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Technology Developments Scientific and technological developments have real and direct effects on every person's life. Some effects are desirable; others are not. Some of the desirable effects may have undesirable side effects. In essence, there seems to be a trade-off principle working in which gains are accompanied by losses. Example: As our society continues to increase its demands on energy consumption and consumer goods, we are likely to attain a higher standard of living while …

…be harnessed, its movements channeled, its resources exploited. The metaphors involved here are extremely similar to those used by colonialism; they presume a need to survey and subdue, to catalogue and contain, and, ultimately, to turn to profitable use, those areas that are seen as wild, chaotic, and other. Commercializing the Internet, then, is precisely a matter of trying to know and control, to colonize and master, that whi ch is seen as culturally other.