Technology, Politics, and Neglect

The recent tragic bridge failure in Minnesota brought to mind how technology, politics, and neglect trisect and create havoc and death that cannot be avoided without a major shift in human/political priorities.

The technology used to design and construct the failed bridge, and all other man-made structures, is based upon scientific and mathematic principles that are used by engineers and technicians to approximate reality. Reality cannot be duplicated by technology. Reality does what it does. The consequences are what they are. Catastrophic failures of technology-wrought man-made objects are inevitable.

Bridges are built and nature takes its toll as corrosion, wear, defects, and unexpected loads occur. Small defects gradually become larger until a sudden catastrophic defect propagation causes an immediate collapse.

Our political systems and inclinations to let sleeping "devils" sleep contributes to this sequence of events. Taxes are considered to be evil if proposed to maintain and rebuild required infrastructure that will inevitably fail. Avoidance of catastrophic failures of infrastructure requires constant maintenance and periodic replacement of aging and obsolete infrastructure. This includes road ways, bridges, sewage treatment plants and sewer lines, water supply utilities, power utilities, and everything we take for granted and perpetually neglect, until a crisis occurs.

Then we react for a moment. We quickly forget that the catastrophic failure is due to technological limitations, and neglect. We refuse to pay the tax bills that are necessary and allow politicians to squander tax dollars on needless wars, and wasteful "pork". We neglect the essential infrastructure that allow a civil society to avoid catastrophic consequences of inevitable failures.

Technology is but a tool for mankind to apply and use. How this tool is used by governments is generally a politically driven decision. The atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki about sixty-two years ago destroyed two large cities and killed several hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians. The bombs were created by scientists and engineers and the decisions to use them were political. President Truman believed that many thousands of American troops would be saved if the atom bombs stopped the war. They did. But at what price? Technology intended to kill thousands in one blow fulfilled its purpose. The world was forever threatened by mass extinction by atomic warfare.

The point is that we the people of our great nation have the responsibility to force politicians to take actions that assure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by, for, and of the people of our United States of America. Technology must be used to foster life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness when governments decide how to use the technological tools our taxes pay for.

History shows us that governments often fail to act for the good of the people. We must end this era of the wasteful pursuit of technology for wars and self destruction, and turn to using technology for noble purposes that fosters life and well being. Neglect and misuse cannot be tolerated less we allow the Minnesota bridge failure to be a marker for the prelude of the gradual decay of our American society.