hce_tcu
113年
英文
第 44 題
📖 題組：
【C】Even if the term “appropriate technology” is a relatively new one, the concept certainly isn’t. In the 1930s, Mahatma Gandhi claimed that the advanced technology used by Western industrialized nations did not represent the right route to progress for his homeland, India. His favorite machines were the sewing machine, a device invented “out of love,” he said, and the bicycle, which he rode all his life. He wanted the poor villagers of India to use technology that empowered them and helped them to become self-reliant. This was also the philosophy promoted by E. F. Schumacher in his famous 1970s book Small Is Beautiful, which called for “intermediate technology” solutions. Do not start with technology and see what it can do for people, he argued. Instead, “find out what people are doing and then help them to do it better.” According to Schumacher, it did not matter whether the technological answers to people’s needs were simple or sophisticated. What was important was that solutions were long-term, practical, and, above all, firmly in the hands of the users. More recently, the term “appropriate technology” has come to mean not just technology which is suited to the needs and capabilities of the user, but technology that takes particular account of environmental, ethical, and cultural considerations. This is clearly a much more difficult thing to achieve. Often appropriate technology is found in rural communities in developing or less industrialized countries. For example, solar-powered lamps that bring light to areas with no electricity and water purifiers that work simply by the action of sucking through a straw. But the principle of appropriate technology does not only apply to developing countries. It also has its place in the developed world. For example, a Swedish state-owned company has found a way to harness the energy produced by the 250,000 bodies rushing through Stockholm’s central train station each day. The body heat is absorbed by the building’s ventilation system, then used to warm up water that is pumped through pipes over to the new office building nearby. It’s old technology, a system of pipes, water, and pumps, but used in a new way. It is expected to bring down central heating costs in the building by up to 20 percent. However, wherever it is deployed, there is no guarantee that appropriate technology will in fact be appropriate. After some visiting engineers observed how labor-intensive and slow it was for the women of a Guatemalan village to shell corn by hand, they designed a simple mechanical device to do the job more quickly. The new device certainly saved time, but after a few weeks the women returned to the old manual method. Why? Because they valued the time that hand-shelling gave them to chat and exchange news. In another case, in Malawi, a local entrepreneur was encouraged to manufacture super-efficient wood-burning stoves to sell to local villagers. Burning wood on an open fire, which is traditional in the developing world, is responsible for 10-20 percent of all global $CO_2$ emissions, so this seemed to be an excellent scheme. However, the entrepreneur was so successful that he bought himself a whole fleet of gas-guzzling cars. “We haven’t worked out the $CO_2$ implications of that yet,” said a spokesman for the organization that promoted the scheme.
【C】Even if the term “appropriate technology” is a relatively new one, the concept certainly isn’t. In the 1930s, Mahatma Gandhi claimed that the advanced technology used by Western industrialized nations did not represent the right route to progress for his homeland, India. His favorite machines were the sewing machine, a device invented “out of love,” he said, and the bicycle, which he rode all his life. He wanted the poor villagers of India to use technology that empowered them and helped them to become self-reliant. This was also the philosophy promoted by E. F. Schumacher in his famous 1970s book Small Is Beautiful, which called for “intermediate technology” solutions. Do not start with technology and see what it can do for people, he argued. Instead, “find out what people are doing and then help them to do it better.” According to Schumacher, it did not matter whether the technological answers to people’s needs were simple or sophisticated. What was important was that solutions were long-term, practical, and, above all, firmly in the hands of the users. More recently, the term “appropriate technology” has come to mean not just technology which is suited to the needs and capabilities of the user, but technology that takes particular account of environmental, ethical, and cultural considerations. This is clearly a much more difficult thing to achieve. Often appropriate technology is found in rural communities in developing or less industrialized countries. For example, solar-powered lamps that bring light to areas with no electricity and water purifiers that work simply by the action of sucking through a straw. But the principle of appropriate technology does not only apply to developing countries. It also has its place in the developed world. For example, a Swedish state-owned company has found a way to harness the energy produced by the 250,000 bodies rushing through Stockholm’s central train station each day. The body heat is absorbed by the building’s ventilation system, then used to warm up water that is pumped through pipes over to the new office building nearby. It’s old technology, a system of pipes, water, and pumps, but used in a new way. It is expected to bring down central heating costs in the building by up to 20 percent. However, wherever it is deployed, there is no guarantee that appropriate technology will in fact be appropriate. After some visiting engineers observed how labor-intensive and slow it was for the women of a Guatemalan village to shell corn by hand, they designed a simple mechanical device to do the job more quickly. The new device certainly saved time, but after a few weeks the women returned to the old manual method. Why? Because they valued the time that hand-shelling gave them to chat and exchange news. In another case, in Malawi, a local entrepreneur was encouraged to manufacture super-efficient wood-burning stoves to sell to local villagers. Burning wood on an open fire, which is traditional in the developing world, is responsible for 10-20 percent of all global $CO_2$ emissions, so this seemed to be an excellent scheme. However, the entrepreneur was so successful that he bought himself a whole fleet of gas-guzzling cars. “We haven’t worked out the $CO_2$ implications of that yet,” said a spokesman for the organization that promoted the scheme.
Why did the women in a Guatemalan village return to shell corn by hand?
- A It was important for them to socialize while they shell corn.
- B It was unethical for the women to shell corn without the engineers’ help.
- C It was more time-consuming to shell corn with the mechanical device.
- D It was inappropriate for the engineers to design the device without permission.
思路引導 VIP
當我們評估一項新工具是否『好用』時，除了看它能不能把事情做快，我們還需要觀察這項工具是否影響了使用者原本在工作中獲得的額外樂趣。試著回想文中的婦女們，在工程師離開後，她們覺得原本那種『緩慢的過程』中，有哪些事情是機器無法取代、且對她們的生活非常重要的？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了，你的判斷非常精準！這題能答對，代表你完整吸收了文中關於「適當科技」的深刻內涵。
科技與人文價值的連結
文章中提到，雖然工程師提供的機械設備更有效率，但瓜地馬拉的婦女們最後卻選擇棄用，這反映出一個重要的觀念：科技的價值並非僅取決於「速度」或「便利」。文末明確點出她們重視的是那段能讓彼此**聊天、交換新聞（chat and exchange news）**的社交時光。因此，選項 (A) 準確捕捉到了婦女們回歸手工的核心動機，亦即維繫社群間的互動與連結。
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