IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 15

members of the scientific commu-
nity faced in their approach to col-
laboration with both the military
industrial complex and the broader
world of technological innovation [6,
p. 38]. He drew stark lines separating
what he considered the appropriate
(i.e., socially beneficial) uses of sci-
ence from those he deemed unethi-
cal, and he was willing to put his
professional reputation on the line to
uphold those divisions.
In many ways, Wiener's career
was short-circuited by this stance.
He refused to work on projects with
potential applications to weaponry,
war, and the ultimate killing of human
beings. In particular, he eschewed
any government grants funded by the
U.S. Department of Defense. Conse-
quently, as Cornell Professor in Histo-
ry and Ethics of Engineering Ronald
Kline has argued, Wiener did not gar-
ner the acclaim that he might have
secured with continued contribu-
tions to military projects [7]. Despite
the fact that he had spearheaded
cybernetics research - he is known,
after all, as the "father of cybernet-
ics" [8] - Wiener had to sit on the
sidelines as his discipline found
"an American home in two military-
funded, interdisciplinary research
laboratories in the 1950s" - M.I.T.'s
Research Laboratory of Electronics,
and the University of Illinois' Biologi-
cal Computer Laboratory [7, p. 101].
Furthermore, his own institution of
M.I.T. hired Jerome Wiesner (not Wie-
ner) to head their new cybernetics
research unit [7, p. 65].

it maximization underlined some of
the greatest decisions by government
and business, and that their approach
to commerce posed grave threats to
the environment. "In a profit-bound
world," he wrote in 1956, "we must
exploit [the natural world] as a mine
and leave a wasteland behind us for
the future" [10, p. 362].
Two years earlier, Wiener had
already drawn attention to the
urgency of global resource manage-
ment. Citing impending shortages in
"essential resources" ranging from
metals (iron, copper, lead, and tin)
to fresh water (in particular in places
like California) and food, Wiener pro-
claims to readers that
"the ever-increasing growth
of technique, and the particu-
larly accelerated growth due
to a couple of great wars and
a prolonged period of military
tension, have made many of
these shortages matters of rea-
sonably present [rather than
long-term, future] concern, to
which we must devote at least
a considerable part of our plan-
ning potential at this day and
moment" [11, p. 2f].
Collectively, these remarks recall
his 1950 warning (which is all the
more prescient in light of current
international debates about how
to best tackle the problem of cli-
mate change): our "Mad Tea Party"
approach to resource extraction,
Wiener posits, will make us
"the slaves of our own technical
improvement ... [because] we have
modified our environment so radi-
cally that we must now modify our-
selves in order to exist in the new
environment" [12, p. 45f].

Environmental Crisis in the Wake
of Resource Exploitation
These disciplinary developments and
professional snubs, however, did not
stop Wiener from travelling widely to
many parts of the world, working on
important research in various cross-
disciplinary fields, and championing
issues related to ethics and sustain-
ability [9]. He was cognizant that prof-
June 2017

Wiener's Legacy: Protesting
the Military Use of Cybernetics
As we have noted (and others have
argued in more detail [13], Wiener
∕

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

was a very harsh critic of the co-
option of cybernetics for military use,
and staunchly refused to contribute
to any scientific research projects
that he believed might inadvertently
make possible enhanced forms of
destructive technology. In his 1956
autobiography, he was explicit about
what he saw as the most frighten-
ing sociological implications of the
atomic bomb: "for the first time in
history, it has become possible for a
limited group of a few thousand peo-
ple to threaten the absolute destruc-
tion of millions, and this without any
highly specific immediate risk to
themselves" [4, p. 300]. The focus of
Wiener's critique here is not merely
the increased destructive capabil-
ity of new weapons technology; it
also, and perhaps more importantly,
highlights the ways these updated
technologies distance and shield
the perpetrators of twentieth-centu-
ry mass violence (along with their
countries' citizens) from the horrors
experienced by victims. In light of
this structurally enabled separation
from the violent consequences of
our own actions, Wiener's impulse to
speak out and expose the dangers of
twentieth-century warfare and social
injustice gains heightened signifi-
cance. It offers a model for activism
and ethical engagement.
During the years leading up to and
following Wiener's death in 1964,
other scientists and scholars also
called attention to these ethically
problematic gaps. To cite just one
prominent individual, the American
philosopher, historian of technology,
and famously eclectic thinker, Lewis
Mumford adopted a similarly polemi-
cal stance when he became one of
the first American scholars to openly
speak out against the Vietnam War.
His 1965 letter to President John-
son appeared on March 3rd in the
San Francisco Chronicle, and was
reprinted two days later in The Dispatcher [14]: "The time has come,"

15



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