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Why Technological Determinism is Problematic
The technology determinism of Silicon Valley has failed society. New ways of thinking are emerging there and around the world.
Some coders will optimise their daily routines to eat only when and what is necessary to survive. Lost in days and weeks of coding to solve for a problem, mesmerised by the glow of their screens. While other tech entrepreneurs prophesy a future based on technological abundance. All technologies will solve all human problems. So far, they’ve failed to achieve this ideology of technological determinism. Yet there are signs this is changing. In a good way.
Perhaps those idealists of technological determinism are starting to awaken to the paradox of their philosophy. Surprisingly, they understand little of how the technologies they create, will affect humans theirs technologies are designed to serve. That deny it as they might, technology always has been and always will be decided by culture.
This blindspot has lead to the the mantra of “move fast and break things” to actually breaking the most important things in human societies. The rituals, behaviours, norms and customs that enable societies to function, as messy as that can be at times. We are, after all, human.
