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Ed Regis
How did we ever think climbing into a hydrogen airship was anything other than completely nuts? I always assumed they must have had a pretty good handle on at least minimizing the risks involved, and the decades of hydrogen airship use preceding the Hindenburg disaster at least seem to give it some credence... right? Ed Regis argues exactly the opposite. The Hindenburg was a disaster waiting to happen, with plenty of close calls and unheeded warning signs over the years. There were a number of well-known ways a spark could spontaneously occur on the ship, and combined with the requirement that hydrogen be vented to the outside under certain conditions, it was all but inevitable sooner or later for those to match up. Hydrogen aside, airships struggled to compete with planes economically. They had no choice but to market it as a luxury form of travel, since that was the only way it had a chance. Looking at it analytically, airships didn't have much going for them, and a lot against. So why did they do as well as they did for as long as they did?
Regis argues it's because the airship had become a "pathological" technology: the Zeppelin Company, the German government, and members of the public everywhere had seen that these amazing flying structures *could* exist, and became blinded to all the reasons why they shouldn't.
Regis gives a deep dive into airships right from the beginning to the fiery end, but that's just the foundation of his larger point. We have seen a number of pathological technologies since then, ideas that are immensely dangerous, absurdly expensive, or both, but that we pursue anyway. The reasons are more like excuses; the proponents become so enamored with their projects that any risk and any cost is acceptable. Regis covers a wide gamut of examples, but the most striking by far is Project Plowshare. This was a cold war era US government plan to use hydrogen bombs to shape harbors, dig canals, and the like. The word "pathological" seems particularly apt here and I doubt anybody would defend it now, but don't get smug. Some of his other examples could hit close to home. While I'd like to argue with him on some of those, I think Regis makes a very compelling argument, and his warnings are more pertinent than ever.
A side note:
The author blurb on the jacket of my copy of the book mentions that Regis co-authored a book on synthetic biology with George Church. I thought that was a bit funny. Church is a (the?) major proponent of "de-extinction" and wants to bring back the woolly mammoths. I heard him lecture on it once in Boston. He has lots of enthusiasm but the rationale seemed a bit contrived to me-- almost as though once the idea lodges in your mind, it just won't let go, maybe? I wonder if Ed Regis sees the irony.
Neil Postman also sees dangers in the failure to weigh a given technology's costs and benefits in a clearheaded way. Instead of these dazzling and at times horrifying examples Ed Regis gives here, Postman focuses on the subtle ways our society's thinking can be changed, bit by bit, by the technologies and practices we adopt.