Comparing Concepts

While reading “Technology Matters: Questions to Live With” by David E. Nye, I noticed similarities between this text, “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut and “The Human Factor” by Kim Vicente. All three have concepts including technology. In “Technology Matters”, Nye’s rationalizes his feelings about technology by giving examples of disasters that’s happened because of these inventions. Such as, Westinghouse manufactured a system for nuclear reactors intended to shut them down if an emergency occurred. “However, the backup systems used electrical signals that resembled those used in normal operation. At times, the two signals interacted, which simultaneously disabled both systems.” (164) This relates to “The Human Factor” when Vicente discusses the Chernobyl incident. Leonid Toptunov, a graveyard shift worker in the control room of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin nuclear power station, was working on an experimental test with the primary safety system turned off. This caused violent explosions ripping the reactor apart. According to the text, “Toptunov had been told that technical experts had estimated the likelihood of a severe accident to be one in ten million”. (10) Both accidents were because of critical miscalculations or errors in technology.
“The Human Factor” and “Technology Matters”, have another concept in common. Both Vicente and Nye discuss and analysis how technology can increase risks. Nye quotes “If people have used technologies to increase their safety, they simultaneously risk unforeseeable accidents and even disasters that arise from the interplay of changing technical systems and new circumstances.”(167) Basically saying how he feels the more powerful the technology is, the more catastrophic the accident is. Vicente helps expand on Nye’s idea with ‘the human factor’. Since the technology is more complex and powerful, “we see technology that’s beyond our human capacity to control.”(27) So maybe the reason when technology gets more powerful, ‘the human factor’ is the reason why cataclysmic accidents transpire.
“Technology Matters” relates to “Cat’s Cradle” because they both have the concept of inventions in technology to prevent natural problems. Nye’s gives different examples of some natural problems like when he explains how genetic engineers failed to “foresee that a plant they had designed to ward off insects might also release poison that kills valuable microorganisms in the earth, a poison that might even leech into the water supply”(165) This is like ‘ice-nine’ in “Cat’s Cradle”, ‘ice-nine’ is a invention made to help soldiers move faster through the mud, it freezes the mud but it has the potential to freeze all water it comes into contact with. Both giving examples of how technology can cause bigger problems.