The Social Significance of Telematics

1. Author's Preface; 2. Translator's Preface; 3. Introduction; 4. 1. The Technicalities of Telematics; 5. 2. The Social Significance of Telematics; 6. 2.1. The Significance of Technology; 7. 2.2. Technology: The Study of Human Ingenuity in the Pursuit of Chosen Goals; 8. 2.3. Society's Generation of Alternatives; 9. 2.4. The Future is very Present; 10. 2.5. Technology as Anticipation: Taking Arms against Pure Objectivity; 11. 3. The Tendential Content of Telematics; 12. 3.1. Technology or Economics?; 13. 3.2. Japan: I.T. Development Policy with Material Wealth as its Premiss; 14. 3.3. The Tendential Content of Telematics; 15. 4. The Latent Future Potential Inherent in Telematics; 16. 4.1. Technology: Salvation or Perdition?; 17. 4.2. Against Oversimplification: Towards the Structural Analysis of the Latent Future Potential Inherent in Telematics; 18. 4.3. Traditional Normative Thinking and Its Limitations; 19. 4.4. Anticipative Normative Thinking; 20. 5. Idleness Doesn't Pay!; 21. 6. Participative Grassroots Democracy at the Push of a Button?; 22. 6.1. Vertical and Horizontal Communication; 23. 6.2. Today's Democratic Dilemma; 24. 6.3. Back to the Old Laboratory: Today's Democratic Dilemma in Yesterday's Enlightenment Philosophy; 25. 6.4. Deadlock and Beyond; 26. 7. The Influence of Telematics on Modes of Perception and Morality; 27. 7.1. The Spatial and Temporal Boundaries of Enlightenment Philosophy; 28. 7.2. Practical Criticism Today: Transcending the Bounds of Space and Time in our Physical Environment; 29. 7.3. The Social Environment: From Physical Need Satisfaction Towards Need Manipulation; 30. 8. Telematics, Social Control, and the Blind Self-Deception of Unreflective Tendential Criticism; 31. 8.1. Knowledge is Power?; 32. 8.2. I.T. as Military Technology; 33. 8.3. The 'Natural' Opposition; 34. 8.4. Power Old and New: Confiscation v. Self-Castigation; 35. 9. Mediating the Qualitatively New: Some Seminal Examples of Ongoing Social Experiments in Sweden and France; 36. 9.1. Proving the Pudding: All Good Theories are Practically Useful!; 37. 9.2. The Necessity for Enthusiasm; 38. 9.3. Social Experiments with Telematics in France, Sweden and -?; 39. 10. The Only Conceivable Way Forward - Social Experiments with Telematics: Theory, Summary, Practical Guidelines, Conclusion; 40. 10.1 Some Fundamental Points in the Definition of the Theoretical Concept of Social Experiments with Telematics; 41. 10.2. Why and How Social Experiments with Telematics Can and Must Be Carried Out; 42. 10.3. Social Experiments with Telematics as Strategic Praxis in Relation to Utopian Theory; 43. 10.4. Practical Advantages of Social Experiments with Telematics; 44. 10.5. Summary of the Concept of 'Social Experiments with Telematics' and Some Concrete Guidelines; 45. 10.6. Conclusion: Advanced Technology in the Service of Mankind; 46. Notes; 47. References