The journal essay was written for class on "power and change in technological society". At present, I do not hold the same views and will not reach the same conclusions. However, I present the essay in its original form without editing for opinion or structure.

Trend

Ursula Franklin, in "The Real World of Technology" asserts that "technology has built the house in which we live", warns against the trend toward more "control related technologies" and "prescribed technologies", and argues for radical "social transformations." Her distinctions of work versus control related technologies, and "holistic" versus "prescribed" technologies addresses the paradox and the theme of the journal.

Work related technologies reduce the mundane labour involved in a task. One of the ideals of engineering is to engineer products that release individuals of mundane tasks, so she/he could pursue other avenues of life. Thus, work related technologies empower individuals. Ursula identifies "control related technologies", which aim to monitor and control the process of work. Further, she notes how "new control related applications have increased mush faster than work related ones." Note the irony, while work related technologies liberate the workers-individuals, at a faster rate she/he is being controlled.

Ursula's above classification of technologies are linked to her distinction of "holistic" and "prescriptive technologies". Holistic technologies are described as artisan controlled, specialized by product, and subscribe to personal decisions and care. In contrast, "prescriptive technologies" are described as outsider controlled, "specialized by process", employing division of labour, and enabling mass production. She asserts, that industry, government, and even education and health care systems are predominantly prescribed.

She is correct. The growth of industrial engineering, and the demise of individual inventors and experimenters mark the same trend. If anything engineering is the wheel of prescribed technologies. Engineers are trained to work as a "team", to develop designs that can be "industrially produced", and to seek optimum solutions that will be superior to any holistic substitutes. They are instructed upon their place in the system: a cut above the workers and a cut below the managers. While industrial engineering is the masterpiece of modern technology, the average industrial engineer is the tragedy of modern technology. He is an example of the paradox of technology.