Techonology ethusiasts, both on the woke as well as those on the archae-futurist side of things, believe that technology holds the keys for liberation of mankind from the grid that everyday life brings along with all of its associated problems. Namely the will to be free, of fraternity and true equality.
Let's take layman's view and see if there is any evidence if technology indeed does hold the keys to unlocking man's unending quest for liberty and fraternity?
Many futurists, archeo-futurists et al have this commonly held belief that greater technology is the key to most if not most of mankind's existential issues. These are issues beyond those of survival, such as equality, fraternity and liberty. While its a good way to approach things, the problem is that there nothing novel about this approach. Technologists have been telling us this story since the renaissance in Europe that with techonology comes freedom. In the industrial age, the serfs of Europe were promised heaven and beyond by the industrialists. The serfs took the bait, left their beauutiful countrside only to end up living in ghettos of Europe. They left the beautiful forests and functional communities only be worked 12-14 hours a day with a miserable life full of agony, pain and disease. Age old communities were broken up, only to be replaced by quaters where a form of neo-tribalism was enforced. The more powerful ones ended up becoming enforcers for the industtialists and others became loan sharks, preying on the needs if the I'll paid factory workers.
This carried on well into the the early part of the 19th century. It was only after constant protests, most of which included extreme violence against the protestinv working masses, against this unjust and unfair system did the 8+8+8, 5+2 system come into existence. Before the industrial workers could adjust themselves to the new reality of getting decent wages and reasonably good life, the industrial age morphed into the technological age. With this many of the working class people (including the Junior and middle management) found themselves out of jobs, with the manufacturing being shifted to countries where the cost of production was lower. Age old professions like coal mining and others were almost completely gone without any policy to bring new jobs to replace the old ones.
While India is still distant from the first phase of industrialization, the cities here are full of ghettos clusters known as jhuggis. Here people subsist in less than humane conditions, reminicent of the Europe's ghettos. Most of the dwellers are folks from the countryside or smaller towns who come to the city. The reasons can vary from bettering their economic prospects, loss of traditional sources of income, destruction of their natural habitat or just to escape persecution in their native rural communities, etc.. While I am not sure how many of them eventually "make it", what is certain is the level of their exploitation and pain. Being pushed to the wall, they end up in the hands of loan sharks to make up for their poor earnings, engaging substance abuse that they feel will ease their pain, spousal abuse and a facing a host of other existential issues. They're like the specters that need to run the cogs in the machine but no one wishes to come into contact with and thus remain largely invisible. This is the reality of the existence of majority of the industrial workers. The petty bourgouis existence isn't much better, but that's for another discussion.
Modernists believe that with techonology, all of these issues will be solved somehow. People will have their IQ increased by several points, this enabling them for high tech jobs that require skill and learning of a greater degree.Let's for a moment assume that somehow AI doesn't take over most of the working class and even techno-commercial jobs, what would happen is that the people would be expected to produce more and not less or equal to what they were producing earlier. This is the only way a Capital based society, whether privately owned, state owned or a combination of both, continue to exist till they eventually lead to killing the soul of man.
Now coming back to the techonoligical evolution, let's say techonology gives us the ability to teleport ourselves, a la Stars Wars. those who control means of production would expect people to spend that extra time producing and not at home with their families. The argument would be, you're saving on time travelling then why won't you give it to your "corporation" that feeds you? Those who refuse to comply would be shamed, by rewarding those who comply. That's is the entire concept behind the whole "employee of the month" and "employee of the year" idea. Its not so much to reward "productivity" as it is to shame who aren't as productive.
That said, I am not anti-techonology because I don't feel the issue necessarily lies with techonology. The issue lies with the slave-master morality, where the slave is supposed to be grateful to his master because his master allows him to give the best time of his life to enrich his master.
Its not easy to get rid of this ethic and transformation won't come till we don't gradually rid ourselves of this master-slave morality. I am not even suggesting that by some kind of radical revolution all kinds of heirarchies be demolished overnight, because this would either lead to chaos or replacement by some kind of authoritarian system and thus a new kind of caste system would be born. Instead, I propose that we all take baby steps towards reconizing our humanity and that of others without being too optimistic.
