Assignment
1. What are alternative ways to accomplish the same ends? What advantages and disadvantages are there to the alternatives?
2. What trade-offs would be necessary between positive and negative side effects of each?
3. Who are the main beneficiaries? Who will receive few or no benefits?
4. Who will suffer as a result of the proposed new technology?
5. How long will the benefits last? Will the technology have other applications?
6. Whom will they benefit?
7. What will the proposed new technology cost to build and operate?
8. How does that compare to the cost of alternatives?
9. Will people other than the beneficiaries have to bear the costs?
10. Who should underwrite the development costs of a proposed new technology?
11. How will the costs change over time?
12. What will the social costs be?
13. What risks are associated with the proposed new technology?
14. What risks are associated with not using it? Who will be in greatest danger?
15. What risk will the technology present to other species of life and to the environment? In the worst possible case, what trouble could it cause?
16. Who would be held responsible?
17. How could the trouble be undone or limited?
18. What people, materials, tools, knowledge, and know-how will be needed to build, install, and operate the proposed new technology?
19. Are they available? If not, how will they be obtained, and from where?
20. What energy sources will be needed for construction or manufacture, and also for operation?
21. What resources will be needed to maintain, update, and repair the new technology?
22. What will be done to dispose safely of the new technology's waste materials? As it becomes obsolete or worn out, how will it be replaced? And finally,
23. What will become of the material of which it was made and the people whose jobs depended on it?