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In today's society, manual tasks have become automated. Digital communication devices have connected people across the globe. Medications and surgeries have lessened symptoms of illnesses, delayed uncomfortable bodily functions such as periods, improved appearances, etc

Without modern technology, modern people would not survive

But are there philosophies that disapprove of modern technology and medicine no matter how "effective" they have been?

ActualCry
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In this video,Prof. Susanne Claxton on the Late Heidegger, Prof Claxton describes Heidegger's reservations with technology as a Gestell, an enframing and rigidity which prevents new thinking. This also carries over to societal values.

Chris Degnen
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I don't disapprove of technology, but I certainly think that it is very foolish to depend on it without knowing how it works. This raises the issue that there is already vastly too much for any one person to really understand. The trope in Star Trek that if necessary, the Captain knows how to jerry rig any of the systems and get the ship out of danger singlehandedly is probably a forlorn hope even on a modern warship.

I once started a car with a pencil one frigid evening long ago, but I might no longer be able to do that. I have argued elsewhere that computer programmers should really have an understanding of all levels of the machine and its environment, and been roundly shouted down.

So apparently most people have no problem with humanity shivering in the parking lot when there is a pencil right there, so to speak. But that isn't exactly what you asked. I have the opposite opinion, clearly, and I am unanimous in that.

Scott Rowe
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  • I guess the idea of a Right To Repair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_repair in consumer goods, & inteligible intelligence in algorithms, might fit what you're talking about. There's the idea of people knowing enough to restart society, symbolised by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones & the Global Village Construction Set project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Ecology – CriglCragl Nov 04 '22 at 22:22
  • @CriglCragl Perhaps I am too pessimistic, but it seems to me that if we have to restart society, we should just realize that it was a failed experiment and accept defeat. What would we be hoping would be different the next time around? Human nature? Intelligence? It is like the book Galapagos. – Scott Rowe Nov 04 '22 at 23:35
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    The Anthropocene is just another extinction event. All the future cares about is which replicators replicate. It's fine to give up. That means being a pattern that ceases. There will be patterns that remain, though. I see 'intelligible intelligence' as a mirror - are we an algorithm that can understand itself, or not? That's key to not getting locked in to conditioning by our history. – CriglCragl Nov 05 '22 at 02:05
  • @CriglCragl Yes, mirrors are a powerful metaphor. Understanding oneself is definitely the way to improve. I call being lost in ego "the Hall of Mirrors", and Nonduality "stepping through the mirror" (not in the Alice in Wonderland sense though). I don't see large numbers of people getting interested in Nonduality, but info about it is certainly available to find. In the book The Vision, Tom Brown Jr says that maybe only a small proportion of people will survive some future catastrophe. – Scott Rowe Nov 05 '22 at 12:20