Whose benefits? Whose risks?

 Mandy Brown. Via Alan Jacobs. 

I owe this framing to the late, great Ursula Franklin, and to a speech she gave in 1986, in which she said:

We cannot be part of a discussion on whatrisks a certain technology has without asking whose risks. It makes an awful lot of difference. Assume you are talking about video display terminals, for example; the great discussion is “Are they or are they not putting the operator’s health or eyes at risk?” You don’t discuss whether there are risks; you discuss whose risks. Who is it that is at risk? It’s quite pointless to talk about risk-benefit without saying “Are those who are at risk also getting the benefits, or are those who are getting the benefits very far removed from the risk?”…The questions to ask are “Whose benefits? Whose risks?” rather than “What benefits? What risks?”