View source for Technology and the Shape of Civilizations


=Discussion=

The Consilience Project on Technology, Ideology, and the Shape of Civilizations:

"Ideologies supporting the proliferation (and goodness) of technology began to drown out conservative (mostly religious) moral resistance by the 19th century. Instead, the zeitgeist shifted toward a faith in technology as either positive or neutral with regards to human nature. Contemporary techno-optimists[6] have continued with the ideology of the inherent positivity of technology, which is now further supported with a postmodern perspective that may be summarized as “skeptical of universal values in general.” The argument is that technologies are only as bad or good as the people who use them. Moreover, cross-cultural standards of value (good versus bad) are suspect in postmodernism—therefore considering technology in terms of values is itself questionable. According to this view, technology is about what works for everyone—universal functionality—rather than what is good for everyone—universal morality.

It may be reasonable to summarize Facebook’s approach as: “our technology connects people; what they do after that is up to them.”[7] This is an abnegation of responsibility for the impacts of technology. It is an ideology that places the onus of right action on “users” rather than on designers. But this kind of thinking is understandable and can be powerfully convincing under certain circumstances. When a technology is designed to solve a real and urgent problem, and it works as intended, it can result in widespread uptake among the population. This leads people to the understandable conclusion that it is a good thing. The goodness of the technology feels obvious, particularly when the second- and third-order effects that some users may experience only become evident later or in other domains. To many, it appears that the technology itself is not an issue—it is simply up to people to use it responsibly.

Throughout the technological acceleration of the 20th century, philosophers and designers questioned how to think about the interface between humans and technology. Following on from the realization that technologies are not values neutral, a relatively small group of theorists and innovators sought new ways of designing and using technologies. Theorists of technology such as Lewis Mumford and Langdon Winner foresaw the necessity of addressing the second- and third-order effects of technologies on individuals, cultures, and value systems[8]. Like most significant societal changes in worldview, these ideas were at first not widely known. But the trends we are experiencing today make this theory of technology design increasingly important.

These thinkers also clarified the crucial idea that technologies are not simple isolated things. Technologies are created and evolve together to form whole civilizations (see Box 1). It is important not to consider any technology as existing all by itself. Humans have come to live in massive networks of operationally related technologies, which have come to form whole ecologies and infrastructures supporting every aspect of conscious experience. Ultimately, this new human reality constitutes a technological epoch with distinct material characteristics and societal dynamics."

=Box: [[Layers of the Civilizational Tech-Stack]]=

The Consilience Project:

"Consider the categories below as overlapping; this overall model is only a heuristic. There are a variety of comparable stacks proposed in the academic literature, many of which have influenced the model presented here. This is not proposed as definitive, but as a useful set of orienting generalizations.


==Tools==

Human-scale artifacts, found or made, which augment individual and social practices: rocks, axes, forks, writing implements, etc.


==Technologies==

The application of complex (scientific) knowledge to solving problems, embedded in intentionally designed artifacts that are complicated enough to require engineering: waterwheel; steam engine; light bulb; refrigerator.


==Ecologies of technologies==

Sets of technologies that are symbiotically related and co-evolving as nested functional units: e.g., light bulb/lamp/power lines/transformers/power station; and microchip/hard drive/screen/mouse/modem/broadband/server banks.


==Infrastructures==

Multiple different ecologies of technology embedded together to form a basic part of social coordination and material reproduction within a society: supply chains, transportation systems, markets, communication systems.


==Technological epochs==

A duration of historical time characterized by a specific suite of infrastructures that are interrelated as the foundation of a social system. Epochs are marked by discontinuous breaks from prior infrastructures, and the emergent social dynamics resulting from new ones: e.g. pre-industrial; industrial; post-industrial."

(https://consilienceproject.org/technology-is-not-values-neutral-ending-the-reign-of-nihilistic-design-2/)

[[Category:Articles]]
[[Category:P2P Technology Theory]]
[[Category:Protocols and Algorithms]]
[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:Civilizational Analysis]]