 
regulatory systems to consider complex biotechnology products, we urge 
them to detach that process from politics and ideology, even 
superstition.”  Apparently, Mr. Feldbaum is one of the old guard who 
still believe that reductionist scientific inquiry is utterly devoid of 
politics and ideology, even superstition.  Take, for instance, the 
investigations of the very scientifically-inclined eugenicists and 
statisticians whose work informed and facilitated the Final Solution.  
One would be hard-pressed to conceive of a basis for these scientists’ 
endeavors which wasn’t political, ideological or even superstitious.
In Point Ten, Feldbaum declares, “biotechnology should be used to 
develop treatments and protective products for both military personnel 
and civilians, but it must never be used to develop weapons.”  Well, 
that’s all very nice, but it’s too little, too late.  Biotechnology has 
been used for the purpose of weapons development for some time, and it 
is not likely to stop now.  The case of anthrax is well known, but 
recent news shows only increasing trends toward weapons development.  
IBM recently (November of 2001) partnered with Lawrence Livermore 
National Labs to develop a new Blue Gene supercomputer specifically for 
nuclear weapons development and storage.  Indicating more deliberate 
collusion between nuclear weapons research and the biotechnology 
industry, Compaq Computing, Sandia National Labs and Celera Genomics 
agreed in January of 2001 to work together on a project to develop a 
supercomputer comparable to IBM’s Blue Gene.  It is being developed 
openly and specifically for nuclear weapons research.
Underlying Feldbaum’s tenth point is the assumption that it is possible 
and advisable to keep the power of biotechnology and bioinformatics “out 
of the wrong hands”.  If there’s anything we should learn from the case 
of IBM, it is that it is neither possible nor advisable.  That power is 
always already in the wrong hands.  The governmental and economic forces 
which drive the vast majority of scientific development are problematic 
from the beginning.  Those scientists who uncritically respond to those 
pressures are not absolved of responsibility for the very political and 
ideological (even superstitious) forces which drive their work.
To go back to Feldbaum’s fifth point, he says, “every new technology 
inevitably provokes a political confrontation between alarmists 
[*snicker*] and the scientific community.  …Again and again, the science 
proves the alarmists wrong.”  For one, this assumes consensus among the 
scientific community, which is rarely present.  Consensus among the 
so-called alarmists is scarcely monolithic, either (for instance, we 
have no presentiment about the computer chip implants being the “Mark of 
the Beast”).  And, on the contrary, science does not prove the alarmists 
wrong;  history suggests that wherever science succeeds in erasing its 
inherently ideological and political nature, it invites disaster and—at 
the risk of sounding “alarmist”—holocaust.
 
6-7-02
Cell phones suck more than just your brains
By Fhar Miess
The Alarm! Newspaper Collective
Union Network International (UNI) inaugurated its “global week of 
organizing” among workers at mobile phone companies around the world May 
27-31, highlighting an aspect of cell phone culture that has gone 
largely ignored:  its effect on working people and work habits.
Much has been made of the controversy surrounding the safety of cell 
phone use and of proximity to transmission towers and antennas (a great 
survey of how this plays out in our community can be found in the May 
issue of the Green Press).  And the popular annoyance with cell phones 
and their users in public spaces like movie theaters and restaurants has 
given rise to an abundance of jokes, comics and regulatory signage.  But 
these are largely coping mechanisms and safety valves for a perhaps more 
deeply held anxiety about cell phones:  that they are fundamentally 
calling into question the way we relate to each other and the spaces 
around us, and the boundaries we place between work and leisure time.
It is easy to get caught up in chicken-and-egg discussions when 
considering the role of cell phones in a sped-up and over-worked 
society.  Is the popularity of cell phones attributable to their 
inherent virtue as nifty and useful gadgets (with a few unintended 
effects of a destabilized, flexible workforce)?  Or did the popularity 
of cell phones arise in the first place because of worker’s needs to 
keep up with a hyper-connected and highly-casualized global economy 
around them?  It would be easy to say that the popularity of cell phones 
paralleled the privatization and casualization of the global economy in 
an organic fashion, much as the telegraph and railroads grew alongside 
one-another.  Unfortunately, this analysis erases the role of leading 
executives in shaping global market forces, just as it would denigrate 
the deliberate market and labor-force manipulations of industrialists in 
the late 19th century which led to fourteen-hour (and more) workdays in 
that era.
On the consumer end of the equation, a number of mobile phone operators 
across the globe—many of which are comprised of mergers and joint 
ventures between the Baby Bells*—have spearheaded the 
telecommunications “revolution” which has made “telework” both possible 
and, in some instances, necessary, for a flexible, just-in-time global 
market structure.  Those of us who have had cell phones know the 
always-on-call, perpetual-multitasking modes we get sucked into, despite 
our best attempts to avoid these patterns and limit cell phone use to 
keeping in touch with the people who are most important to us.
But, these deliberate attempts to affect generalized work speed-ups and 
increased “flexibility” throughout the global workforce become most 
evident in the attitudes of telecommunications company executives toward 
their own workers.
At the end of the summer of 2000, 87,000 workers at Verizon 
Communications—which owns Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile phone 
operator in the country—went on strike for eighteen days.  The issues?  
Forced overtime, forced relocation, job security and the right to 
organize.  In essence, the striking workers at Verizon were protesting 
precisely the conditions (high stress, long working hours, insecurity 
and enforced mobility) that are the corollary of the technology they 
were being paid by Verizon to operate, maintain and support.  The strike 
won Verizon workers significant gains in all of the issues over which 
they went out.
Verizon’s experience apparently taught a few lessons to other cellular 
providers facing mounting pressure from workers in the months leading up 
to the fall surge in new phone orders from incoming students.  A change 
in tactics was in order.
A year later, in August of 2001, Cingular Wireless, the second largest 
mobile phone operator in the United States, signed a “card-check and 
neutrality” agreement with Communications Workers of America (CWA), the 
union which represented 72,000 of the 87,000 workers striking against 
Verizon.  This paved the way for relatively unimpeded union organizing 
campaigns.  The executives at BellSouth and SBC Communications (two of 
the remaining four Baby Bells), which co-own Cingular Wireless, have 
clearly learned a few things about how to make their joint venture run 
smoothly without the risk of costly work stoppages.  Cingular has 
recently even introduced special discounted deals to CWA members on 
mobile products and services offered by the company:  the carrot to 
Verizon’s stick.  If they can’t enforce “Taylorism”, “rationalization”, 
“workflow management”, or “flexibility” (or any other of the various 
industry euphemisms for work speed-ups and lack of job security) on the 
shop floor, they’ll do it through the lure of product marketing and 
incentives.
CWA has apparently accepted these dubious shows of goodwill 
uncritically.  A joint press release by CWA and Cingular has touted the 
amicable partnership between the two parties, and the wonderful services 
(as well as the pre-packaged sense of “self-expression”) to be offered 
by Cingular Wireless.  There is no outward recognition of the effect of 
telecommunications products and services on the work habits and 
employment relations the CWA claims to have as its primary concerns.  To 
the contrary the CWA advertises these products and services glowingly.  
Evidently, CWA has become blinded by the prospect of thousands of new 
dues-paying highly-skilled and well-compensated telecommunications 
workers in the ranks.  As a result, they have sacrificed long-term 
working and living conditions for a large swath of the global working 
class in exchange for short-term gains in job security limited to those 
workers CWA directly represents.  To have rejected the card-check and 
neutrality agreement would have been suicide for the organization, but 
to do so uncritically is fratricide (and also suicide, if one takes some 
of the health and safety warnings about cell phones seriously).  The 
United Auto Workers (UAW) and International Longshore and Wherehouse 
Union (ILWU) made similar concessions to employers over automation and 
containerization (respectively), leading to declines in both the power 
and relevancy in two of the most militant mainstream unions in the 
United States.
So long as we remain attached to the ideal of an ultimately amicable 
partnership between capitalism and an organized working class, the 
former will win out over the latter.  So long as we maintain that 
capitalism and technological “progress” for the sake of profit is 
inevitable, we will ensure the same.
*	The “Baby Bells” were the seven companies set up to provide local 
telephone services after the US government broke up the AT&T telephone 
monopoly in 1984.  The concentration of telecommunications services into 
the hands of companies which formerly comprised a monopoly has generally 
followed the pattern of mergers between Rockefeller’s old Standard Oil 
empire spin-offs in the petroleum industry.
 
All content Copyleft © 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted 
otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole 
or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by 
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