Remote Control devices

As a risk management scientist its always fascinated me how non scientists easily fall for the latest gadgets. PRESS HERE and IT ALL HAPPENS .
"SHOW ME THE BUTTON" they say.  Another matter for another time .Boys toys?
Philosophers of science point to the clear dangers of technological fix, but like most of us scientists  these days, pointing isn't enough . You need cooercion, strangulation and media control to be heard and even then,  you wonder .
The noisy ones  just say "scientists say " and say the bits they wanna say ;    the bits they "agree with" ; the bits they" understand".

One thing is certain, The wannebes will grab the new image and and run with it , forgeting to read the instruction sheet and leaving us without the surplus we need to dream and act more sustain-ably .
Scientists and technologists should unite

Nothing better illustrates the danger of the moment, to my mind , than the force of strategy documents over real decisionmaking; the idea that a table in a book can make a better decsion than the examination of the specific issues on the ground .
The situation is so seriuos in local government that I have suggested locally that we stop wasting money on having planners in council and just get the administrators and ever present CEO to act out the strategy documents - that way everybody wins.
We don't waste time weighing real risks on the site when those further away can make decsions easier by simply refreing to the stragety diocument - Decision making made easy --remote control ......at its best?
"SHOW ME THE BUTTON" The CEO was heard to say EA March 12th 2010