I have been reading Ted Kaczynski’s book1, Technological Slavery, over the last few weeks and thinking about his assertion that the techno-industrial society and system spawned by the Industrial Revolution which broke out a few hundred years ago are destroying humanity and the freedoms we take for granted. Uncle Ted, as he is affectionately known by his admirers, claims that another revolution is necessary to break mankind free from the technological “chains” which are increasingly binding us into a System which will eventually control everything we do and say, perhaps even think. A disaster, as he repeatedly calls it. Sounds like an AI driven narrative, doesn’t it, and judging by what we see happening today, it would be reasonable to say that he was not far wrong in his predictions.
https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/was-the-unabomber-right-all-along
Technology and the modern machine-powered society we live in today is unavoidable. Unless you live in the most remote parts of the Amazon rain forest in a hunter-gatherer mode of survival, there is no place on Earth where it does not reach. For nearly everyone, modern life is a necessity, not just a convenience. Even if we were to revert back to the days before the digital modernization, to the days of analog life (remember that black box on the wall which had to be “hung up” to break the connection?), the invention and production of machines, methods, and patterns to make life more tolerable would still be with us and still demanding our attention to maintain, repair, and keep up. Just because we abandoned digitization (computers, cell phones, surveillance systems, self-driving cars, credit cards, etc.) does not mean we would have broken the hold which the technology of the Industrial Revolution imposed on us.
How far back should we go? How far would we go? For myself, if the entire world was suddenly removed to the early 19th century, without electricity, internal combustion engines, and all kinds of labor-saving devices, I wouldn’t have a problem living with that. I would have been eager to cross the prairie from the East to the Rocky Mountains or beyond with nothing more than what I could carry on my back or my pony. I might have even become a mountain man after the manner of Jim Bridger or Joe Meek. Nevertheless, there would always be the temptation to improve my life by adopting and using new ideas and inventions, perhaps even creating some myself.
This is nothing more than human nature and, like matter, it cannot be destroyed, only changed. The desire to improve one’s life and world is built into us and has been part of what we are since the days of Adam and Eve. We naturally gravitate in that direction.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion…” — Genesis 1:26a
It is not the technology which we should be opposed to. Technology, like everything else which has been created and used by man, is only a tool and, like every other tool, can be used for both good and evil. A hammer can be used to drive nails in the construction of a house or it can be used to kill someone by smashing in their head. It is not the tool which is evil, but the manner in which it is used. To fight against modern technology on the grounds that we are becoming enslaved to it has some appeal, much like the Luddites who destroyed looms and steam engines because they were perceived as dangerous to one’s livelihood. If the Luddites were around today, they would be going after the manufacturer of Roomba, on their way to the factories of Tesla and Microsoft. Or, maybe they are, just not in a physical sense. Destructive hacking is on the rise and there is no telling what might happen when AI data centers scarf up all the electricity and water of local regions.
Nevertheless, Uncle Ted had a point…to a point. We actively engage in the technological marvels which accompany modern life and become disturbed whenever that interaction is threatened, yet we know, deep down, that it only drives us deeper and deeper into the depths of dependency on our machines and systems. We have forgotten (or never learned) how to live without them. We simply cannot live without what exists today and are (usually) more than willing to give up our “rights” and freedoms so long as we are, more or less, left alone. Unfortunately, we are never left alone, not completely, and the trend is toward greater and greater immersion and incorporation into the web of the spider from which there is no escape.
Most definitely unfortunately, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, went about proclaiming his message the wrong way, sending bombs through the mail in packages which exploded when they were opened. He wounded many people and actually killed three over a multi-year spree of terror until found out, arrested, and incarcerated in a super-max prison in Colorado. At least, that’s what we’re told. At any rate, the bombings ended. We are also told that he committed suicide by tying shoelaces around his neck and hanging himself off a safety grab bar three feet off the floor, in a super-max prison where inmates are not allowed shoelaces, but that’s another matter entirely. A conspiracy theory, if you will, which may or may not be proven true at some future date.
“At 12:23 a.m. on June 10, 2023, Kaczynski was found in his cell unresponsive, with no pulse, after hanging himself from a handicap rail with a shoelace.”2
Technology is not going to go away. If it was destroyed completely, sending us back to the Stone Age, or destroyed partially, sending us back to the Middle Ages, the desire would always be there to improve our lives by inventing items which break us out of the Hobbesian model of “nasty, brutish, and short.” Obviously, the answer to our current dilemma does not lie in outright prohibition. We couldn’t do that anyway. Human society will not tolerate that and anyone who tried would not even get a first hearing, let alone build a movement. Blind denial of the problem, burying one’s head in the sand and hoping the threat will go away, will not work either. That strategy has never succeeded in the past and is a conscious, deliberate refusal to engage in the controversy. Neither can we simply (and passively) allow “advancement” without making some sort of effort to bring it under control. How, then, is this to be accomplished?
I’ll be honest. I can’t recommend a ten-step program or a government initiative. I have no simple solutions to an increasingly complex problem, but I suspect that, eventually, an answer will arise which incorporates the practice of love, Christ-like love as its beginning point. When Google actually practices its erstwhile motto instead of using it as a sentimental touchy-feely slogan, then we will be on the right track and headed in the right direction.
“Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains.”
Even if we forgo some short term gains. This is the sticking point. Getting beyond the drive for corporate quarterly profits is going to be difficult.
“When the power of love becomes greater than the love of power, then the world will know peace.” — Jimi Hendrix
When the power of love, real love, becomes the abiding principle of the general pool of mankind, then technology which concentrates power into the hands of a few well-connected oligarchs and the system they own will no longer be used to hold people hostage to it. Perhaps. It is a real stretch to even imagine such a system, however, there may come a time when data entered into a website is NOT used in an offensive manner against the person who has logged into the system. There is absolutely no reason why this cannot be done except that the love of money (and everything which accompanies it) is still the dominant paradigm, the root of all evil. When people stop trying to use money and power over others to benefit themselves and start using money and power to help others within the context of sacrificial love, then we have a shot at resolving this issue.
Technology is not the problem. Human nature is and, if the message of Christianity is valid, then we have a King Who specializes in correcting human nature. The length of time it takes to bring this about is irrelevant because He has all eternity to work with.
- Notice that even here, we are bound under the spell of the dilemma. It is so easy to go to Amazon to buy a book which attempts to explain the reason why we shouldn’t go to Amazon to buy a book. Yet, it might be similar to the principle of jiu jitsu: Use your opponent’s strength against him. I’ve got no better explanation. ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski ↩︎
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