Do Not Fear Progress and Technology; Fear Capitalism
Technologies, much like corporations, are not inherently ‘evil.’ Rather, they are shaped by cultural and ideological circumstances.
Antonio Melonio
·
Follow
7 min read
·
1 day ago
‘Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.’— Stephen Hawking
The belief that technological advances will save us was once a cornerstone of public debate. Poverty, hunger, disease, and, later, climate change were thought to be powerless in the face of human curiosity and ingenuity. After all, technological advancements have enabled the Western world to live in unprecedented abundance and luxury (the Global South and its merciless exploitation are a different story altogether, of course).
As our lives grew longer and longer, our caloric intake ever increasing; and as our cities conquered the world and every last corner of this planet, leaving no ecosystem unaffected; as we defeated countless diseases and made constant progress toward eliminating others, one came to wonder: where will it all end?
Why does it feel like technology is turning against us now?
From making our lives easier and more comfortable to ever-increasing anxieties, stress, and the near-constant threat of economic and societal collapse — to the continued exploitation of our planet, its resources, and everything that walks, crawls, flies, or swims on it. Is it technological progress itself that is turning against us? Is it time to stop progress, perhaps?
The paperclip maximizer
To illustrate how progress and cultural ideology, i.e. capitalism, cannot be regarded separately, let us consider the thought experiment of the paperclip maximizer, first described by Swedish philosopher Nick…
