Yesterday’s symposium seems to have made quite an impression on our cohort. Everyone has been bringing up different debates and theories on how to tackle the question of whether or not technology can be neutral.

Let’s start with Angus. His post ” talks about how the English language (or any other language I suspect) creates difficulties in explaining what the word ‘neutral’ actually means. When writing about technological neutrality on my blog, I also struggled with this concept because the word ‘neutral’ is used in many different ways, to mean different things, in different contexts. For a political example, Switzerland was ‘neutral’ during World War II. But how can we apply the meaning of neutrality in this instance to that of technology… it just doesn’t quite compute.

Kenton, Evan and Giorgia also discuss this topic, with varying different examples (Kenton illustrating his point using the Jack Fruit as an artifact – very amusing; Evan with day versus night; and Giorgia with the internet)…

Interestingly enough, everyone seems to be coming to the same confused conclusion – technology cannot be neutral.