The Technology Trap

"It will remain impossible to effectively control, manage, or eliminate the technologies that threaten us until we awaken to the extreme dangers, including extinction, which these technologies, combined with human fallibility, make possible-even probable. If you care about the future, read The Technology Trap and share it with a politician." -- David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation "Dumas' powerful and carefully documented analysis clearly demonstrates that the inherent fallibility of human beings is compatible with the increasing global proliferation of dangerous technologies. Most assuredly, as he convincingly argues, the only way to render nuclear weapons in particular 'impotent and obsolete' is to get rid of them." -- Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress "This extraordinarily detailed yet remarkably readable book provides a warning of the imminent problems that new technologies pose. Along with pointing out the dangers, this indispensible book also teaches us what we can do to help avoid these risks. The facts presented should be understood and the advice heeded by every thoughtful policy-maker and by every responsible person with the power to warn and to prevent disaster." -- Victor W. Sidel, MD, Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY; past President, Physicians for Social Responsibility and American Public Health Association "No one could provide a better understanding of the risks of complex technology than Dumas has achieved in this volume... Dumas has constructed a compelling and powerfully documented warning on the dangers that we ignore at our own risk as a society. He deserves not only a wide reading but equally our gratitude for his majesterial sounding of the alarm." -- Herbert L. Abrams, MD, Philip H. Cook Professor and Chairman of Radiology, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School; Professor of Radiology, Emeritus, Stanford University; Member in Residence, Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation "Those who wish-and we all should-to reduce the risks of catastrophe from human fallibility, from use or abuse of powerful technologies, would benefit from reading-and heeding-The Technology Trap." -- Bill Joy, Cofounder of Sun Microsystems

In this eye-opening book, author Lloyd J. Dumas argues that our capacity for developing ever more powerful technologies and the unavoidable fallibility of both machine and man will lead us towards a disaster of an unprecedented scale.

In this eye-opening book, author Lloyd J. Dumas argues that our capacity for developing ever more powerful technologies and the unavoidable fallibility of both machine and man will lead us towards a disaster of an unprecedented scale.

Most of us assume that those in charge can always find a way to control any technology mankind creates, no matter how powerful. But in a world of imperfect human beings who are prone to error, emotion, and sometimes to malevolent behavior, this could be an arrogant—and disastrous—assumption.

This book is filled with compelling, factual stories that illustrate how easy it is for situations to go terribly wrong, despite our best efforts to prevent any issue. The author is not advocating an anti-technology "return to nature," nor intending to highlight the marvels of our high-tech world. Instead, the objective is to reveal the potential for disaster that surrounds us in our modern world, elucidate how we arrived at this predicament, explain the nature and ubiquity of human fallibility, expose why proposed "solutions" to these Achilles heels cannot work, and suggest alternatives that could thwart human-induced technological disasters.

• Extensive footnotes are provided to support facts and figures contained in the text