Abstract
Who in the past made those choices that shape the technologically dominated world of today? No one voted to build superhighways, to market robot room vacuums, or generate nuclear power. Yet as individuals in society, we find ourselves situated with and paying for these entities, either now or later. Other innovations are always already on the way. Is “progress” simply a consequence of some technological imperative? Not surprisingly, the cultural response to the distinctly uneasy relationship we have with our technology has been to create mythic projections. This chapter explores the economic and techno-science fiction in Robert Sheckley’s Cost of Living, a very short story from 70 years ago with considerable relevance to human existence in the technologized world of today and tomorrow.
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Kranc, S.C. (2023). “The Cost of Living” in a Technologized World. In: Fritzsche, A., Santa-María, A. (eds) Rethinking Technology and Engineering. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25233-4_18
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