INEVITABILITY OF THE TITANIC

A detailed Summary of INEVITABILITY OF THE TITANIC

The Titanic. The first major technological disaster of the twentieth century. What exactly went wrong? Could this tragedy have been avoided? With the new technologies we have today, we have found out to almost the tiniest detail about the events of the sinking of the Titanic. With this new information, and knowing the technology was available at the time to avoid this accident, we can then explore the reasons why it had to happen. Human neglect had to play a huge role in this event. And in that case, why? I will be analyzing these ideas in relation to articles read in class throughout the paper.

In the article Technological Momentum, Hughes suggests that technology shapes and is shaped by society. I believe this stands true in the case of the Titanic. The fact that an inadequate number of lifeboats road on the Titanic because of the desire for glass-enclosed observation lounges, suites, and palm courts for the wealthy travelers is an example of this. The technology for more lifeboats was there but was not used because of society's desire to not use them. The boat itself (technology) was designed to hold the riches people on the planet (society). Its grand facilities included a swimming pool, a squash court, and a T

Ultimately, human ignorance and error were the reasons for this technological failure. People got caught up in the idea of the ship and didn't think hard enough about the importance of safety of the passengers and crew. We could sit here and say, "well... if we could have just done this...or if we had just done that..." all day, but when it comes down to it, even though this tragedy could've been avoided, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

urkish bath, among other things. This shows how technology (Titanic) is shaped by society. Society was then shaped by technology when the technology failed. If any one of the numerous actions that could've saved the ship would have taken place, then part of society wouldn't have perished that day, and the rest of society wouldn't have mourned that next morning and there on out. We would've then never learned the invaluable things we did because of this tragedy.

Mesthene's basic idea in the article The Role of Technology in Society is that technology brings social change by creating new jobs, and by generating new problems for individuals and societies. This is obviously true in the case of the Titanic because you can imagine how many jobs that the invention, construction, and implementation of this ship created. You need designers and engineers to invent it, you need hundreds, if not thousands of construction workers to build it, and you need hundreds of people to actually run the ship, let alone the hundreds of other people who invested in the project, etc. So this ship obviously created jobs, and as far as generating new problems for individuals and societies, I think it created many problems including the problems the engineers faced in the design and construction of the Titanic, as well as when the ship actually wrecked and sank. And after encountering all these problems, we all learned something new and important from them. The question also arises, was our ability to organize and operate a complex technology such as the Titanic correspond with our ability to invent it? I believe this question basically asks, were we ready to build and operate the Titanic and in my viewpoint we were, and we weren't. We were because we obviously had the technology to physicall

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Approximate Word count = 1509
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History