MODERN TECHNOLOGIES AND CONFLICTS
26.9. 2018
Jakub Drmola
History, overview and ethics

“WE'VE ARRANGED A GLOBAL CIVILIZATION IN WHICH MOST CRUCIAL ELEMENTS PROFOUNDLY DEPEND ON SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY. WE HAVE ALSO ARRANGED THINGS SO THAT ALMOST NO ONE UNDERSTANDS SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY. THIS IS A PRESCRIPTION FOR DISASTER. WE MIGHT GET AWAY WITH IT FOR A WHILE, BUT SOONER
OR LATER THIS COMBUSTIBLE MIXTURE OF IGNORANCE AND POWER IS GOING TO BLOW UP IN OUR FACES.”
― CARL SAGAN, 1995

LONGTERM TRENDS
•
-technology frees up people from doing previously necessary work and enables them to do something
new instead
-new professions and sectors are created, influencing the rest of society
-all kinds of conflict (military and social) drive new science
-it is never possible to predict all outcomes of research

FRITZ HABER
-1918 Nobel price for the “Haber-Bosch process”
-fixation of atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia (NH3)
-currently uses about 1-2% of global energy budget
-we produce about 400 million tons of it
-pillar of agriculture (fertilizer)
-quadruples effectivity
-⅔ of produced food
-it was a prerequisite of the population boom




FRITZ HABER
AND THE WAR
•
-but nitrogen is also used in explosives
-and he worked on chemical weapons:
-chlorine gas
-yperite (mustard gas)
-and his work was basis for future development of Zyklon A
-(originally used as insecticide)

THOMAS MIDGLEY
-famous and decorated chemist
-1921 invented leaded gasoline (TEL)
-1928 invented freons (CFCs)




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DDT

Thalidomid



NUCLEAR WEAPONS
-Ernest Rutherford discovered atomic nucleus (1911)
-Germany vs. USA
-https://dai.ly/x6ptg1x?start=913
• - 15:13-20:13 (Feynman)
-https://vimeo.com/128088968                    - 15:06-21:21 (Bagge + Weizsacker)
-
-various rationalizations
-impact on future?
-Hiroshima, Nagasaki
-Cold War
-energy generation
•
•

http://dai.ly/x24gwgc?start=913 - 15:13-20:13
https://vimeo.com/128088968 - 15:06-21:21 (Weizsacker + Bagge)

MEDICINE
•intimately connected with wars and human experimentation
•Archibald McIndoe (plastic surgery)
•Dwight Harken (heart surgery)
•
•
•
https://jeremyironsno1fan.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/mcindoe4.jpg?w=460 Image result for shell
shock
•PTSD/Gulf War Syndrome/Shell Shock

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ARTIFICIAL LIMBS
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_brnKz_2tI
•
Image result for prosthetic arm

ETHICS AND REGULATION OF SCIENCE
•
-are wars good for science?
-
-can science be separated from politics and should it?
-
-who should decide what to research?
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-who is or should be responsible for the results?
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