Why Technology is Enslaving and Dehumanizing Us"

caught like a fly in a

bottle his attempts at culture freedom

and creative endeavor have become mere

entries in techniques filing cabinet

in the mid 1950s the French philosopher

Jacqual wrote a book titled the

technological society in it he proposed

that technology or more broadly what he

called technique was enslaving mankind

in this video we explore this

fascinating yet terrifying thesis the

number of technical slaves Olal wrote is

growing rapidly and the ideal of all

governments is to push as fast as

possible toward technical enslavement

a technological society is one that is

dominated by what Alo called technique

technique is a method of action or a

means for achieving ends that

prioritizes efficiency above all else

technique in other words searches for

the one best way to solve a problem or

accomplish a task and in its search for

optimal solutions it disregards broader

moral aesthetic spiritual and cultural

considerations or as Alul explains

technique is the totality of methods

rationally arrived at in having absolute

efficiency for a given stage of

development in every field of human

activity alul believed that technique

had become the dominant ordering

principle of society and he identified

several subdivisions of technique

firstly there is the machine machines

are the ultimate manifestation of

technique as they constantly evolve in

pursuit of greater efficiency they

deliver consistent and precise results

at speed and scale and they strip away

the variability that defines many other

human endeavors the spread of the

machine into ever more domains of life

is reflective of our tendency to view

most problems through a technical

mindset machines however are but one

manifestation of technique or as Alol

wrote "The machine is now not even the

most important aspect of technique

though it is perhaps the most

spectacular technique has taken over all

of man's activities not just his

productive activity another subdivision

of technique is economic technique which

is the application of rational methods

of organizing and managing the economy

in pursuit of maximum efficiency

economic technique seeks to optimize

metrics such as the employment rate GDP

level and the rate of inflation when an

economy becomes the object of technique

the spontaneous order of markets gives

way to centralized planning and control

by technocrats i.e specialists who apply

technical methods and systems to

manipulate economic outcomes often

without regard for competing

environmental moral or ethical concerns

a third subdivision of technique is what

Alol called organizational technique and

refers to methods for efficiently

coordinating managing and controlling

large groups of people whether in the

military government corporations or

society at large organizational

technique leads to the bureaucratization

of life as everinccreasing layers of

rules procedures and administrative

systems are implemented to control group

behavior the final subdivision of

technique is human technique and this is

technique applied to the functioning of

the human organism whether in its

biological or psychological form human

technique encompasses fields such as

education medicine genetic engineering

psychology advertising and the use of

propaganda human technique seeks the

most efficient and rational ways to

influence condition and control human

beings in body and mind and as Alal

explains with human technique man

himself becomes the object of technique

these four subdivisions of technique

reveal how its application has

infiltrated all areas of society

machines are constantly used in both our

personal lives and in the production and

distribution of goods and services

economic and organizational techniques

structures our work life government

institutions the monetary system and

social trends in general while human

technique shapes not only the health or

sickness of our physical body but also

influences what we desire how we think

and how we act it might be said that

technique is the translation into action

of man's concern to master things by

means of reason explains a lull to

account for what is subconscious make

quantitative what is qualitative make

clear and precise the outlines of nature

take hold of chaos and put order into it

what is the problem with the compulsive

drive to apply technique to all aspects

of life why shouldn't we attempt to

order the world around us through the

most efficient and rational means

possible according to Alol the danger

lies in the fact that as technique

becomes more ubiquitous a new form of

totalitarianism emerges one that

enslaves us through control by the

machines systems and procedures of

technique under this form of

totalitarianism the loss of freedom is

not the result of the intentional acts

of a small group of people and it

doesn't require a conspiracy of a ruling

elite rather this totalitarianism occurs

of its own vition for as a lull explains

in the technological society we have now

reached a point where technique has

taken on a life of its own or as he

writes technique has become autonomous

it has fashioned an omnivorous world

which obeys its own laws and which has

renounced all tradition technique no

longer rests on tradition but rather on

previous technical procedures and its

evolution is too rapid too upsetting to

integrate the older

traditions all believed that as the use

of technique spreads it gains its own

momentum for when technique is applied

to a task it opens new pathways for its

further development or creates new

problems that must be solved with the

use of more technique for example the

invention of computers led to the

production of ever greater amounts of

data necessitating the development of

ways to store this data as well as

methods to analyze it as data analytic

and storage techniques advanced this

made possible new forms of surveillance

new ways to measure and manipulate the

economy and new ways to develop

artificial intelligence systems

similarly the development of the

internet gave rise to social networks

which in turn generated new

communication techniques and powerful

new techniques for the large-scale

distribution of propaganda in a

self-perpetuating cycle technique

beggets more technique and increasingly

all of life is swallowed up in the drive

for technical control and efficiency or

as Al explains technique in its

development poses primarily technical

problems which consequently can be

resolved only by technique the present

level of technique brings on new

advances and these in turn add to

existing technical difficulties and

technical problems which demand further

advances still or as Ian McGillchrist

writes in the master and his emissary

increasing technologization and

bureaucratization of life help to erode

the more integrative modes of attention

to people and things which might help us

resist the advances of technology and

bureaucracy so that in this way they aid

their own

replication as technique spreads

throughout society it changes the very

nature of man for technique is a

dehumanizing force if relied upon too

heavily in the pursuit of rational

efficiency it moves man away from his

traditions away from the natural world

and away from aesthetic moral and

spiritual values it transforms man from

a subject interacting with the world to

an object manipulated for technical ends

or as McGillchrist explains there is a

difficulty in maintaining one's

integrity as a unique individual subject

in a world where a combination of the

hubris of science and the drive of

technology blotss out the awe inspiring

business of conscious human existence

and replaces it with a set of technical

problems for which they purport to have

solutions in such circumstances we would

be too easily persuaded to accept the

role thrust upon us to become an object

no longer a subject and would connive at

our own

annihilation technique's relentless

pursuit of the most efficient means the

one best way comes at the expense of

values that have long been central to

the human experience one such value is

beauty when decisions are governed

solely by efficiency beauty is treated

as a luxury or ignored completely the

disregard for beauty is visible in

modern architecture in many cities

aesthetic values are no longer a primary

factor in the construction of buildings

instead the emphasis is on efficiency

for example in the building of housing

the focus is on minimizing costs and

building as many units as possible given

the constraints of land technique

applied to architecture has resulted in

skylines filled with uniforml looking

glass and concrete skyscrapers and

sprawling suburbs composed of cheap

efficient cookie cutter houses technique

further dehumanizes us by entrapping us

within an artificial world of its own

making the world that is being created

by the accumulation of technical means

is an artificial world and hence

radically different from the natural

world explains Alol most people spend

more time staring at screens and

absorbed in the artificial worlds of

social media video games and movies than

they do in nature most people work jobs

that force them to spend all day

controlled by the machines and systems

of technique while governments and

corporations are increasingly using

technique to control our behavior and

manipulate our thoughts wherever we turn

technique is grasping hold of us and

moving us further and further away from

the rhythms and flows of the natural

world a technical mindset also results

in a loss of connection with intuition

which is one of the most powerful means

of acquiring truth while also crucial to

the creative process or as McIllchrist

writes "If humans behave mechanistically

they fail intuition is faster and

smarter." A constant insistence on

disattending to intuitions and placing

reliance instead on standard assessment

forms and checklists replaces the

unmeasurable but often astute assessment

of a real human being with the bogus

precision and lack of individual

flexibility of a

machine the dangers of a technological

society however do not end with its

dehumanization

for technique is a centralizing force

that strips man of his freedom while

concentrating power in the hands of a

relative few some believe the opposite

to be true they see technique

specifically in its technological

manifestations as a decentralizing force

that will help return freedom to an

unfree world but as Alol wrote the idea

of affecting decentralization while

maintaining technical progress is purely

utopian in truth the history of

technical progress is also a history of

centralization the advance of technique

has permitted the growth of vast

centralized institutions such as the

modern state military and corporations

whose combined power shapes nearly every

aspect of life machines such as

computers cameras and smartphones allow

for an unprecedented level of

surveillance which promotes control by

centralized states the internet has

allowed for the instantaneous and global

distribution of propaganda military

technique through increasingly

destructive machines of war has enabled

conquest on an unprecedented scale and

created a vast power disparity between

those who control the weapons of war and

those who do not economic technique

especially applied to the creation of

credit and the manipulation of the money

supply has created a debt-based economic

system that greatly enriches a select

few and holds the rest of us at a

relatively impoverished state while

organizational technique has birthed

sprawling bureaucracies that regulate

almost all aspects of life and grant

immense power to those who control these

bureaucratic systems primitive man

hemmed in by prohibitions taboss and

rights was of course socially determined

writes a lull but it is an illusion

unfortunately very widespread to think

that because we have broken through the

prohibitions taboss and rights that

bound primitive man we have become free

we are conditioned by something new

technological

civilization the centralizing force of

technique if unchecked will continue to

enslave us it will create a world where

men and women are increasingly measured

molded directed and controlled by the

machines systems and processes of

technique all the while many people will

cheer on the advance of technique in the

belief that it represents social

progress not realizing that with each

advance our personal autonomy declines

or as Alal explains with the final

integration of the instinctive and the

spiritual by means of innovations in

human techniques the edifice of the

technical society will be completed it

will not be a universal concentration

camp for it will be guilty of no

atrocity it will not seem insane for

everything will be ordered and the

stains of human passion will be lost

amid the chromium gleam we shall have

nothing more to lose and nothing to win

our deepest instincts and our most

secret passions will be analyzed

published and

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ideas.com/members can we avoid a further

descent into a technological enslavement

can we find a healthy balance between

the natural and the artificial between

efficiency and other human values alal

was unsure or as he put it he is most

enslaved when he thinks he is

comfortably settled in freedom in the

modern world the most dangerous form of

determinism is the technological

phenomenon it is not a question of

getting rid of it but by an act of

freedom of transcending it how is this

to be done i do not yet know that is why

this book is an appeal to the

individual's sense of responsibility the

first step in the quest the first act of

freedom is to become aware of the

necessity ian McIllchrist who was

influenced by Alol's writings offered an

even more dire assessment in his 2021

book The Matter with Things by now it

may be too late some people already seem

to believe we are better off in the

hands of our new masters the machines

alull however did see a few ways that

the iron grip of technique could be

loosened one way was through social

collapse for example a severe economic

depression or a world war would halt the

advance of technique but at the cost of

great suffering or as Alal wrote "If a

general war breaks out and if there are

any survivors the destruction will be so

enormous and the conditions of survival

so different that a technological

society will no longer exist." Another

way to avoid a continuing descent into

technological enslavement is if more

people wake up to the fact that there is

much more to life than technological

advance for while technique has its role

to play when it starts to crowd out

other values and to interfere with

creative aesthetic or spiritual pursuits

its use has extended beyond healthy

limits if enough of us recognize this

and change our lives accordingly then

perhaps technique can be relegated to

its proper role of servant rather than

master of man or as Al wrote "If an

increasing number of people become fully

aware of the threat that technological

world poses to man's personal and

spiritual life and if they determine to

assert their freedom by upsetting the

course of this evolution my forecast

will be invalidated but if we fail to

heed Alol's warning our society will

increasingly be ruled by machines and

controlled by technique we will continue

to lose our basic humanity and become

detached from the moral aesthetic and

spiritual values that fill life with

meaning and purpose we will become the

optimized components of a technological

society a society that values human life

only to the degree that it furthers the

autonomous development of technique or

as a lull forewarned if man if each one

of us abdicates his responsibilities

with regard to values if each of us

limits himself to leading a trivial

existence in a technological

civilization with greater adaptation and

increasing success as his sole

objectives if we do not even consider

the possibility of making a stand

against these determinants then

everything will happen as I have

described it and the determinance of a

technological enslavement will be

transformed into

inevitabilities ideas shape the course

of our life what we believe to be true

determines how we act and what we aim

for in the modern world most people are

drowning in the sea of falsehoods

propounded by politicians our education

system the mainstream media mainstream

science and mainstream medicine

fortunately we don't have to be misled

by these institution