Utopia, Techtopia or Dystopia? None of the Above.
We humans have an odd penchant for catastrophizing our species and our world. While we also like to tell stories about a coming, possible utopia and lots of stories about a coming dystopia, or that we’re already in a dystopia. We aren’t. Of more recent times, there is talk of a techtopia. These topics make for some interesting memes, debates, movies, books and so on. None of them will come to be.
Technologies play an important role in these narratives as well. Perhaps never more so than today as we bring techtopia into the mix. Which is interesting in and of itself. In this article, I will briefly explore (because this isn’t a book), what these terms mean with a technology lens, since I’m a technology anthropologist, so, hammer nail thing.
A Quick Definition of Utopia, Dystopia and Techtopia
Why do we, as a species, love to catastrophise anyway? It bears understanding as it sets the stage for the three main subjects here, even a utopia. Which would be, in a very real sense, a dystopia.
Humans catastrophise as a society and individually. On an individual level, sociologists and psychologists believe this can be from traumatic experiences, our cultural and social influences and things like cognitive distortion. Societally, it can be a sort of…
