SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF USEFUL TECHNOLOGY


	This is a proposal for a society  for the promotion of useful
technology.  The society would engage in the following activities:

	1.  It  would identify  opportunities for  the  betterment of
people's lives through technology.

	2. It would educate the public on the benefits of technology.
In particular  it would counter anti-technological  and anti-rational
propaganda. It would promote rational cost-benefit analysis and would
oppose measures with purely symbolic motivations.

	3. It would attempt  to persuade scientists and  engineers to
turn their  efforts in useful directions. It  would attempt to insure
that projects that claimed applied goals adhered to them.

	4. It  would present  its  positions before  Congress,  state
legislatures  and courts.    In particular,  it  would alleviate  the
situation where  a proposal to use technology -  e.g. a power plant -
is supported only by those who  stand to make money out of it,  while
its  opponents  can  claim  to  be motivated  solely  by  the  public
interest.

	We  believe that  this organization  is needed today  for the
following reasons:

	1.  An  ideology  of  irrationalism  and  anti-technology  is
dominates  literary  intellectuals  and  is  very strong  even  among
scientists.