nathan on tech

via bsky post [https://bsky.app/profile/ntnsndr.social.coop.ap.brid.gy/post/3mpoyltywpaw2]:

Technology as “an all-purpose agent of change”: nathanschneider.info/2026/07/tech…

notes/quotes from his july 2026 article [https://nathanschneider.info/2026/07/technology-as-an-all-purpose-agent-of-change/]:

Technology as “an all-purpose agent of change”

One thing I’ve noticed among my students is the use of the word technology as a kind of god-like force. Firstly, they use this extremely broad term to refer to a rather specific set of phenomena—more or less, the things that happen on Internet-connected smartphones or laptops. Secondly, they attribute to it *a sort of power and agency that, I fear, reduces the space of their own power and agency.

true.. we need tech as it could be.. to do the thing we can’t seem to do.. ie: nonjudgmental expo labeling as a means to legit augmenting interconnectedness

On this point, I’m grateful to a recent footnote from L. M. Sacasas for giving an extended quotation from the final paragraph of Leo Marx’s 2010 essay “Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept.” The passage follows a meticulous exploration of just how recent and particularly modern it is to speak of technology at all. (It turns out the name of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology helped establish it as a household word.) The quotation bears repeating here:

Technology, as such, makes nothing happen. By now, however, the concept has been endowed with a thing-like autonomy and a seemingly *magical power of historical agency. We have made it an all-purpose agent of change. As compared with other means of reaching our social goals, the technological has come to seem the most feasible, practical, and economically viable. **It relieves the citizenry of onerous decision-making obligations and intensifies their gathering sense of political impotence. ***The popular belief in technology as a—if not the—primary force shaping the future is matched by our increasing reliance on instrumental standards of judgment, and a corresponding neglect of moral and political standards, in making judgments about the direction of society. ****To expose the hazards embodied in this pivotal concept is a vital responsibility of historians of technology.

*again.. could be this.. if we let go enough to trust it as tech w/o judgment

**we do need this.. ie: how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..

***exactly.. to the ‘reliance on judgment/standards/directions’ ness.. they are ****the hazards rather than the tech.. there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake.. and we’re missing it

mufleh humanity law: we have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity– Luma Mufleh.. et al..

nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)

the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]

I wish I had had this passage on hand when working on my paper about “Innovation Amnesia.” *Innovation amnesia is the phenomenon of forgetting pre-existing rules and power structures when a novel technology comes along. **(Think: Uber bypassing taxi regulations because it is an app, or cryptocurrency bypassing securities regulations because it is on the Internet.) This phenomenon, in turn, depends upon the kind of culture that Marx here describes—one in which, “as compared with other means of reaching our social goals, the technological has come to seem the most feasible, practical, and economically viable. It relieves the citizenry of onerous decision-making obligations and intensifies their gathering sense of political impotence.”

*which is why we need tech as it could be.. to let go of (**to bypass) any form of m\a\p

*There are two moves at once at work: the creeping belief that technology is the only efficacious path to social change, and the subsequent and **pernicious relief that we no longer need to do the hard work of collective governance. These combine into a self-reinforcing pattern: political deskilling leads to an ever greater reliance on technological gods to do ***the work of problem-solving for us.

*well.. it is.. because 1\ imagine a turtle and 2\ what we need most/1st: the energy of 8b alive people.. for that .. humanity needs a leap.. to get back/to simultaneous spontaneity .. simultaneous fittingness.. everyone in sync.. because it has to be all of us for the dance to dance

**the pernicious ness (cancerous distraction) is in thinking a legit change ie: takes a lot of work et al

***exactly our ‘problem’.. we don’t know/grok the center of problem..

we need a problem deep enough to resonate w/8b today.. via a mechanism simple enough to be accessible/usable to 8b today.. in an ecosystem open enough to set/keep 8b legit free

ie: org around a problem deep enough (aka: org around legit needs) to resonate w/8b today.. via a mechanism simple enough (aka: tech as it could be) to be accessible/usable to 8b today.. and an ecosystem open enough (aka: sans any form of m\a\p) to set/keep 8b legit free

This pattern is alive and well in today’s AI discourse. Politics has failed to solve the climate crisis, so now we need energy-guzzling data centers to somehow solve it for us. Politics has failed to address economic injustice, but agentic workers will produce such phenomenal abundance that the problem will go away.

all irrelevant s to root of problem.. so cancerous distractions

The same is also true about the dystopian visions. Don’t worry about the politics of arms races or military interventions, because the real threat is autonomous robots. Don’t worry about the new colonialism of data extraction and digital labor exploitation, because the real problem is a rogue AI killing us all with a bioweapon.

I am not suggesting that computers could not possibly be *assistive in addressing climate change or that we should ignore the possibilities of so-called “existential risk.” **What endangers human well-being most is the erosion of political agency. If people lacked the capacity to address climate change politically before the AI energy boom, can we really expect to tackle it after? If we can’t mobilize to pass regulations against discrimination and surveillance by social media companies, what makes us think we can do it for even wealthier AI companies?

*again.. irrelevant to root of problem.. so cancerous distraction

**rather.. agency itself.. we have to let go of all the irrelevants (ie: political ness; et al) if we want to get to root of problem

As a new paper by Janet Vertesi et al. has pointed out, the political economy of the AI industry depends on the use of rhetorical “decoys”—*fake problems we cannot solve that distract us from the real ones we can. This is just one technique among many by which the broad, god-like conception of technology continually **gets in the way of people solving problems with each other, and it tricks us into thinking that we won’t need to.

*again.. all the irrelevants.. nothing to date has gotten to root of problem.. so all cancerous distractions

**and again.. exactly what we need.. something to help us quit obsessing over ‘solving problem ness’.. ie: gershenfeld something else law.. et al

perhaps let’s try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting/people telling other people what to do) as the planned obsolescence.. where legit needs are met w/o money/distractions/part\ial ness.. till people forget about measuring/’probem-solving ness’ et al..ie: sabbatical ish transition

the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]

there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of that global detox leap/dance..

ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition

otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..

note: on survival ness: survival is a means to survive things as they are.. so to me.. not a legit alt.. it’s triage.. perpetuating survival triage.. so a temp band aide per se.. that will /can help now.. but only for short term.. because it still doesn’t get to the root of the problem.. so it won’t offer/lead-to legit change/life/freedom.. et al.. so.. to me.. it’s still a cancerous distraction to the dance

findings from on the ground ness:

1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen

2\ if we create a way to facil the seeming chaos of 8b legit free people

With my students, I have stumbled on a useful protocol: Avoid, wherever possible, the word technology. Just don’t say it. As Leo Marx reminds us, we haven’t had it for most of human history. Instead, be more precise about what particular things or systems you are referring to. Perhaps that will dispel the god-like illusions and help us get back to the work of self-governing.

to me.. if it’s legit ‘self governing’ .. rather even deeper.. legit free people.. it won’t have anything to do with ‘work‘ ness