Research Paper Rough Draft

Is the United States really a Democracy? How would a solider know he were dieing for democracy when he gave his life in Iraq? These questions could seem controversial to some people, but really how much do we honestly know about what’s happening in our government? As technology continues to grow and help humans prosper so do the consequences that coincide with these advancements. The United States is said to control the most powerful military in the world, but when the control of this military and its technological power are in the hands of the select few that lead the nation; Then when should the growth of technology be halted? When a government like the United States has an extremely smart scientist on their payroll, then I believe this is when the citizens of America should start to become concerned. Technology can be a great thing if it is controlled, but when the government’s most powerful possessions like military weapons, nuclear power plants, and surveillance systems malfunction or are used for the wrong reasons, this is when the lives and freedom of American citizen can be in jeopardy.
The danger of a government being in control of powerful technology like nuclear weapons is illustrated in Kim Vicente’s “The Human Factor.” Vicente explains the story of Chernobyl and a young scientist named Leonid who was in charge of the reactor on April 25, 1986. Leonid was covering a graveyard shift during an experimental test that had begun taking place earlier that day. (The Human Factor, 10) Leonid and the other scientists never noticed that the reactor was about to crash because the test that was happening required that safety system be disabled. (10) “To make matters worse, the thousands of indicators on the wall-sized consoles in front of (Leonid) Toptunov presented a bewildering array of data, but not enough information, and so the gravity of the situation wasn’t obvious to him.” (10) This meant that Leonid never realized the severity of the circumstances until it was too late and the reactor exploded launching radioactive material into the atmosphere. “The problem was that the plant designers hadn’t paid enough attention to the human factor – the operators were trained but the complexity of the reactor and the control panels nevertheless outstripped their ability to grasp what they were seeing.” (11) Vicente’s story of Leonid and Chernobyl shows how even the smartest people in the world can be overwhelmed by the complexity of technology. So as technology continues to expand so does the gap in intelligence. Leonid was a very intelligent soviet scientist, but as a result of his error thousands of people around the world were affected by the technology he and his colleagues were trusted with. As technology develops at an ever increasing rate, the risks should be taken much more seriously because perhaps the most dangerous human factor isn’t the mistakes of scientists like Leonid, but the mistakes of the leaders in charge of the technology.
The Story “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut shares a similar pessimism about technology as Kim Vicente’s “The Human Factor.” John, the main character of The Cat’s Cradle, is a writer who is trying to compile a story about the first atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Vonnegut shows, through John’s journey, how a gap in intelligence of powerful technology and leaving that technology in the hands of the government can be cataclysmic. One of the main people John is researching is the deceased Dr. Hoenikker and he finds that interviewing the Dr.’s children and touring his old office teaches him a lot about who he was. John starts to realize that Dr. Hoenikker is a bizarre man when he tours his office with a receptionist. “The old man had left the laboratory a mess. What engaged my attention at once was the quantity of cheap toys lying around. There was a paper kite with a broken spine. There was a toy gyroscope, wound with string, ready to whirr and balance itself. There was a top. There was a bubble pipe. There was a fish bowl with a castle and two turtles in it.” (Cat’s Cradle, 56) I felt that John noticing how strange Dr. Hoenikker is was a perfect example of how unique every human mind is and how one man can be extremely smart, but the drawback is that less intelligent people with too much power could use an invention, like Hoenikker’s nuclear bomb, to inflict death and destruction. The Pentagon told the Bush Administration in April of 2006 that using nuclear military force against Iran was to only way to 100% guarantee they would end their nuclear programs. (BBC) The U.S. presented allegations against Iran that they were trying use their civil nuclear energy program to build nuclear weapons. Although the Pentagon and Bush Administration had evidence that this could be happening, a rash decision like bombing their energy program could have drastic side affects.(BBC) In an article for the BBC Paul Reynolds said, “A nuclear "bunker-buster" would produce large amounts of radiation. This could cause thousands of casualties among civilian populations. The Federation of American Scientists says that "the bombs would penetrate at most only a few meters into rock, causing no reduction in blast, fire, or fallout damage on the surface. The largest would have blown out a crater almost a thousand feet across and thrown a cloud of radioactive fallout tens of thousands of feet into the air where it would be blown hundreds of miles downwind." (BBC) The Bush Administration had a clear stake in the effort to attack Iran because they didn’t want Iran to allow nuclear weapons to get into the hands of terrorists, but when someone like president George W. Bush is able to use a weapon, that would have been invented by a scientist like Dr. Hoenikker, to attack a country and possibly kill thousands of innocent civilians it should be a result of more than an assumption. The accusations that were presented at Iran and the threats of a war with them should raise some flags with any United States citizen. By leaving too much trust with today’s technologies in the hands of the government, Americans are giving up their freedom to prevent disasters. If the government had bombed Iran’s nuclear program the consequences would have had a drastic impact on every American citizen and it would have all been a result of the government abusing its technological power. So when situations like bombing Iran are looked at more closely it only makes someone wonder what types of technology have already been abused by our government.
The dangers in American Citizens trusting the government with technology is apparent today in the Iraq War. It all began when the Bush Administration presented accusations that Iraq was attempting to obtain cylinders that could be used for uranium enrichment.(Washington post) However after continued investigations by the UN in Iraq this “evidence” that was used to invade Iraq, was put into serious question. “It was by far the most prominent, detailed assertion by the White House of recent Iraqi efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. But according to government officials and weapons experts, the claim now appears to be seriously in doubt. After weeks of investigation, U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq are increasingly confident that the aluminum tubes were never meant for enriching uranium, according to officials familiar with the inspection process.” According to an article in “USA Today” the United Nations weapons inspectors were unable to finish their investigation of Iraq because the United States was beginning its invasion. The inspectors had even asked for more time to finish their investigation, but were still forced to leave four days before the United States invaded Iraq.(USA Today) Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said “"I should note that in recent weeks, possibly as a result of increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been more forthcoming in its cooperation with the IAEA," he said, adding that inspectors still have found no evidence that Saddam Hussein has revived his nuclear program.” (USA today) So the question is, how could the Bush Administration have connived Americans that invading Iraq was urgent and a danger to United States citizens, when the UN couldn’t even finish its nuclear weapons investigation and had thus far found no evidence of nuclear weapons at all? The answer is that the government used its complex knowledge of media to convince citizens that a war in Iraq was urgent, showing just how dangerous a massive gap in the understanding of technology and too much power in the government can cost American lives and have horrible repercussions. This once again raises questions like how would an American soldier know he were dieing for democracy when he gave his life in Iraq when the entire basis of the war was under question? How can American citizens’ know that they live in a democracy and not a fascist country where the decisions are dictated by the government through manipulation when the Bush Administration was able to wage war against Iraq simply out of accusations? David Nye exemplifies this idea of predominant government influence in his novel “Technology Matters.” In Chapter eleven on page 218 Nye talks about a movie called Wag the Dog where a president creates a fake war in Albania to help keep him in office and seem heroic after he is caught in a sex scandal. The president in the movie uses the fake media that was made in a studio to convince American citizens that he is a good leader and is handling the conflict overseas very well. David Nye uses this movie as an example in his book because he want to show his readers that things we see in movies and think could never happen, may not be so far fetched after all. Nye is also showing that the government’s control of technology is dangerous because as Americans put more trust in the government we continue to know less and less about what kinds of technology are being used in things as simple as the media. “If one danger is hegemony from the private sector, the equally daunting alternative is that the media can become a central apparatus of state control.” (Nye Technology Matters, 218)
In Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, Dr. Hoenikker created another extremely powerful weapon called ice-nine. The scientist made it because a Marine General had asked him to invent something to get rid of mud so vehicles could travel easier. However the new ice-nine had the potential to freeze water molecules, which would inevitably freeze all the water on Earth. John was talking to Dr. Hoenikker’s old lab partner who said, “But supposes, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle…?” Vonnegut seems to illustrate the idea that too much technological power in the control of the government and its military is a very dangerous thing. This idea holds true today with the possibility that our government could have attacked Iran and caused a nuclear fallout. When should a government be limited to advancements in certain fields of technology like military weapons? This is a difficult question because as technology continues to grow so does the gap of intelligence between American citizens and the government, but if Americans continue to believe that technological advancement is a good thing, then there wont be an end to the growth in powerful weapons and a precarious faith in the government with new and existing technology will elevate.