Technologies governed by ideology

Freeman Dyson is described by Arthur Clarke as “one of the true geniuses of our age.” He participated in the atomic bomb project and, in 1995, served on the official committee that analyzed the future of the nuclear weapons stockpile. This physicist and technologist is also, as a writer, one of the most perceptive critics of science and technology. His latest book is proof of that. It is Imagined Worlds, published by Harvard University Press in 1997.

The first of its six chapters recounts stories of successful and failed technologies in order to illustrate a thesis: technologies governed by ideology generally end in failure.

The history of flight in our century is a good example for examining the relationship between technology and human affairs. There was a period of competition between two different technologies: the airplane and the airship. The first was born out of adventure and enjoyment; the second grew out of imperial dreams.

The airplane became stronger through repeated failures, in a Darwinian process of risk, competition and audacity. It is estimated that during the 1920s and 1930s thousands of different types of airplanes were tested. Many aviators died and countless companies went under. Only around one hundred designs survived to form the basis of modern aviation.

The airship had a different history, dominated by politicians and military leaders rather than inventors. After World War I, British leaders saw it as a means of restoring the country’s diminished national prestige. They imagined them, majestic like ocean liners, as vehicles of imperial prestige. The first R100’s test journey to India took place in October 1930, carrying the Air Minister and a party of fifty-four. A storm brought it down; six survived, and the minister was not among them. The others were quietly dismantled.

This is one of the examples of ideologically driven technologies discussed by the author. Another is the Comet aircraft, a commercial jet that began flying in 1952 in an effort to get ahead of the Americans and showcase British technology. Two disasters that caused around one hundred deaths forced the aircraft to be grounded.

As in the previous example, decisions made by politicians on technically complex matters resulted in disasters. Dyson refers in particular to another powerful ideology that led to problems and that is especially relevant to our local interests: nuclear power.

After World War II, scientists and politicians in many parts of the world shared a vision of a marvelous new source of energy. Inexhaustible, inexpensive, capable of making deserts bloom and bringing abundance to everyone. It was so unusual that it seemed magical.

In many countries, rich and not so rich, democratic or dictatorial, communist or capitalist, Atomic Energy Commissions were created and charged with turning the promise of the miracle into reality. Billions were invested, even in countries that were already heavily indebted.

Dyson makes clear that there was nothing inherently wrong with using nuclear energy to produce electricity. But he argues that the rules of the game must be clear, so that this type of energy competes with other sources and is allowed to fail if it cannot succeed.

As long as it is allowed to fail, nuclear energy cannot cause great harm. But because the typical characteristic of an ideologically driven technology is that it is not allowed to fail, nuclear power ran into difficulties.

The ideology says that nuclear energy must win. Its advocates believed, as a matter of faith, that it would be safe, clean and inexpensive: a blessing for humanity. When contrary evidence emerged, they found ways to ignore it.

They wrote the rules of the game in such a way that nuclear energy could not lose. Cost-estimation methods were designed so that the price of nuclear electricity did not include the enormous public investments required for the development of nuclear technology and the manufacture of fuel.

Reactor safety rules were written so that the reactor was, by definition, safe. Environmental rules were designed so that the final disposal of spent fuel and obsolete machinery would not be taken into account.

With the rules written that way, nuclear energy confirmed the beliefs of its advocates. According to those rules, it was indeed cheap, clean and safe.

The author does not believe that the people who wrote those rules intended to deceive the public. They deceived themselves and then fell into the habit of suppressing evidence that contradicted what they believed.

In the end, the ideology of nuclear energy collapsed because it was a technology that was not allowed to fail and yet failed anyway. Despite government subsidies, nuclear electricity did not become cheaper than electricity generated from coal or oil. Despite the declared safety of reactors, accidents occurred. And not only at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Despite its environmental advantages, the disposal of spent fuel remained an unresolved problem.

In the end, the public reacted strongly against nuclear energy because concrete results contradicted the claims of its advocates.

This is the central thesis of “Stories,” the chapter of the book reviewed here: when a technology is allowed to fail while competing with other technologies —the airplane being the example— its failure is part of the normal Darwinian process of evolution, leading to improvements and possible later success.

When a technology is not allowed to fail and nevertheless does fail, the failure is far more damaging. If nuclear energy had been allowed to fail at the beginning, it might very well have evolved by now into a better technology in which the public could have confidence.

There is nothing preventing us from building better nuclear power plants. We are immobilized by the public’s justified distrust. People distrust experts because those experts have pretended to be infallible. The public knows that human beings are not.

Only people blinded by ideology fall into the trap of believing in their own infallibility.

The tragedy of nuclear energy is almost at an end, at least as far as the United States is concerned; no one now wants to build a new nuclear fission power plant, Dyson concludes.

The fate of technologies driven by politics and ideology is fulfilled.