Page 516 - Essencials of Sociology

How Technology Is Changing Our Lives 489

Sociology and the New Technology

The Coming Star Wars

tar Wars is on its way.
The Predator is an unmanned plane that flies thou-
Ssands of feet above the ground. Operators at a base
search its streaming video. When they identify what they
call “the kill shot,” they press a button. At this signal, the
Predator beams a laser onto the target and launches guided
bombs. The enemy sees neither the Predator nor the laser.
Perhaps, however, an instant before they are blown to bits,
they do hear the sound of the incoming bomb (Barry 2001).
The Pentagon’s plans to “weaponize” space go far be-
yond the Predator. The Pentagon has built a “space plane,”
the X-37B, which has an airplane’s agility and a spacecraft’s
capacity to travel 5 miles per second in space (Cooper
2010). The Pentagon is also building its own Internet, the
Global Information Grid (GIG). The goal of GIG is to encircle
the globe and give the Pentagon a “God’s eye view” of ev- The MQ-1 Predator.
ery enemy everywhere (Weiner 2004). An arsenal of space
weapons is ready: microsatellites the size of a suitcase that that its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have begun to rival
can pull alongside enemy satellites and, using microwave those of the United States (Page 2010; Wall 2010). China has
guns, fry their electronics; a laser whose beam will bounce even begun to flaunt its space weapons in the face of the
off a mirror in space, making the night battlefield visible to Pentagon, a not too subtle warning not to mess with China
ground soldiers who are wearing special goggles; pyrotech- as its leaders expand their territorial ambitions.
nic electromagnetic pulsers; holographic decoys; oxygen Weapons are made to be used—despite the constant po-
suckers—and whatever else the feverish imaginations of lite rhetoric about their defensive purposes. On both sides
military planners can devise. are itchy trigger fingers, and now that China is becoming an
The Air Force has nicknamed one of its space programs ominous threat to U.S. space superiority, the Pentagon faces
“Rods from God,” tungsten cylinders to be hurled from a new challenge. How will it be able to contain China’s po-
space at targets on the ground. Striking at speeds of 7,000 litical ambitions if Star Wars looms?
miles an hour, the rods would have the force of a small
nuclear weapon. In another program, radio waves would be
directed to targets on Earth. As the Air Force explains it, For Your Consideration
the power of the radio waves could be “just a tap on the ↑ Do you think we should militarize space? What do you
shoulder—or they could turn you into toast” (Weiner 2005). think of this comment, made to Congress by the head of the
But what happens if enemy, or even rival, nations develop U.S. Air Force Space Command? “We must establish and
similar capacities—or even greater ones? We are beginning maintain space superiority. It’s the American way of fighting”
to see an ominous transition in international technological (Weiner 2005). Is it rational for the United States to think that
expertise. Already there is the Pterodactyl, China’s answer to it can always maintain technological superiority? What hap-
the Predator. China has advanced its technology to the point pens if it cannot?

our own homes, dorm, or office. Our world has become linked by almost instantaneous
communications, with information readily accessible around the globe. Few places can
still be called “remote.”
This new technology carries severe implications for national and global stratification.
On the national level, computer technology could perpetuate present inequalities: We Listen on MySocLab
Audio: NPR: Internet in Africa
could end up with information have-nots, people cut off from the flow of information
on which prosperity depends. Or this technology could provide an opportunity to break
out of the inner city and the rural centers of poverty. On the global level, the question
is similar, but on a grander scale, taking us to one of the more profound issues of this
century: Will unequal access to advanced technology destine the Least Industrialized
Nations to a perpetual pauper status? Or will access to this new technology be their pass-
port to affluence?