Technology is fine. It's what people do with it that makes it beneficial or harmful. We have had a handful of sociopaths, megalomaniacs and weaponizers of it.
Edison on electrocution:
https://archive.ph/OvZ9y#selection-887.0-945.133
“The most suitable apparatus for this purpose is that class of dynamo-electric machinery which employs intermittent currents,” Edison wrote. “The most effective of these are known as ‘alternating machines’ manufactured principally in this country by Geo. Westinghouse.”
Edison’s logic was twisted, barbaric and possibly brilliant: If he could convince the world that Westinghouse’s alternating current was a swift and efficient killer, his method would be seen as safer, increasing his market share.
“The electric chair’s midwife was greed,” Brandon wrote, “the kind of pure, unadulterated greed for which the Gilded Age was famous.”
