{"id":1175,"date":"2009-04-26T02:33:09","date_gmt":"2009-04-26T06:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2009-04-25T23:33:13","modified_gmt":"2009-04-26T06:33:13","slug":"comment-on-kevin-kellys-4-arguments-against-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2009\/04\/26\/comment-on-kevin-kellys-4-arguments-against-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Comment on Kevin Kelly&#8217;s &#8220;4 Arguments Against Technology&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just responded to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kk.org\/\">Kevin Kelly<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvardbusiness.org\/now-new-next\/2009\/04\/4-arguments-against-technology.html\">4 Arguments Against Technology<\/a>. He&#8217;s compiling a list, which he wants to flesh out &#8211; so that he can write better arguments in defense of technology. So far he has 1. Contrary to nature; 2. Contrary to humans; 3. Contrary to technology itself; 4. Contrary to God. <\/p>\n<p>I added the following, which (in keeping with the &#8220;contrary&#8221; theme) could perhaps be dubbed &#8220;Contrary to staying the same&#8221;: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Another anti-technology argument I&#8217;ve sensed is that technology brings change, and therefore is destabilizing. Technology is opposed because, by facilitating change, it appears to destabilize important things like community, shared history, relationships.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Facilitating change&#8221; is another aspect of innovation. We can&#8217;t live without it, but people love it and hate it simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p>Why would people be uncomfortable about change? (My field is, loosely, urban ecologies, where the change-hating species NIMBY is well-represented, so I run into the anti-change way of thinking all the time&#8230;) I think change swings both ways: toward growth or toward decay. The problem is that we reach a certain age and think we can have stasis (no change). But stasis just masks decay (which is bad change). Of course stasis (masked decay) can look so much more comfy than growth (which takes work, but is good change). Growth or decay, life or death: stasis is not an option. <\/p>\n<p>Biology, perhaps, is nature&#8217;s technology?<\/p>\n<p>Technology is a constant reminder (because it facilitates change) of the two options (growth or decay), both of which are painful (although growth is better). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just responded to Kevin Kelly&#8216;s 4 Arguments Against Technology. He&#8217;s compiling a list, which he wants to flesh out &#8211; so that he can write better arguments in defense of technology. So far he has 1. Contrary to nature; 2. Contrary to humans; 3. Contrary to technology itself; 4. Contrary to God. I added [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[358,678,259],"tags":[64758,5700,142],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comments","category-ideas","category-innovation","tag-innovation","tag-kevin_kelly","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}