HOME
*





Critique Of Technology
Criticism of technology is an analysis of adverse impacts of industrial and digital technologies. It is argued that, in all advanced industrial societies (not necessarily only capitalist ones), technology becomes a means of domination, control, and exploitation, or more generally something which threatens the survival of humanity. Some of the technology opposed by the most radical critics may include everyday household products, such as refrigerators, computers, and medication. Glendinning, Chellis. Notes towards a Neo-Luddite manifesto'. Utne Reader, 1990. However, criticism of technology comes in many shades. Overview Prominent authors elaborating a critique of technology include Donna J. Haraway, Jacques Ellul, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Joanna Bryson, Kate Crawford, Gilles Deleuze, Ted Kaczynski, Ivan Illich, Ritesh Kumar, Langdon Winner, Joseph Weizenbaum, Theodore Roszak, Günther Anders, Neil Postman, Martin Heidegger, Oswald Spengler, Pentti Linkola, Andrew Feenberg, T ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Digital Electronics
Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics and analog signals. Digital electronic circuits are usually made from large assemblies of logic gates, often packaged in integrated circuits. Complex devices may have simple electronic representations of Boolean logic functions. History The binary number system was refined by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (published in 1705) and he also established that by using the binary system, the principles of arithmetic and logic could be joined. Digital logic as we know it was the brain-child of George Boole in the mid 19th century. In an 1886 letter, Charles Sanders Peirce described how logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits.Peirce, C. S., "Letter, Peirce to A. Marquand", dated 1886, '' Writings of Charles S. Peirce'', v. 5, 1993, pp. 541–3. GooglPreview See Burks, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Günther Anders
Günther Anders (born Günther Siegmund Stern, 12 July 1902 – 17 December 1992) was a German-Austrian Jewish émigré, philosopher, essayist and journalist. Trained in the phenomenological tradition, he developed a philosophical anthropology for the age of technology, focusing on such themes as the effects of mass media on our emotional and ethical existence, the illogic of religion, the nuclear threat, the Holocaust, and the question of being a philosopher. Gunther Andres has called himself a critical theorist of technology and his philosophy as occasional philosophy, impressionistic philosophy and a philosophy of discrepancy. In 1992, shortly before his death, Günther Anders was awarded the Sigmund Freud Prize. Biography Günther Anders (then Stern) was born on 12 July 1902, in Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland), the son of founders of child developmental psychology Clara and William Stern and cousin to philosopher Walter Benjamin. His parents kept a diary of Gunther ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Neo-Luddism
Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Luddites, who were active between 1811 and 1816. Neo-Luddism is a leaderless movement of non-affiliated groups who resist modern technologies and dictate a return of some or all technologies to a more primitive level. Neo-Luddites are characterized by one or more of the following practices: passively abandoning the use of technology, harming those who produce technology harmful to the environment, advocating simple living, or monkeywrenching, sabotaging technology. The modern neo-Luddite movement has connections with the anti-globalization movement, anarcho-primitivism, radical environmentalism, and deep ecology. Neo-Luddism is based on the concern of the technological impact on individuals, their communities, and/or the environment, Neo-Lud ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Kirkpatrick Sale
Kirkpatrick Sale (born June 27, 1937) is an American author who has written prolifically about political decentralism, environmentalism, luddism and technology. He has been described as having a "philosophy unified by decentralism" and as being "a leader of the Neo-Luddites,"Kevin KellyInterview with the Luddite ''Wired Magazine'', 1995. an "anti-globalization leftist,"Schwenkler, John (2008-11-03 States ''The American Conservative'' and "the theoretician for a new secessionist movement."Peter ApplebomeA Vision of a Nation No Longer in the U.S. ''The New York Times'', October 18, 2007. Life and work Sale grew up in Cayuga Heights, Ithaca, New York, and would later say of the village that he "spent most of my first twenty years there, and that has made an imprint on me—on my philosophy, social attitudes, certainly on my politics—that has lasted powerfully for the rest of my life." He graduated from Cornell University, majoring in English and history, in 1958.
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Layla AbdelRahim
Layla AbdelRahim is a Russian-Sudanese comparatist anthropologist and anarchoprimitivist author, whose works on narratives of civilization and wilderness have contributed to the fields of literary and cultural studies, comparative literature, philosophy, animal studies, ecophilosophy, sociology, anarcho-primitivist thought, anarchism, epistemology, and critique of civilization, technology, and education. She attributes the collapse in the diversity of bio-systems and environmental degradation to monoculturalism and the civilized ontology that explains existence in terms of anthropocentric utilitarian functions. Her books ''Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness'' (Routledge 2015) and ''Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education'' ( Fernwood 2013) make a contribution to children's literary theory and a critique of education as rooted in the civilized need for the domestication of c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Derrick Jensen
Derrick Jensen (born December 19, 1960) is an American ecophilosopher, writer, author, teacher and environmentalist in the anarcho-primitivist tradition, though he rejects the label "anarchist". ''Utne Reader'' named Jensen among "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World" in 2008, and ''Democracy Now!'' says that he "has been called the poet-philosopher of the ecology movement". Jensen is a critic of the mainstream environmental movement's focus on preserving civilization and technology over preserving the natural world.Holzman, Jael (2022).How a Fight over Transgender Rights Derailed Environmentalists in Nevada. ''Politico''. Politico LLC. He specifically challenges the lifestyle changes and individualistic solutions broadly advocated, considering them drastically inadequate to the global scale of environmental catastrophe.Kateman, Brian (2022).To Save The Planet, We Need Systemic Change—But Your Individual Choices Still Matter. ''Forbes''. Instead, he promotes civil di ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. Mumford made signal contributions to social philosophy, American literary and cultural history and the history of technology. He was influenced by the work of Scottish theorist Sir Patrick Geddes and worked closely with his associate the British sociologist Victor Branford. Mumford was also a contemporary and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright, Clarence Stein, Frederic Osborn, Edmund N. Bacon, and Vannevar Bush. Life Mumford was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1912. He studied at the City College of New York and The New School for Social Research, but became ill with tuberculosis and never finished his degree. In 1918 he joined the navy to serve in World War I and was assigned a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


John Zerzan
John Edward Zerzan ( ; born August 10, 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist ecophilosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocates drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time. His six major books are ''Elements of Refusal'' (1988), '' Future Primitive and Other Essays'' (1994), ''Running on Emptiness'' (2002), '' Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections'' (2005), ''Twilight of the Machines'' (2008), and ''Why hope? The Stand Against Civilization'' (2015). Early life and education Zerzan was born in Salem, Oregon, and is of Czech and Slovakian descent. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from Stanford University in 1966. From 1967 to 1970, Zerzan worked as a union organizer for the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Mike Cooley (engineer)
Michael Joseph Edward Cooley (23 March 1934 – 4 September 2020) was an Irish-born engineer, writer and trade union leader, best known for his work on the social effects of technology, "Socially Useful Production" and "Human Centred Systems". He was involved in workplace activism at the British company Lucas Aerospace in the late 1970s. In 1981, he was a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award for "designing and promoting the theory and practice of human-centred, socially useful production." Cooley held several leadership positions in the field of computer-aided design (CAD) and was an advisor on numerous public and private sector projects. He was the founding president of the International Research Institute in Human Centred Systems (IRIHCS) and the international Journal AI & Society, and founding director of the Greater London Enterprise Board. He published over 100 scientific papers and fifteen books, and was a guest lecturer at universities in Europe, Australia, the US ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism. In his best-known book, ''The Theory of the Leisure Class'' (1899), Veblen coined the concepts of ''conspicuous consumption'' and '' conspicuous leisure''. Historians of economics regard Veblen as the founding father of the institutional economics school. Contemporary economists still theorize Veblen's distinction between "institutions" and "technology", known as the Veblenian dichotomy. As a leading intellectual of the Progressive Era in the US, Veblen attacked production for profit. His emphasis on conspicuous consumption greatly influenced economists who engaged in non-Marxist critiques of fascism, capitalism, and of technological determinism. Biography Early life and family background Veblen was born on July 30, 1857, in Cato, Wisconsin, to Norwegian-American immigrant parents, Thomas ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Andrew Feenberg
Andrew Feenberg (born 1943) is an American philosopher. He holds the Canada Research Chair in the Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. His main interests are philosophy of technology, continental philosophy, critique of technology and science and technology studies. Education Feenberg studied philosophy under Herbert Marcuse at the University of California, San Diego and was awarded his PhD in 1972. During this time Feenberg was active in the New Left, founding a journal entitled ''Alternatives'' and participating in the May '68 events in Paris. Feenberg's philosophy of technology Compared to his predecessors in philosophy of technology, such as Martin Heidegger and Jacques Ellul who have a dystopian view of technology, Feenberg's view is positive even though critical. For Heidegger and Ellul technology affects people's life but is for the most part beyond their control. For Feenberg technology and society influence ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Pentti Linkola
Kaarlo Pentti Linkola (7 December 1932 – 5 April 2020) was a prominent Finnish deep ecologist, ornithologist, polemicist, naturalist, writer, and fisherman. He wrote widely about his ideas and in Finland was a prominent thinker.George C. Schoolfield, "A history of Finland's literature", U of Nebraska Press, 1998p. 271 Linkola was a year-round fisherman from 1959 to 1995. He fished on Keitele, Päijänne and the Gulf of Finland, and since 1978 he fished on Vanajavesi. Linkola blamed humans for the continuous degradation of the environment. He promoted rapid population decline to combat the problems commonly attributed to overpopulation. Life Linkola was born on 7 December 1932. He grew up in Helsinki and summered in Kariniemi in Tyrväntö at the farm of his maternal grandfather, Hugo Suolahti. His father, Kaarlo Linkola, was a botanist, phytogeographer, and the Rector of University of Helsinki, and his grandfather Hugo had worked as the chancellor of that same univ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]