{"id":497,"date":"2018-06-06T00:24:01","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T00:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/?p=497"},"modified":"2018-06-06T00:24:01","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T00:24:01","slug":"technological-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/2018\/06\/technological-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Technological Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Over at his excellent blog on technology and ethics, \u201cThe Frailest Thing,\u201d Michael Sacasas argues<\/a> that \u201cthe cyborg discourse\u201d is useless. I would like to argue that it can be useful.<\/p>\n

Sacasas\u2019s post is a response to Ben Tarnoff and Moira Weigel\u2019s critique<\/a> of \u201ctech humanism.\u201d According to Tarnoff and Weigel, the proposals of tech humanists (who are recovering<\/a> tech utopianists) don\u2019t go far enough. Calls for better\u2014i.e., not manipulative\u2014design will simply lead to profitable improvements rather than \u201cmeaningful reform.\u201d Asking whether or not these improvements will be more human<\/em> shifts the focus from penultimate concerns about better technology to ultimate concerns about what it means to be a human being.<\/p>\n

And this is Tarnoff and Weigel\u2019s deeper criticism of tech humanism\u2014its vision of humanity. The desire of tech humanists \u201cto align humanity and technology,\u201d Tarnoff and Weigel claim, \u201cis based on a deep misunderstanding of the relationship between humanity and technology: namely, the fantasy that these two entities could ever exist in separation.\u201d<\/p>\n

An alternative vision, which Tarnoff and Weigel say is \u201cboth truer to the history of our species and useful for building a more democratic future,\u201d understands humans as beings \u201cwhose capacities are shaped by the tools they use. It sees us as hybrids of animal and machine\u2014as \u2018cyborgs.\u2019\u201d Technology needs to be understood as an integral part of what it means to be human, and therefore \u201cthe power to shape how we live with technology should be a fundamental human right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cPose
\u201cPose here for your Borg photo,\u201d from \u201cStar Trek: Exploring New Worlds,\u201d MoPOP (2016)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sacasas claims this cyborg discourse is useless \u201cbecause it gets us nowhere\u201d:<\/p>\n

By itself it offers no practical wisdom. It offers no critical tools to help us judge, weigh, or evaluate. We\u2019ve always been cyborgs, you say? Fine. How does this help me think about any given technology? How does this help me evaluate its consequences?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like tech humanism, or its antecedent tech utopianism, the cyborg discourse by itself\u00a0<\/em>is limited\u2014and, as Sacasas notes, it is as capable of being appropriated, absorbed, and abused as any other discourse.<\/p>\n

But I do think it is useful. As I noted in a previous post<\/a> (citing Ron Cole-Turner<\/a>), technology had a significant role in human evolution\u2014enabling us to become human as well as more human. The evolutionary cyborg narrative gives us access to past wisdom about how humans and technology have evolved together, which can inform current wisdom about how we may best evolve with new technology. The cyborg narrative also helps us think about how an intentional and integrative relationship with technology may shape narratives about human futures.<\/p>\n

In her The Future: A Very Short Introduction<\/em>, Jennifer Gidley identifies two contrasting Enlightenment visions for human futures: a technological vision, represented by Julien Offray de La Mettrie\u2019s Man as Machine <\/em>(1746), and a humanistic vision, represented by Johann Gottfried Herder\u2019s This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity<\/em>\u00a0(1774). Gidley traces the trajectories of these visions into two competing narratives of transhumanism. One is the \u201ctecho-transhumanist<\/a> claim that superhuman powers can only be reached through technological, biological, or genetic enhancement.\u201d The other narrative is about the continuing evolution of human consciousness and intelligence, and the realization of \u201cthe superhuman potential already within us.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Gidley, these are the options<\/a> before us:<\/p>\n

We can continue to invest heavily in technotopian dreams of creating machines that can operate better than humans. Or we can invest more of our consciousness and resources on education and consciously evolving human futures with all the wisdom that would entail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the cyborg narrative is reduced to an extreme form of posthumanism, or a form of existence in which a human being is reduced to or superseded by a machine, then I would agree with Sacasas that \u201cit is worse than useless.\u201d But if the cyborg narrative can help inform narratives about a better human future and world, then it should be useful as we seek to answer the ultimate question: What are people for?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Competing narratives of human and technological evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[113,110,104,107],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cyborgs","tag-posthumanism","tag-tech-humanism","tag-transhumanism"],"yoast_head":"\nTechnological Transformation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Exploring competing narratives of human and technological evolution.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/2018\/06\/technological-transformation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Technological Transformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Exploring competing narratives of human and technological evolution.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/2018\/06\/technological-transformation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Digital Wisdom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-06T00:24:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/files\/2018\/06\/Borg-Pose-768x1024.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael Paulus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@mjpaulusjr\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael Paulus\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/2018\/06\/technological-transformation\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/2018\/06\/technological-transformation\/\",\"name\":\"Technological Transformation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-06T00:24:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-06-06T00:24:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/#\/schema\/person\/f2b1ab370cd4dda7608f6165567c80f2\"},\"description\":\"Exploring competing narratives of human and technological evolution.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/2018\/06\/technological-transformation\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/2018\/06\/technological-transformation\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/2018\/06\/technological-transformation\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Technological Transformation\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/\",\"name\":\"Digital Wisdom\",\"description\":\"Reflecting on Theology and Technology in the Digital Age\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/#\/schema\/person\/f2b1ab370cd4dda7608f6165567c80f2\",\"name\":\"Michael Paulus\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/digitalwisdom\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f2d029e3d8979e0a51c36d40c3a999b6?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f2d029e3d8979e0a51c36d40c3a999b6?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Michael Paulus\"},\"description\":\"Michael Paulus is University Librarian, Assistant Provost for Educational Technology, and Director and Associate Professor of Information Studies at Seattle Pacific University. 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