The Very Human Nature of Technology
And how it became Anti-Human
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, “Wind, Sand and Stars”
There was a time when society as a whole was excited and invigorated by new technology. The world fair in 1900 Paris took place at a time called la belle époque--the beautiful period--and people from around the world, flocked to see the latest advancements in technology. It was when the Eiffel Tower was first displayed, the first moving picture was shown and spectacles of light and new art decorated the city like the grand star that it was.
New was not a bad word.
New today drips with pessimism and inspires nothing but black-mirror-esque horror shows. “Ah, sweet manmade horrors beyond our imagination” is the family guy meme that conceals, under its humour, how the collective has come to hate new technology, while at the same time feeling ineluctably ruled by it like a heavy and unimpeachable force of nature.
This is because technology today is no longer made with the same spirit that invigorated the Wright Brothers or inspired Da Vinci: where once it helped us live, today it helps us die. Why does this happen? It is not that technology has suddenly become evil, it is that the philosophy that inspired man has become rotten.
If Technology is natural, why does it so often feel “inhuman”?