“Let's separate the good parts of technology from the bad ones! ” (cliché no. 4)

Isn't that an act of faith, isn't that a prayer? like a: “God, please erase the evil from the world to leave only its beauty...”. And yet, the best thing to do is still to reveal the foundations of this cliché, which prevents so many people from opting for revolution.

I — Prelude to a perverse dichotomy

First of all, it is necessary to return to another dichotomy in which the present poncif is the legitimate heir, that existing between economic liberalism on one side and the cultural liberalism on the other (symbolized by the left-right division, already covered here).

We could summarize this division with a very simple creed: The rights offered by the left are just as many markets for the right to conquer.. Let's take two examples: 1/ surrogacy, presented as social progress, stimulates the economic field by commodification of the female body (while increasing scientific control over the body); 2/ the animalist perspective and the veganism of Bill Gates are all ethical options that benefit the soy and artificial meat industries. Let's do justice to Jean-Claude Michéa by quoting his words:

“The belief in the conservative nature of the economic and liberal order, over the last thirty years, has continued to lead most leftist activists to consider adopting any modernizing posture — whether on a technological, moral or other level — for a gesture that would always, and by definition, be “revolutionary”; a terrible confusion that, it is true, has always had the incomparable psychological advantage of allowing those who submitted to it to living their own obedience to the industrial order as an exemplary modality of “Rebel attitude”^[1].”

It is urgent to understand that the only purpose of the two branches of the political spectrum is to perpetuate the techno-industrial order, which is why we refuse to participate. After all, who would be crazy enough to believe in the fable of good liberalism? And what applies to the development of liberalism also applies to the development of the technological system, since the former is only one of the forms adopted by the latter.

II - The perverse dichotomy between good and bad technology

Applying a moral criterion to technology is already a problem in itself. The criterion of good or bad needs as much an object to which to be applied as a subject capable of expressing it. The good, as well as the bad, are only good in relation to the subject being expressed (“this is good for me”, “this is bad for me”). A fundamental question therefore arises: Who has an interest in the existence of “good” technology? In other words: Who benefits from crime?

Naivety would lead to the answer that “good” technology would benefit everyone equally, which would be an opportunity for another error in judgment. Indeed, to misunderstand empowering technology (its becoming independent of any human action or control) amounts to giving it less power than it really has; and to all those who would see it as a pure fantasy of S-F we remind you that AI is only the realization of this phenomenon of empowerment identified by Günther Anders and Jacques Ellul. What is sold to us as “good” technology should therefore be perceived as a survival strategy used by the technological system, to continue its growth and to make it accepted by those who would be likely to oppose it^[2]. In reality, whether the technology is green or dirty does not matter if, through it, technological alienation finds a way to survive.

Recall that technological development has long been considered synonymous with moral progress (one of those Marxist phrases that continue feverishly to be used, and where even great anarchists have lost their way). Of course, the simple observation of the present time is enough to disprove this. Again, it would be easy to blaming humans of the turn that technological evolution took, in contrast to the way in which Orwell thought at his level:

“When someone presents something to me as progress, I ask myself first and foremost whether it makes us more human or less human.^[3].”

III — Unity as the only mode of operation: advanced medicine AND the nuclear bomb.

Conceiving technology as a theoretical abstraction is in no way desirable, because its presence has invaded the space of our lives to the smallest corner. The concrete roads that cover the planet, the electricity pylons in the heart of forests and mountains, the solar panels in the middle of the desert, the microplastics in the bodies of all mammals, the waste treatment plants, the factories for the manufacture of future waste, the satellites in operation, the satellites in operation, the used satellites, the used satellites, the satellites used, the satellites used, the satellites used, the satellites used, the satellites used, the satellites used, the satellites planted on the roofs, the antennas planted on the roofs, their waves that prevent the ballet of birds, — continue the list yourself. Anyone who is a little careful can find that, taken in isolation, the parts of the technological system are unrecoverable. Complex technology, “good” or “bad”, systematically requires its share of titanic infrastructures and the perpetuation of the rampage on Earth.

Let us cite for example the manifesto of the Atelier Paysan:

“Technology is ambivalent, and produces both positive and negative effects simultaneously.. There is no longer any possible choice: agreeing to guide your harvester by GPS means creating new dependencies on the space industry and American geopolitics, it is subordinating your ability to produce to the goodwill of institutions that are so far removed from our capacity to intervene^[4].”

Or Aurélien Berlan, about the Internet:

“There are certainly good and bad uses of the Internet, but all presuppose the same energy-consuming and polluting production and connection infrastructure, and the same social organization based on hierarchy and the fragmentation of tasks. If we want to live in a fair, sustainable and free world, is it compatible with the gigantism and ecological predation that the computer industry supposes^[5] ? ”

In short, if there is a valid dichotomy, it is that between small-scale technology and technology dependent on an organization (§208 of Industrial society and its future^[6]). So let's make Aesop's words our own:

“Likewise for us: if we need to pray to the gods, we must nevertheless think of serving our own cause.^[7].”

If there is a prayer, let it not be used as an excuse.

R.F.