Technology is a force

I've noticed the majority of leaders in the technology industry are asked if they think technology is helping or hurting humanity. They almost always answer something akin to, "Technology is a tool. It depends on how we choose to it." This is a comforting answer; not only do we turn away from the uncomfortable answer that technology is a force unto itself, but we bestow upon ourselves the power to wield it by our better angels.

First, let's clarify language. Technology is a wonderful thing and it has always been defined as knowledge applied to goals or endeavors. Mapping is a technology. Fascial release is a technology. Music theory is a technology. When we're talking about computing, we say technology but more plainly we are talking about computing. This is important because using the word technology hides a lot of the issues with computing. When we talk about technology, we are excited and optimistic by the pursuit and benefit of more knowledge to build things. When we talk about computing, we are more grounded in the day-to-day reality of using smartphones, laptops and the Internet.

Is computation a tool or a force is much more interesting and clear question, I'd argue.

Form the day the first bits coursed over vacuum tubes and then transistors, computation has been assembling itself into more and more complex forms.

In Hannah Arendt's, "The Origins of Totalitarianism," she writes about the rise of facism as distinct from dictatorships because at least a dictator bargains with the goodwill of the people. A facist does not; their rule is total. She goes on to talk about this at some lenght and it's worth considering the insidious parallels to the emerging role computation has in our own modern lives.

The war between religion and technology has been ongoing since Copernicus. The material, machine-like interpretation of the world promised all the benefits of machines: cause and effect, input/output, procedural events and predictable outcomes. If the universe is a machine, we can program it. These are the promises of a religion: that faith in the ideology will reduce uncertainty, providing a known future that your actions can influence.

Wealth without function is rarely tolerated. Aristocrats must have some function; a nobility without power is a parasite. This was an important observation of Tocqueville before the French Revolution; people hated Aristocrats as they lost their privelege but not their actual wealth.

"In order to establish a totalitarian regime, terror must be presented as an instrument for carrying out a specific ideology; and that ideology must have won the adherence of many, and even a majority, before terror can be stabilized." Pg. 6 highlights

The ability for our nation, or society, to function is dependent entirely on the believable premise that equality is possible for the citizenry as a whole. This is predicated on, "emancipation edicts," which grant the state the ability to function, rule and represent the nation as a whole. Pg. 11.

The rise of AI can only be seen within the decline of the modern nation-state, which hasn't seen a rapid decline like this since the early 19th century.