"New technology" again
In this item a few days ago, "new technology" was praised for doing things that could have been done before, or were actually done before, with old technology. Now we have the opposite: "new technology" is blamed for bad situations that happened identically with old technology.

The first example is partly correct:

Our global networks have generated many benefits and new opportunities. However, they have also established highways for failure propagation, which can ultimately result in human-made disasters. For example, today's quick spreading of emerging epidemics is largely a result of global air traffic, with serious impacts on global health, social welfare, and economic systems.

This is a consequence of modern policies, partly aided by modern technology. Free trade and outsourcing and open borders always spread pathogens, along with larger unwanted critters like zebra mussels. This happens whether the vehicles are galleons or Gulfstreams, but Gulfstreams do it faster.

Later examples are strictly false:

Networking system components that are well-behaved in separation may create counter-intuitive emergent system behaviors, which are not well-behaved at all. For example, cooperative behavior might unexpectedly break down as the connectivity of interaction partners grows. "Applying this to the global network of banks, this might actually have caused the financial meltdown in 2008," believes Helbing.

Dead wrong. The 2008 financial meltdown was identical in size and global spread to the meltdown of 1929, which happened without any electronic connections between banks. The problem is not the connectivity. The problem is CRIME. Any time you allow bankers to engage in abstract options and derivatives, they will destroy the world's economy. Bankers have no moral code. They are pure distilled reagent-quality Evil. Only death can keep these predatory beasts under full control. But we know from thousands of years of experience that partial control (i.e. confiscation and prison) works well enough most of the time.

Worse than wrong:

In the past, these social problems seemed to be puzzling, unrelated, and almost "God-given" phenomena one had to live with. Nowadays, thanks to new complexity science models and large-scale data sets ("Big Data"), one can analyze and understand the underlying mechanisms, which let complex systems get out of control.

Absolutely backwards. "Puzzling and God-given" is how we respond NOW. We have descended into brutish brainless idolatry. We blame Evil KKKarbon for natural weather cycles, which previous scientists understood to be natural weather cycles. We blame technology for natural banker behavior, which previous governments understood to be natural banker behavior.

Previous generations understood the need to take preventive measures instead of beseeching irrelevant gods and idols. When weather went wrong, we did things like building dams or moving out of flood zones. Now we pay Indulgences to the Carbon Priests, who just happen to be the same people as the bankers. When banks went wrong in 1721 and 1929, we enacted laws like Glass-Steagall to punish abstract crimes. Now we pay trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions in Indulgences to the bankers themselves.
  ¶ 4:01 AM