"Are societies or polities able to make conscious choices to limit certain
directions of technological development? Or does "autonomous technology"
march forward relatively unconstrained by such choices?
      Attempting to control technological development, and do so in a
constructive way, requires several things. A society has to have to
believe strongly in some value other than progress or efficiency. Then it
has to see how these other values are endangered by a technology. Then it
has to muster the political will and/or have the sorts of political
institutions that will enable it to act against the dictates of
progress/efficiency. (Winner, others) Along with this it has to tolerate
and/or reduce external competitive pressures against its decision to
refuse an innovation. And finally, it has to use the appropriate social
tools to make sure that a technology stays in the form of ideas (and maybe
prototypes) and does not spread throughout society. Keeping the genie in
the bottle is a hard, complicated task. Especially so for those societies
which have developed the habit of uncontrolled innovation, and have
inertia and vested interests working against such efforts. This is why the
arguments of the technological determinists like Ellul are so plausible.
      I'll begin by rephrasing the first question. Do societies, acting
based on a consensus, take purposeful actions to restrain certain kinds of
technological development? Do they reach the point where they make these
sorts of decisions (even if they often decide to let innovation go
forward)? Or do they only let these kinds of decisions be made by market
forces and/or political and economic elites? Or do even the market and
leaders bow to a belief in innovation as a good in and of itself?
      A society which has decided that innovation is good for its own sake
or a perfect instrument towards securing other goals will almost never
consciously enact policies whose goal is to limit technological
advancement. They will consciously encourage it and be on the lookout for
policies and market forces whose unintended side effect is to restrain
technological innovation, and will try and modify them. To the extent this
is true of a society, it cannot even consider limiting technological
advancement.
      A capitalist (liberal) society which has decided that innovation is
good because it improves efficiency and creates wealth will not pay
attention to politically regulating technology, since it will not feel the
need to consciously limit it. This is because they assume technology which
is less efficient will eventually be eliminated by the working of the
market. Of course such a society will by default make unconscious choices
all the time to eliminate technologies which are inefficient in the narrow
terms of maximizing profit for the (biggest) investors, including
technologies which may be superior but which happen to be owned by
weaker/smaller companies (see the automobile industry's buying out and
scrapping of the urban light rail systems in early-mid 20th century
[Mocsny]). This, however is not the kind of conscious management of
technology driven by values like the common good, humanism, and
environmental stewardship that technological critics claim is so badly
needed. This faith in the market, along with the previously discussed
faith in progress make up what Langdon Winner calls technological drift:
technology that has become autonomous because the humans who create it
aren't thinking hard enough about the consequences, and find themselves
constantly having to adapt to the demands of and effects of that which
they have made. As Winner quotes from Galbraith:
      If we continue to believe that the goals of the industrial
      system--the expansion of output, the companion increase in
      consumption, technological advance, the public images that
      sustain it--are coordinate with life, then all of our lives
      will be in service of these goals. What is consistent with
      these ends we shall have or be  allowed; all else will be off
      limits. Our wants will be managed in accordance with the needs
      of the industrial system; the policies of the state will be
      subject to similar influence; education will be adapted to
      industrial need; the disciplines required by the industrial
      system will be the conventional morality of the community. All
      other goals will be made to seem precious, unimportant or
      anti-social. We will be bound to the ends of the industrial
      system. The state will add its moral, and perhaps some of its
      legal, power to their enforcement.
      A technocratic society which places those who create or manage the
creation of technological innovation in political or economic power has a
bias held by those in charge against restraining technological advance.
This is assuming the presence of traditionally held attitudes by
scientists and engineers that innovation and the process of technologists
following their own research interests (with public money if needed) are
strong inherent goods worth protecting.
      An authoritarian society which is not technocratic or capitalist can
have its leaders make decisions based on other criteria besides profit or
efficiency (but see below about the Competition Problem discouraging this
in modern times).  Japan's reversion from firearms back to swords is the
textbook example. The introduction of guns undermined samurai honor and
prestige. Since these values were more important to the ruling class than
victory in any given military campaign, guns were uninvented through a
combination of edicts banning them and subsidies for blacksmiths to make
other objects. (The parallels to subsidies for unemployed Russian nuclear
scientists not to build nuclear weapons is instructive). These decisions
may reflect a commonality of interest among the ruling class or the power
of the leader to enforce laws more than they reflect a societal consensus.
But they are conscious decisions and they do restrain technological
advance.
      Of course, all these examples are silent on the most important
question about whether relatively democratic societies with a public and
ruling class that are sometimes skeptical about the merits of unrestrained
(or profit-maximizing) technological advance can pull off the kind of
management of technology that critics would like to see. The next section
discusses the hurdles that remain before a society that can form the
question "Are we willing to do what it takes to go without this technology
in order to protect our core values?" and wanting to answer "yes", can
actually bring itself to commit to that path.


What conditions would be required for such technological governance, and
under what circumstances, if any, might they be attained?
      I would not claim to know what the sufficient (or all the necessary)
conditions for suppression of specific technological innovations are. But
there are some kinds of contexts in which governance of technology will
not happen. Even when the society understands that it has core values it
cares more than progress and wealth, and it understands are threatened by
the new technology it may still feel compelled for other reasons to accept
the technology.
      The most important of these contexts is that of competition for
economic or military superiority. Greed, religious/ideological zeal, and
fear that the Other will eventually become dominant if they are not
subjugated first (or at least kept up with), all push competing societies
very hard to seek each and every possible economic and military advantage
in order to protect values such as freedom, autonomy, relative standing in
the world, and so on. If a new technology looks to those in charge like it
will provide a competitive edge to the side that possesses it against
another which doesn't, it will be developed and/or used by everyone who
can get it. Such is a key reason behind the creation and progressive
refinement of everything from nuclear missiles to the most trivial
consumer goods.
      This competition between societies has been with us throughout most
of history, with exceptions for societies that were isolated (Japan) or so
big as to feel that they had no rivals (Rome, China). But in a world with
tight connections between societies and the rise of the nation-state the
opportunities to be free of competitive pressures through isolation or
having a huge empire are no longer with us. Other ways to neutralize the
dysfunctional aspects of competition between societies must be found.
      If unrestrained competition breeds unrestrained innovation, might
more restrained competition provide breathing room for restraints on
innovation? One can think of the limited warfare and power balancing of
19th century Europe and how that period saw restrictions on the use of
exploding bullets (against Europeans). A similar case occurred with a
warming of superpower relations in the 1960s and the ban on above-ground
nuclear testing. Taking this principle further, it seems likely that more
significant reduction in fear of losing out in competition (and thus in
dysfunctional competitive behavior by societies) could be achieved through
strengthened versions of; collective security, harmonization of national
commercial and environmental laws, foreign aid, and managed trade.
      Of course these examples of exploding bullets and nuclear testing
also point up other, milder, forces at work moderating the pressure to
compete. In the case of exploding bullets (and above-ground testing for
the most part) the advantage to be gained was small, came at a cost in
public disapproval, would be quickly lost as the other side copied the
technology, and significantly increased the costs for the first user once
the other side adopted the same technology. These wrinkles in the paradigm
of competition-led innovation show some of the tactical openings for
controlling the deployment of innovative technologies without first
bringing an end to all rivalry and economic scarcity in the world. In our
own time, for example, we can see these same principles (reinforced by the
desires and actions of the "ruling class" that is the permanent Security
Council members) behind the control of proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.
      Whether we can hope for broader replication of such limits on other
noxious technologies that don't threaten the "ruling class" as much in the
absence of more fundamental moves to defuse competition remains to be
seen. Two discouraging examples should suffice. Economic competition
promotes the export of anti-personnel landmines to countries with ongoing
civil wars, guaranteeing the mines' use against civilians decades after
the fighting stops. And economic competition for jobs helps draw polluting
industries to the least environmentally regulated nations. 
      Efforts to counter such effects through cooperation (burden sharing)
across societies by appealing to peoples' human compassion and fear for
the environment are moving with agonizing slowness given the severity of
the need for change. This is partly due to free trade being very popular
with elites and little or no growth in the global economy since the 1960s
making publics everywhere push their governments for more economic growth.
And one must not forget that these competitive pressures reproduce
themselves inside a society as well. Even when societies as a whole would
prefer to cooperate, they may have component parts (the army in China, for
example) that have different priorities and the power to ignore the
desires of the rest of their society.
      Nevertheless, elites and large portions of the public (in rich
nations particularly) are becoming less racist and religiously/culturally
chauvinistic. Thus reducing their difficulties in cooperating with other
societies. Also, the people are beginning to care relatively more than
they used to about reducing human misery caused by technology and slowing
ecological destruction in the world. If these trends continue to grow, and
take root in the countries which are picking up the industrial jobs that
are draining out of the rich nations, we might have a context in which
cooperative decisions not to implement certain technologies can take place
(possibly replacing them with more expensive or less profitable
alternatives whose use is encouraged by some of the techniques in the next
section).


The means by which technological advance can be slowed:
      Assume that a society is constituted such that it can constructively
form and consider the question of whether it wants a new technology or not
(accounting for competitive pressures), and the decision has be made to
forego it. What then? How does one go about keeping the technology out of
ones society? 
      It was much easier to control technology when international trade
and travel was a trickle (or in Japan's historical case, effectively nil)
since one only had to worry about potential domestic producers of the
technology being made to participate and not every importer and person
entering the country from outside as well. I suppose a country with only
a small amount of international trade and travel and a very strong state
that could do the necessary surveillance to make sure no banned technology
is coming in. But the number of such countries is small I think. While
much depends on how difficult it is to detect the presence or use of a
technology (and the lengths people will go to acquire it), it seems that
strategies which depend on stopping the technology at the border as well
as stopping domestic production are going to have a very tough time of it.

      The answer given here will be for the most developed nations who in
fact do the vast majority of the innovating. If they collectively choose
not to build a certain technology while holding the patents on it (or even
keeping the details of construction secret) and hinder efforts by others
to build it, it may be years or longer before some developing country
manages to produce the device. If the developed countries could not agree
to suppress the technology then they would be back to having to deal with
the problem of keeping it out at the borders as well.
      So let us assume we have an updated version of the Japanese
emperor's task. If production of technology can be prevented (and enough
existing copies destroyed) then we have succeeded. So what sorts of means
can be used to discourage people from producing or using a technology?
Here are some methods used by the U.S. governments' efforts to retard non-
secret developments in the science of cryptology and nuclear technology.
Depending on what kinds of legal rights the citizenry and businesses have,
some of these measures may be unconstitutional or entitle those directly
affected to hefty compensation for lost earnings/investments.
      1. Pass a law making any discovery having to do with the technology
"born classified", meaning that it is legally presumed to be a state
secret unless the government says otherwise.
      2. Have government make the patent a state secret before it can be
published and suspend the patent application. Pass laws that say any
similar technology can have the same thing done to it in order to
discourage research or at least make sure it's done in partnership with
the government in secret projects where the denial of a public patent is
part of the deal.
      2A. Announce early on that the government will refuse to grant
patent protection on that particular technology. That will discourage
investment in research.
      3. Subsidize an acceptable competing technology to the point where
it's overwhelmingly more profitable and available. Use cash subsidies,
government procurement preference, preferential treatment by regulatory
agencies, allow export of the favored alternative but not the targeted
technology, etc..
      3A. Work hard at refining the alternative technology while research
in the targeted technology languishes so that the alternative actually
becomes better at meeting conventional goals like profitability without
subsidy. Also, advertise the merits of the alternative heavily to make the
public fonder of the alternative.
      4. Where there is no competing technology, pay potential producers
to produce something else, do nothing, or even reconfigure their shops so
they can't make the target technology any more. (see auto industry vs.
light-rail industry) Also, for technologies where barriers to entering
into production are low, use carrots and sticks to get potential producers
into working for the government full time and signing secrecy agreements
not to reveal the specifics of the targeted technology to unauthorized
people.
      5. Mount a campaign to make production, ownership, or use of the
technology be seen as immoral. (May work better in those less developed
countries where there are centralized moral authorities plus homogenous
public morals.) The society's lacking of a tradition of being enamored
with innovations and the government having some genuine merit to the claim
that the technology is evil helps too. (See comments on cryptography's
utility to criminals in "surveillance society" section of the information
technology and democratic participation answer.)
      6. Ban (or tax into oblivion) production, possession and transfer of
the technology. While the most direct policy, doing this may be more
difficult in a democracy and doing it without reinforcement with some of
the other methods discussed above invites Prohibition-style disrespect for
and evasion of the ban.

Conclusion:
      Historian of technology James Burke once pointed out that sources of
technological advances came from six sources, three of which are
particularly relevant to the spread of a technology throughout society
rather than just initial discovery. They are:
þ the search for military superiority
þ efforts to spread one's religion or reinforce followers' faith (see
major works of religious architecture and art)
þ trying to invent more profitable means of doing some commercial activity
in the hopes of using those means or selling those means to others.
The discussion in previous sections shows that there might well be ways to
make new laws and to create new institutions (social contexts) in which
the military, religious (ideological), and profit motives can be
neutralized. Neither passing such laws in a democracy nor finding the
financial and political capital to make those laws and new institutions
work will be easy, but the alternative is more technological drift in a
time of accelerating innovation.