| > before we had technology There wasn't a time "before we had technology". Best to avoid that
line of thinking if you want to escape the determinist (Veblem) trap
and end up like Kaczynski. Postman is an author we enjoy but seldom acknowledge the wider genre
into which he fits. It's called "tech critique". You can study it through the ages, comparing the outlooks and
influences of Einstein, Ellul, Freud, Fromm, Heidegger, Illich,
Kaczynski, Marcuse, Mumford, Nietzsche, and Postman, as well as sci-fi
writers like Wells, Forster, Clarke, Gibson, Le Guin, Dick...It makes
a very good companion to a study of the philosophy of science. Some takeaways (at least ones that stick in my mind): Technology is inseparable from the human condition, There are no
primitivist escapes, noble savages or gardens of Walden. By the same token there is not and won't ever be any golden age of
Utopian technology. Technology most closely resembles a "drug" in all its manifest
functions. Technology comes with an accumulative maintenance cost. It is monotonic/directional. There's no easy way back and we can't
uninvent stuff. Minimising the _harms_ of technology while maximising the benefits and
maintaining human dignity amidst it is the best we can do. Even if initially excited by new developments all people are
ultimately ambivalent about technology. They fear it, use it
begrudgingly and resent their dependency on it. Iron bridges and steam
locomotives raised the same questions as GPS and iPhones do today. Many people romanticise and worship technology. It is a secular God. If we "love" it, it's the sick love of an addict or the sadomasochistic
power glee (tech "dealers" like Ellison, Zuck, and Musk) A tiny few (that's us) enjoy a curious fascination that makes tech an
"end in itself". Those people get used to create a supply for the
dealers and addicts. Anyway you gotta love Postman, if only for exquisite use of
"centrifugal bumblepuppy". What he describes in this passage is really
the soporific control/domination effects of technology in the hands of
tyrants/dealers who delight in the subjugation of attention - which I
think is made best by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America. |
Well, this was nothing if not besides the point. Anyone on this site should recognize that when people like the person you responded to use the word "technology", especially in this context, it is typically a colloquialism for information technology, as in television, computers, phones and the like.
Even in colloquial English amongst the public, "technology" hasn't referred to technology in general for several decades, but simply to "information technology". It has become so common that the general public refers to the entire information technology industry simply as "tech" or the "tech industry", which excludes all traditional engineering disciplines outside of electrical, despite all those disciplines working with technology.