Joel Mokyr
Resistance to new technologies
### Resistance to new technologies

Mokyr outlined three reasons why societies resist new technologies:
* Incumbents who fear a threat to their power and [economic rents](/wiki/Economic_rent "Economic rent")
* Concern about broader social and political repercussions ("unintended ripple effects")
* [Risk](/wiki/Risk_aversion "Risk aversion") and [loss aversion](/wiki/Loss_aversion "Loss aversion"): new technologies often have "unanticipated and unknowable consequences"

"These three motives often merge and create powerful forces that use political power and persuasion to thwart innovations. As a result, technological progress does not follow a linear and neat trajectory. It is, as social constructionists have been trying to tell us for decades, a profoundly political process."


What forces work together to thwart innovations in technological progress?