The (Un)availability of Human Activities for Social Intervention: Reflecting on Social Mechanisms in Technology Assessment and Sustainable Development Research

This article considers human activities as a central but deeply problematic aspect of sustainability. We argue that radical reduction in could be an important lever to counter problems such climate change. However, instead pursuing normative hypothesis ought subjected specific kinds sustainability measures, we pursue the are largely unavailable for because aggregated global phenomenon they subject social mechanisms, which accelerate rather than slow down activities. While mechanisms inventions render (inter)actions unlikely likely first place, have evolved towards structural and historical embeddedness, makes them any instrumentalized design. The question is, how can we, experts technology assessment, recognize strategies reduce achieve transformative impact on systemic reproduction. Our discussion centers technical, psychological, communicative reproduction, experiments with ideas utilize (un)availability assessment sustainable development research.