Our Technology Fetish

Weckert, John

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-75267-5_8

Our Technology Fetish

John Weckert¹⁷

Conference paper
First Online: 05 May 2022

Part of the Philosophical Studies Series book series (PSSP,volume 143)

Abstract

We have a technology fetish. That is, we have an excessive and irrational devotion or commitment to new technologies. This fetish matters. New technologies are too often developed and accepted with little critical thought. After a discussion of the fetish it will be argued that it is not inevitable and that something should be done about it because of potential harms. Finally, suggestions are made for alleviating the potential for those harms. Monitoring and surveillance technologies and artificial intelligence are used to illustrate the argument.

Keywords

Technological determinism
A good life
Paradigm
Gestalt switch
Indigenous society
Nature

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors of this volume and the anonymous reviews of this chapter for their helpful comments.

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Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia
John Weckert

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John Weckert
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Correspondence to John Weckert .

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The Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Dr. Björn Lundgren
Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
Dr. Nancy Abigail Nuñez Hernández

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Weckert, J. (2022). Our Technology Fetish. In: Lundgren, B., Nuñez Hernández, N.A. (eds) Philosophy of Computing. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 143. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75267-5_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75267-5_8
Published: 05 May 2022
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-75266-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-75267-5
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