Michael MacTaggert is a software developer looking for work, host of a law review podcast called Amicus Lectio, and a moderator of Programming Discussions (invite.progdisc.club). Follow me on Twitter!
Technopoly is the most important book about technology of the 20th Century.
The book is short and dense with information and frameworks for how to think about the increasing abuse of technology to shape culture in ways that benefit the few at the great expense of the many's very humanity.
Technopoly is social criticism about technology, but it is not an anti-technology book; it is an anti-Technopoly book. Technopoly is a collection of radical normative claims about how technology should shape the world that people have increasingly adopted since invention became tied to commercialism and efficiency. It may seem obvious to us, as technologists, that more efficiency is inherently good, but this mindset that pervades our culture belies a gross disregard for other people. The Technopolist encourages others to disregard and denigrate the past in order to push their new products, disregarding alternative opinions as "Luddite." It places that efficiency of operation above consideration of the abilities of human beings, leading to the creation of new systems that don't serve humans well and the increasing estrangement of us from functional older systems in ways that make our lives strictly worse.
This happens because the Technopolist does not care about leveraging technology intelligently to pursue a better world. Instead, they pursue new technology as the end in and of itself, claiming that will be the cure to human suffering because because human suffering is caused by human inefficiencies. This leads to creating things without consideration of any negative consequences that reveal themselves later. Basically, they say "move fast and break things," because they very wrongly believe that the things that break couldn't matter. It is morbid misanthropy couched in techno-utopianism.
Further, as much as they phrase these ideals as the cure to society's ills for PR purposes, the reality is that our most difficult problems are social and cannot adequately be solved by the addition of new technology. Indiscriminate applications of technology can make them exponentially worse. One of the key reasons for this is that, technology does not sit neutrally in our world. The fact that technology can radically change the way that someone approaches one problem at hand is only the most germane possible consequence. A change to technological conditions can also radically change a person's sense of self. For example, consider how the addition of a vehicle fundamentally changes someone's sense of how big the world is, or how people in skilled jobs that are increasingly automated begin to view themselves as unskilled monitors. On top of that, it's important to realize that technology is designed, and we must be vigilant in understanding that the technologists behind it may want to direct that change to benefit themselves above others, such as how Facebook made itself somewhat indispensable by fundamentally changing the way interpersonal networking functioned with its emotional labor machine.
Technopoly reminds us that technology exists to serve us; humans do not exist to serve technology. It is important to actually analyze and evaluate the effects of new technologies instead of blindly moving from one to the next and assuming the answer must be a new technology. Furthermore, we must keep our guards up against Technopolists' encouragement to abandon our cultural memory. Often you'll find that many new applications of technology that have caused massive social welfare problems in our time are shockingly new.
Every company's leveraging of the internet to insert itself into your life or curtail your expectations of privacy must have come after the Internet, which only became commercially available about 30 years ago.
Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent anti-vaccination paper, which inspired much of the current wave of anti-vaccination insanity, was published in 1998.
Movie theatres once treated your ticket as the only payment necessary to see the film, and they only began requiring you to watch pre-film commercials in the mid-1990s.
These are blips in the cultural consciousness, but their creators want you to believe they are immutable and inextricable features of our world, that have always been this way and always shall be. They did not, and constant reevaluation of their place is essential so that their real consequences may be understood and properly mitigated. Technology, whether tool or toy or ideology, must be treated seriously and critically, not as a sacred cow.
This is a great write-up, and a very interesting topic. Mindfulness through progress is paramount yet difficult to maintain, and texts like this serve as much-needed anchors. This is some excellent food for thought, and definitely going on my reading list. Thank you!
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Seems like a good place to use some of an article I was writing on books I like:
Technopoly (1992) by Neil Postman
Technopoly is the most important book about technology of the 20th Century.
The book is short and dense with information and frameworks for how to think about the increasing abuse of technology to shape culture in ways that benefit the few at the great expense of the many's very humanity.
Technopoly is social criticism about technology, but it is not an anti-technology book; it is an anti-Technopoly book. Technopoly is a collection of radical normative claims about how technology should shape the world that people have increasingly adopted since invention became tied to commercialism and efficiency. It may seem obvious to us, as technologists, that more efficiency is inherently good, but this mindset that pervades our culture belies a gross disregard for other people. The Technopolist encourages others to disregard and denigrate the past in order to push their new products, disregarding alternative opinions as "Luddite." It places that efficiency of operation above consideration of the abilities of human beings, leading to the creation of new systems that don't serve humans well and the increasing estrangement of us from functional older systems in ways that make our lives strictly worse.
This happens because the Technopolist does not care about leveraging technology intelligently to pursue a better world. Instead, they pursue new technology as the end in and of itself, claiming that will be the cure to human suffering because because human suffering is caused by human inefficiencies. This leads to creating things without consideration of any negative consequences that reveal themselves later. Basically, they say "move fast and break things," because they very wrongly believe that the things that break couldn't matter. It is morbid misanthropy couched in techno-utopianism.
Further, as much as they phrase these ideals as the cure to society's ills for PR purposes, the reality is that our most difficult problems are social and cannot adequately be solved by the addition of new technology. Indiscriminate applications of technology can make them exponentially worse. One of the key reasons for this is that, technology does not sit neutrally in our world. The fact that technology can radically change the way that someone approaches one problem at hand is only the most germane possible consequence. A change to technological conditions can also radically change a person's sense of self. For example, consider how the addition of a vehicle fundamentally changes someone's sense of how big the world is, or how people in skilled jobs that are increasingly automated begin to view themselves as unskilled monitors. On top of that, it's important to realize that technology is designed, and we must be vigilant in understanding that the technologists behind it may want to direct that change to benefit themselves above others, such as how Facebook made itself somewhat indispensable by fundamentally changing the way interpersonal networking functioned with its emotional labor machine.
Technopoly reminds us that technology exists to serve us; humans do not exist to serve technology. It is important to actually analyze and evaluate the effects of new technologies instead of blindly moving from one to the next and assuming the answer must be a new technology. Furthermore, we must keep our guards up against Technopolists' encouragement to abandon our cultural memory. Often you'll find that many new applications of technology that have caused massive social welfare problems in our time are shockingly new.
These are blips in the cultural consciousness, but their creators want you to believe they are immutable and inextricable features of our world, that have always been this way and always shall be. They did not, and constant reevaluation of their place is essential so that their real consequences may be understood and properly mitigated. Technology, whether tool or toy or ideology, must be treated seriously and critically, not as a sacred cow.
This is a great write-up, and a very interesting topic. Mindfulness through progress is paramount yet difficult to maintain, and texts like this serve as much-needed anchors. This is some excellent food for thought, and definitely going on my reading list. Thank you!