00100	STANFORD TECHNOLOGY CLUB - A PROSPECTUS
00200	
00300		This is a preliminary proposal to create a club
00400	at Stanford whose purpose will be to find and promote good
00500	technology and to promote its application and to encourage
00600	larger scale efforts to do the same.  The club is needed
00700	because:
00800	
00900		1. Technology has not done as much recently
01000	to change people's lives for the better as it did around
01100	the turn of the century when within a very short period,
01200	were introduced electric lights, telephones, automobiles,
01300	central heating, control of infectious disease by
01400	sanitation.  More recent improvements (radio 1920s,
01500	television 1948, mass air travel 1950s, color TV 1960s)
01600	have been smaller in effect and have come along slower.
01610	You will note that I have not mentioned nuclear energy.
01620	While nuclear energy is very important in reducing the
01630	cost of energy and therefore increasing the number of people
01640	who can benefit from it at a given level, it has not produced
01650	qualitatively new things for the man in the street except
01660	some new worries.
01700	
01800		2. The reasons for this are twofold:  First, the easy
01900	things were done, and new important innovations will require
02000	either new technology (computer control), or pushing the
02100	mechanical and electrical technology very hard.  Secondly,
02200	the attention of the technological community has been
02300	distracted from civilian technology by the lack of payoff
02400	and by the emphasis on military technology.  Therefore, certain
02500	traditions have grown up that hinder progress.  Thus, it
02600	is very hard to get support for university projects
02700	in civilian technology.
02800	
02900		3. The anti-technological and even anti-rational
03000	tendencies of the literary culture have reached a new peak.
03100	We scientists and technologists get our culture from these
03200	people and have also been profoundly affected by this
03300	trend of thought.  A related effect of the weakness in
03400	innovation in civilian applications has been the concentration
03500	on side-effects.  While attention has to be paid to side-effects
03600	and the present increased attention is mainly good, it
03700	can't be allowed to exclude thinking about new things in
03800	the minds of socially conscious technical people.
03900	
04000		4. The Stanford technology Club might undertake some
04100	of the following activities:
04200		a. Survey various fields for the possibility of
04300	useful innovation.  Some questions are:
04400	When will the home computer terminal be feasible and when
04500	will it have applications sufficient to make it worthwhile.
04600	What is the long range solution to the transportation
04700	problem?  What about computer controlled cars?  Is
04800	the personal flying machine feasible?  How can the costs of
04900	construction be reduced?  What are the basic areas of
05000	technology where breakthroughs in cost or performance
05100	can make many things possible?  Is the planet running out
05200	of resources, and what kind of resource planning and environment
05300	monitoring are needed?
05400	
05500		b. Provide a forum for presentation of ideas
05600	in these fields.
05700	
05800		c. Discuss the institutional barriers to innovation
05900	in civilian technology and discuss how to overcome them.
06000	
06100		d. Popularize useful technology both to attract workers
06200	into the field and to combat anti-technological propaganda.
06300