Outline

In this book, we take up the challenge of the role of technology in the first half of the 21st century, as we are supposedly entering the ‘post-industrial’, ‘trans- national’, ‘post-modern’ (and so on) society. We will assume that one way to shape socio-technological systems is through the visions that guide their development. The idea is not to create such visions bolt from the blue. Rather, the assumption is that visions exist already in most societal sectors, that these visions tend to reproduce the ways in which these sectors have developed hitherto, and that a critical discussion of these visions is a prerequisite for changing the course of development. We will ask how we can critically assess and construct visions on the ways in which technology and social problems are going to relate to each other so as to support critical discursive moments in existing recursive practices.