Martin Heidegger's explanation here gives a slightly more expansive view of technology that is not necessarily positive or negative, but also fits a bit more into the inter relational context that is sometime emphasized on this site
Why is technology not neutral?Heidegger strongly opposes the view that technology is “a means to an end” or “a human activity.” These two approaches, which Heidegger calls, respectively, the “instrumental” and “anthropological” definitions, are indeed “correct”, but do not go deep enough; as he says, they are not yet “true.” Unquestionably, Heidegger points out, technological objects are means for ends, and are built and operated by human beings, but the essence of technology is something else entirely. Just as the essence of a tree is not itself a tree, Heidegger points out, so the essence of technology is not anything technological.What, then, is technology, if it is neither a means to an end nor a human activity? Technology, according to Heidegger must be understood as “a way of revealing” (Heidegger 1977, 12). “Revealing” is one of the terms Heidegger developed himself in order to make it possible to think what, according to him, is not thought anymore. It is his translation of the Greek word alètheuein, which means ‘to discover’ – to uncover what was covered over. Related to this verb is the independent noun alètheia, which is usually translated as “truth,” though Heidegger insists that a more adequate translation would be “un-concealment.”How can technology be ‘a way of revealing’?What does this have to do with technology? And what does Heidegger mean when he says that technology is “a way of revealing”? Answering these questions requires a short but important detour. What we call “reality”, according to Heidegger, is not given the same way in all times and all cultures (Seubold 1986, 35-6). “Reality” is not something absolute that human beings can ever know once and for all; it is relative in the most literal sense of the word – it exists only in relations. Reality ‘in itself’, therefore, is inaccessible for human beings. As soon as we perceive or try to understand it, it is not ‘in itself’ anymore, but ‘reality for us.’This means that everything we perceive or think of or interact with “emerges out of concealment into unconcealment,” in Heidegger’s words. By entering into a particular relation with reality, reality is ‘revealed’ in a specific way. And this is where technology comes in, since technology is the way of revealing that characterises our time. Technology embodies a specific way of revealing the world, a revealing in which humans take power over reality. While the ancient Greeks experienced the ‘making’ of something as ‘helping something to come into being’ – as Heidegger explains by analysing classical texts and words – modern technology is rather a ‘forcing into being’. Technology reveals the world as raw material, available for production and manipulation.Why is technology not a human activity?According to Heidegger, there is something wrong with the modern, technological culture we live in today. In our ‘age of technology’ reality can only be present as a raw material (as a ‘standing reserve’). This state of affairs has not been brought about by humans; the technological way of revealing was not chosen by humans. Rather, our understanding of the world – our understanding of ‘being’, of what it means ‘to be’ – develops through the ages. In our time ‘being’ has the character of a technological ‘framework’, from which humans approach the world in a controlling and dominating way.This technological understanding of ‘being’, according to Heidegger, is to be seen as the ultimate danger. First of all, there is the danger that humans will also interpret themselves as raw materials. Note that we are already speaking about “human resources”! But most importantly, the technological will to power leaves no escape. If we want to move towards a new interpretation of being, this would itself be a technological intervention: we would manipulate our manipulation, exerting power over our way of exerting power. And this would only reconfirm the technological interpretation of being. Every attempt to climb out of technology throws us back in. The only way out for Heidegger is “the will not to will”. We need to open up the possibility of relying on technologies while not becoming enslaved to them and seeing them as manifestations of an understanding of being.
From Wikipedia
19th Century Ernst Kapp, Benjamin Franklin and Karl Marx.
2oth Cenuiry John Dewey, Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, Günther Anders and Hannah Arendt.
John Zerzan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zerzan
Ivan Illich,
Neil Postman
Theodore Roszak,
Lewis Mumford,
Popular critic
Douglass Rushkoff https://www.teamhuman.fm/
Contemparary
General list of technology philosophers
Jean Baudrillard,
Albert Borgmann,
Andrew Feenberg,
Langdon Winner,
Donna Haraway,
Avital Ronell,
Brian Holmes,
Don Ihde,
Bruno Latour,
Paul Levinson,
Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla,
Carl Mitcham,
Leo Marx,
Gilbert Simondon,
Lewis Mumford,
Jacques Ellul,
Bernard Stiegler,
Paul Virilio,
Günter Ropohl,
Nicole C. Karafyllis,
Richard Sennett
George Grant.
Günther Anders,
Jacques Ellul,
Chellis Glendinning
Lewis Mumford
Fredy Perlman,
Kirkpatrick Sale
David Watson
Joseph Weizenbaum,
Langdon Winner,
John Zerzan,
Risk is really a fairly non existent thing. At least completely subjective Objective frames cannot generally asses risk. Otherwise it is simple probability
Frohm and and Sheldon Wolin both seem to say the belonging to something great, like being a patriot, is part of authoritarian lure
reputation currencies
Technological advancement is helped by the previous technical advancement. This lends to the idea that capital investment drives technical research and an expanding economy, Criticism is that this does not actually answer the carrying capacity question also subjective experience is not necessarily expanded by better technology. we do not think better because of technological advance. Advance also brings unrecognized assumptions
If the poor cannot advance what about the idea that modern people have in a sense gone backward as they are now cut off from previous low tech economies
The family will respond to crisis. Historical claim that family decisions have always responded to existential economic concerns
connections to larger economy requires a more complicated analytical frame than does local economic transaction
Economics prior to 20th century had three categories land, labor and capital but land was removed by modern economists
holding charges and other incentives for landlords to rent
rent times 20 equal price?
Disability as it relates to race
subjective home value. If we accept the idea of value of building and land as separate then the value of moe is a combination of functional and aesthetic value. /this can be further derived to an individuals appreciation or value of that given structure. Digress, there is also a question of the lands value is a separate quality to the development of the land. If it is well landscaped that is value different than its contextual value of 'being in the area' which has a raised value
Tribal communications could evaluate and discuss the salient points being raised through their connection to the world. Is there not a problem or cultural posturing in saying the developing world is being deprived of an internet connection. And at the same time the meme seems to downplay the idea that developing or semi tribal socities may in some ways have better ways if communicating in a cultural ,social, and maybe even informational context. Could the internet still be a curse to the developing world
Should we not consider a social backoff in internet use, /informational use may be a different question
the urban versus rural question
Iis your attitude about what you think the future holds part of the present problem and open to change
Economics is generally couched as a battle or conflict for resources. But what about the question that the fundamental of economic goals is escape or distraction fro existence itself
assumption that state provides security or is it a threat to your security
In terms of the the third world coming up to speed to all be connected to the net. ? what if their were certain access points in the poor world
Tribal communications could evaluate and discuss the salient points being raised through their connection to the world. Is there not a problem or cultural posturing in saying the developing world is being deprived of an internet connection. And at the same time the meme seems to downplay the idea that developing or semi tribal socities may in some ways have better ways if communicating in a cultural ,social, and maybe even informational context. Could the internet still be a curse to the developing world
Why is technology not neutral?Heidegger strongly opposes the view that technology is “a means to an end” or “a human activity.” These two approaches, which Heidegger calls, respectively, the “instrumental” and “anthropological” definitions, are indeed “correct”, but do not go deep enough; as he says, they are not yet “true.” Unquestionably, Heidegger points out, technological objects are means for ends, and are built and operated by human beings, but the essence of technology is something else entirely. Just as the essence of a tree is not itself a tree, Heidegger points out, so the essence of technology is not anything technological.What, then, is technology, if it is neither a means to an end nor a human activity? Technology, according to Heidegger must be understood as “a way of revealing” (Heidegger 1977, 12). “Revealing” is one of the terms Heidegger developed himself in order to make it possible to think what, according to him, is not thought anymore. It is his translation of the Greek word alètheuein, which means ‘to discover’ – to uncover what was covered over. Related to this verb is the independent noun alètheia, which is usually translated as “truth,” though Heidegger insists that a more adequate translation would be “un-concealment.”How can technology be ‘a way of revealing’?What does this have to do with technology? And what does Heidegger mean when he says that technology is “a way of revealing”? Answering these questions requires a short but important detour. What we call “reality”, according to Heidegger, is not given the same way in all times and all cultures (Seubold 1986, 35-6). “Reality” is not something absolute that human beings can ever know once and for all; it is relative in the most literal sense of the word – it exists only in relations. Reality ‘in itself’, therefore, is inaccessible for human beings. As soon as we perceive or try to understand it, it is not ‘in itself’ anymore, but ‘reality for us.’This means that everything we perceive or think of or interact with “emerges out of concealment into unconcealment,” in Heidegger’s words. By entering into a particular relation with reality, reality is ‘revealed’ in a specific way. And this is where technology comes in, since technology is the way of revealing that characterises our time. Technology embodies a specific way of revealing the world, a revealing in which humans take power over reality. While the ancient Greeks experienced the ‘making’ of something as ‘helping something to come into being’ – as Heidegger explains by analysing classical texts and words – modern technology is rather a ‘forcing into being’. Technology reveals the world as raw material, available for production and manipulation.Why is technology not a human activity?According to Heidegger, there is something wrong with the modern, technological culture we live in today. In our ‘age of technology’ reality can only be present as a raw material (as a ‘standing reserve’). This state of affairs has not been brought about by humans; the technological way of revealing was not chosen by humans. Rather, our understanding of the world – our understanding of ‘being’, of what it means ‘to be’ – develops through the ages. In our time ‘being’ has the character of a technological ‘framework’, from which humans approach the world in a controlling and dominating way.This technological understanding of ‘being’, according to Heidegger, is to be seen as the ultimate danger. First of all, there is the danger that humans will also interpret themselves as raw materials. Note that we are already speaking about “human resources”! But most importantly, the technological will to power leaves no escape. If we want to move towards a new interpretation of being, this would itself be a technological intervention: we would manipulate our manipulation, exerting power over our way of exerting power. And this would only reconfirm the technological interpretation of being. Every attempt to climb out of technology throws us back in. The only way out for Heidegger is “the will not to will”. We need to open up the possibility of relying on technologies while not becoming enslaved to them and seeing them as manifestations of an understanding of being.
From Wikipedia
19th Century Ernst Kapp, Benjamin Franklin and Karl Marx.
2oth Cenuiry John Dewey, Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, Günther Anders and Hannah Arendt.
John Zerzan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zerzan
Ivan Illich,
Neil Postman
Theodore Roszak,
Lewis Mumford,
Popular critic
Douglass Rushkoff https://www.teamhuman.fm/
Contemparary
General list of technology philosophers
Jean Baudrillard,
Albert Borgmann,
Andrew Feenberg,
Langdon Winner,
Donna Haraway,
Avital Ronell,
Brian Holmes,
Don Ihde,
Bruno Latour,
Paul Levinson,
Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla,
Carl Mitcham,
Leo Marx,
Gilbert Simondon,
Lewis Mumford,
Jacques Ellul,
Bernard Stiegler,
Paul Virilio,
Günter Ropohl,
Nicole C. Karafyllis,
Richard Sennett
George Grant.
Günther Anders,
Jacques Ellul,
Chellis Glendinning
Lewis Mumford
Fredy Perlman,
Kirkpatrick Sale
David Watson
Joseph Weizenbaum,
Langdon Winner,
John Zerzan,
Risk is really a fairly non existent thing. At least completely subjective Objective frames cannot generally asses risk. Otherwise it is simple probability
Frohm and and Sheldon Wolin both seem to say the belonging to something great, like being a patriot, is part of authoritarian lure
reputation currencies
Technological advancement is helped by the previous technical advancement. This lends to the idea that capital investment drives technical research and an expanding economy, Criticism is that this does not actually answer the carrying capacity question also subjective experience is not necessarily expanded by better technology. we do not think better because of technological advance. Advance also brings unrecognized assumptions
If the poor cannot advance what about the idea that modern people have in a sense gone backward as they are now cut off from previous low tech economies
The family will respond to crisis. Historical claim that family decisions have always responded to existential economic concerns
connections to larger economy requires a more complicated analytical frame than does local economic transaction
Economics prior to 20th century had three categories land, labor and capital but land was removed by modern economists
holding charges and other incentives for landlords to rent
rent times 20 equal price?
Disability as it relates to race
subjective home value. If we accept the idea of value of building and land as separate then the value of moe is a combination of functional and aesthetic value. /this can be further derived to an individuals appreciation or value of that given structure. Digress, there is also a question of the lands value is a separate quality to the development of the land. If it is well landscaped that is value different than its contextual value of 'being in the area' which has a raised value
Tribal communications could evaluate and discuss the salient points being raised through their connection to the world. Is there not a problem or cultural posturing in saying the developing world is being deprived of an internet connection. And at the same time the meme seems to downplay the idea that developing or semi tribal socities may in some ways have better ways if communicating in a cultural ,social, and maybe even informational context. Could the internet still be a curse to the developing world
Should we not consider a social backoff in internet use, /informational use may be a different question
the urban versus rural question
Iis your attitude about what you think the future holds part of the present problem and open to change
Economics is generally couched as a battle or conflict for resources. But what about the question that the fundamental of economic goals is escape or distraction fro existence itself
assumption that state provides security or is it a threat to your security
In terms of the the third world coming up to speed to all be connected to the net. ? what if their were certain access points in the poor world
Tribal communications could evaluate and discuss the salient points being raised through their connection to the world. Is there not a problem or cultural posturing in saying the developing world is being deprived of an internet connection. And at the same time the meme seems to downplay the idea that developing or semi tribal socities may in some ways have better ways if communicating in a cultural ,social, and maybe even informational context. Could the internet still be a curse to the developing world