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Episode #461 - Technology and Control - The Paradise that Never Came (Ascent of Humanity #1) |
| ⌚ Mon 4 May 2009 ☻Smári McCarthy, Charles Eisenstein (reading) |
 Download Hour1 Download Hour2This week on the show we'll continue to explore visions of human society more congenial to our highest aspirations as well as our most basic needs. |
Then we begin reading from the Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein. Chapter 1 begins with a section entitled "Gee Whiz — The Future!" about the religion of technology and control, the unifying principle beneath humanities diverse crises.
 For at least 200 years now, futurists have been predicting the imminent rise of a technological utopia, drawing on the premise that technology will free humankind from labor, suffering, disease, and possibly even death. Underlying this view is a defining story of our civilization: that science has brought us from a state of ignorance to an increasing understanding of the physical universe, and that technology has brought us from a state of dependency on nature's whims to an increasing mastery of the material world. Someday in the future, goes the story, our understanding and control will be complete.
At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, it seemed obvious that the Age of Coal would usher in a new era of leisure. In one industry after another, a machine was able to "do the work of a thousand men". Soon the day would come when all work was mechanized: if a machine could do the work of a thousand men, then it stood to reason that each man would have only to work one-thousandth as hard. |
Thanks to Sheffield Indymedia
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