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.