Smash The Technopoly!

https://www.afterbabel.com/p/smash-the-technopoly

QUOTE

In Technopoly, Postman distinguishes between a tool-using culture and a technopoly. All cultures have tools, but some cultures have moral resources necessary to constrain and direct the uses to which tools are put.

As a clear example, he cites the example of the samurai warriors, whose refinement and use of the katana sword was strictly regulated and directed by powerful social norms. While wielding the sword surely gave someone feelings of strength and possibility, samurai culture restrained those feelings and channeled them towards productive, healthy ends. Thus, the demands of honor required only very specific uses of the sword, and also required the user to commit ritual suicide with the sword if that honor was severely compromised. This is an example of a social group that is in possession of a powerful tool, but which also retains collective control over when and how the tool is used. It is a tool-using culture.

But within a technopoly, the tool becomes the master. It takes on a life of its own, steamrolling over a great many prior moral convictions or constraints.

In 1991, viewers of the series Star Trek, The Next Generation watched in alarm as the crew of the Enterprise were rendered dull, lifeless, brainwashed addicts under the control of “The Game”, an augmented-reality visual pastime. Twenty-five years later, one-third of the people on public transit were staring in a dull, lifeless manner at a pointless, addictive game, and only rarely was anyone alarmed by this.

It didn’t matter that we all started out thinking that this would be super weird and creepy. We got over it, and we got over it quick. That is because we live in a technopoly. Unlike those who lived out the samurai code, we lack the moral resources to pump the brakes when our moral convictions are telling us that something problematic is going on.