Is Technology Neutral?

...or is it inherently 'bad'?

Vote and discuss...

So no possibility of it being good then...

is it fuck!!!

my toaster has just opened up a sweatshop in my kitchen and has managed to turn my pasta into a proto proletariat, tho the toaster thinks its the shit at the moment my teapot is rapidly catching up by imposing iron discipline on the tea bags who have been forcefully cleared form the cupboard and are now forced to work long hours with no union rights.

the toaster is really feeling the heat as it can't compete with the teapot because the pasta has become increasingly organised and militant, meanwhile the teapot has imperial ambitions and the kettle is looking very nervous after the teapot called it black.

fuck im bored

If I can play d.a for a sec, I'm guessing the question is mostly directed at the primitivists. I think non-primitivists by and large see technology as inherently neutral, the 'good' or 'bad' coming from it will depend on how it is utilised.

So yeah, technology can be good, but I believe its inherently neutral. Although apparently Revol68's kitchen is an interesting little exception to this rule.

***********update **********update**********

Teapot has annexed the Belgian chocolate. Toaster declares war on Teapot.

Foodstuff proletarian leaders fail to stop the lurch into barbarism.

Pasta and teabags led into wholesale slaugther.

revol68 is that actually your reaction to it, im guessing your attempting to rip it out of primmie tech arguments seeing as your are so anti-primmie.

i cant see how people cant see that so much, if not all of tech has negative effects on the earth.

Technology is no more than the person that uses it, isnt it?

As far as i can see, Revol is talking about some kind of cold war between household appliances. The sandwich maker would truly be a fearsome foe.... Im being deliberately shallow you know!

sorry but the sandwhich maker is stilll stuck in a pseudo feudalism under a colonial regime, tho ur correct! if its potential was to burst free from the yoke of imperialism it would be an incredible foe.. as such both the teapot and the toaster have carved it up for themselves!

rumours have it that sandwhich maker nationalism is on the rise, tho certain ultra leftists have pointed out that this will do nothing for the rapidly developing bread proletariat and that national liberation is just a nice name for class collaboration.

much as i think a good point's being made by the 'the oppression of the toaster' stuff (let's face it some of the primitivist stuff is just bollocks) technology is not neutral. For starters most of the stuff the arms industy comes up with do not have socially useful applications!

Not in terms of what its developed to do, no. But the technology behind it could potentially have potential outside of military use. Essentially technology is there to be utilised, for good or bad, and until it is then it is neutral.

PS, is the Sandwich toaster Iraq?

Well we all know that the teapot is master in the UK.

Anyway, I think technology is a useful tool of society, for example would you really want to be without hospital equipment? It may be alienating, but technology is fucking useful, except for the whole blowing people up thing and distracting us.

Well maybe the point is more "technology is here to stay". You cant just un-make it, and you can't live in the past. If you didnt use technology, then someone else would, to your detriment. This is particuarly true for anarchists, it would be very easy for a unitary capitalist state to destroy a decentralised anarchist federation, espescially if the federation were refusing to make weapons and bullets on the grounds that "technology is an evil in itself."

you silly muppets the teapot was Kaiser germany and the toaster was Britain.

im off to another forum where my art is appreciated u uncultured plebs, apparently the SWP are looking to hire a fulltime sense of humour they fuckin need it! so im off to see Lindsey German, probably try and shag me she will cos im such a big manly hunk beast.

i pity the fool who thinks the teapot is britain.

Of course technology is neutral, all inanimate things are neutral. Good and bad are just human concepts anyway. Plus, the world would really suck without modern medical technology.

Some technolgy can only be used for bad. Or do nuclear warheads have a peaceful application i'm not aware of?

yes... they can be used as cat toys.... granted you need to rub them with a bit of catnip first.

My cats love thier ICBMs

Revol68, I've looked over your posts and it seems that your entire existence is consumed with being anti this and anti that. What are you for, why and how will it work?

The anarchists who feel technology is not neutral are arguing that technology requires massive organizations of thousands of people. They feel that anarchism works best on the small-scale and that huge organizations are verticaly structured in nature. Could a car company operate on consensus?

Also, technological society requires all sorts of dependence on others...The oil rich countries that withhold your supply of oil could easily manipulate you if you don't have these and other resources in your backyard. That was the case that Japan found itself in before Pearl Harbor. These and other reasons are gone over at: http://www.eco-action.org/dt/primer.html . If you wish to attack AP, then please find a quote on primitivism.com, or from other internationally known authors and work on discrediting their arguments.

the idea that anarchism only works on a small scale is exactly the kind of bullshit that we should be arguing against. and the social nature of modern means of production is what requires its operation thru co operative/communist means.

anarchism on a small scale would be horrible provincial and would be open to moral authoritarianism.

and it is pretty obvious that im in favour of a world wide federation of workers councils and regiobnal communes.

also the basis of internatiobnalism is that no one region or area is self reliant, the global nature on modern production is what allows the working class to organise on a global scale ..

ur arguments have just reinforced my view that primivitism has nothing to offer the working class...

go fuck ur self hippy

hows that for a positive contribution..

Choice quotes from Zerzan:

"Industrialism is inherently patriarchal because it is essentially anti-life and objectifying by its very nature."

“my tentative position is that only a rejection of symbolic culture [that is, language] provides a deep enough challenge to what stems from that culture.”

“only a politics that undoes language and time and is thus visionary to the point of voluptuousness has any meaning.”

fuck zerzan truly is a fuckin muppet. if its a choice between fascist rule under technology or primivitism then measure me up for one of those nice brown shirts.

seems like it wasn't so much eating the apple as even talking about it that was our origional sin.

why hasn't someone shot that fuck yet??

Nah mate, it was symbolising it as seperate thing in our mind that was the problem...

industrialisation is inherently patriarchial especially when it has help provide women with control over reproduction.

i swear the cia couldnt come up with a better campaign of disinformation than what primivitists put out.

god damnit i cannot believe that people think this reactionary bullshit has anything to offer anarchism and more importantly the working class in general... its the rantings of a bunch of pampered westerners who romanticise primitive life styles whilst having no intention of actually living it.

i cant wait till we are all running around shitting ourselves when theres thunder and dying by the thousands when there is a natural disaster or famine.. be fuckin great im telling ye... survival of the fittest... only us humans will have deliberately handicapped ourselves by destroying what makes us human our ability to shape the environment.

the very idea that we will unlearn language is beyond stupid.

year zero yippee!!!!

Reading some of the primmie cack, i can only conclude that they've somehow managed to do this already.

just been to that website and have tosay im impressed....

oh wait its the biggest pile of vague bullshit ive ever read!!!

"However, research has revealed that many diseases are the results of civilized living conditions, and if these conditions were abolished, then certain types of pain, illness and disease could disappear"

and exactly how will a rejection of technlogy and civilisation stop the spread of aids??? many diseases may have developed alongside civilisation (actually they develop in relation to specific circumstancesie urbanistion, not vague abstract concepts like civilisation) but diseases are living viruses and won't go away just cause we all decide to put away our technology and be one with nature.

Actually the idea of being one with nature shows just how reactionary primivitism is!! it restates that somehow humans can seperate ourselves from nature in the first place!! it doesnt matter if we are running around in hover boards we are stillpart of nature, it if wasnt natural it couldnt possibly exist!!!

by asserting that certain things are natural and that we should live in balance with our natures it revamps the reactionary ideas of a static and core human nature which is bullshit!! our desires and our needs are socially shaped not stationary.

this kida shit is the reason why i think all anarchists should read some marx at least, os the very point of his theory is to undermine bullshit like this.

also anarcho primivitists see to think that all power is bad, this is dogmatic and ignorant however it seems that plenty of anrchists can be just as bad, as they are when it comes to things like leadership. We need to realise that these relationships exist and that we should be addressing them in a libertarian manner rather than resorting to dogmatic bullshit.

ill be honest im not exactly the most gren minded anarchist but i know that this kinda shit does nothing for the ecological movement whatsoever.

s for the fifth estate well that jouranl is the biggest pile of pseudo revolutionary wank ive ever read!!!!

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I'm not going to defend JZ's comments on language. Neither would many primitivists. But back to the question of technology and civilization.

The current epoch we're in spreads disease faster than any other before it.

In the past, the conquistadors brought all sorts of diseases, associated with the domestication of animals, to the new world by boat. Now, as with HIV possibly, they can cross the Atlantic in a few hours by plane. In Asia HIV has spread primarily through needles and sex tourists and girls whose great ancestors probably lived much better than they do. In Southern Africa HIV has spread through desperately poor women selling themselves to migrant workers travelling the new roads.

In small gatherer/hunter groups without domesticated animals, with a secure, diverse food supply, and having limited contact with other tribes, its likely that diseases would appear and spread very slowly.

yes i am well aware that aspects of civilisation have spread disease but the problem is u can't back date it, aids is on every continent (well im not sure bout antartica) rejecting technology and civilisation is not going to put the genie back in the lamp.. my question is how will primitivism help stop its spread??

a secure food supply ?? is that agriculture, is that surpluses to see the tribe/group through harsh winters or crop failure isnt that the basis of civilisation and our alienation from nature??

Revol68, I don't have any ideas on how to completely stop the spread of AIDS. If you do, please notify the BBC. The point I was making is that in a primitive society a diseased person would likely give their disease to fewer people and in a much smaller geographic area. In some instances a band of primitives afflicted by a disease might have died out in the wilderness without passing it on to other tribes or animal populations.

No, mass starvation is the defining trait of an agricultural society. If you're in Belfast, maybe your grandparents can tell you stories of what their grandparents went through...Crop disease, drought, floods can all be catastrophic for a sedentary population of farmers. Nomads merely traveled to greener pastures and ate what was in abundance. Here's an article that elaborates on these points and expands on why humans are so plagued by disease nowdays: http://primitivism.com/sedentism.htm