What is Technology? (Contraslop, Part 1)

Technological determinism – the idea that there is some solid, continuous thing called technology and that this force, this entity, is the protagonist of our historical drama and the mainspring behind other kinds of change – is a false idea. It’s a hobgoblin in a lab coat, or maybe a black turtleneck. There is no prewritten plan for technology, and I’d argue that it’s silly to talk about one form of technology being more advanced than another unless there’s a direct connection.

Cameron SummersJune 19, 2024Information Technology, Large Language Models, David Graeber, Ed ZitronComment

In the Empire of Empty Ghosts: On and Against the Emerging New Dualism (Odd Columns, #8)

The solid and the ethereal, though, have traded traits, and the result is something new and unfamiliar. We no longer have the “spiritual” and the “material” – I would argue that what we have is the “informational” and the “totemic”.

Analysis, Written by: Cameron, Odd Columns, PhilosophyCameron SummersFebruary 19, 2021Ontology, Epistemology, Information Technology, Informational and Totemic, Rene Descartes, PhilosophyComment