“techno-solutionism,” the simplification of complex societal problems into apps and algorithms. Ed-Tech’s Inequalities “Technological solutionism” is the related tendency to identify simple answers — in all domains, not just the tech sector — “before the questions have been fully asked” or the problems fully articulated. Take, for example: “the Internet has changed everything about how […]
Technological parables and iconic illustrations: American technocracy and the rhetoric of the technological fix
This paper traces the role of American technocrats in popularizing the notion later dubbed the ‘technological fix’. Channeled by their long-term ‘chief’, Howard Scott, their claim was that technolo...
Technocracy References
References and Revisions “Should Scientists and Engineers Run Society?” References [1] Wikipedia: “Technocracy.” [2] Academic Paper: Gunnell, John G. "The technocratic image and the theory of technocracy." Technology and culture 23.3 (1982): 392-416. [3] Academic Paper: Oh, Kyunghwan. "A non-co...
Technological Hubris → Term
Meaning → Excessive confidence in technology as a universal problem-solver, overlooking broader impacts and limitations. → Term
Techno-capitalism, Crisis Epistemology, and Disaster Ableism: How (not) to Respond to Generative AI in Higher education (My presentation @ #PhiDisSocCh6)
Introduction Techno-capitalism is a social system dominated by technology-driven capital, in which technological development is a primary vehicle for wealth concentration. Professors are currently …
tech isn’t the future it’s just capitalism faster
responding with slowness in relations
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transform…
How the Tech World Turned Evil
Once upon a time, they were counterculture idealists bringing power to the people. Today they’re greedy monopolists who’d sooner destroy our democracy than be reined in by government in any way—and they have to be stopped.
Technoableism
Technoableism is a belief in the power of technology that considers the elimination of disability a good thing, something we should strive for. It’s a classic form of ableism—bias against disabled people, bias in favor of nondisabled ways of life. Technoableism is the use of technologies to reassert those biases, often under the guise of empowerment.
Pluralistic: Ad-tech is fascist tech (10 Mar 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
A core tenet of the enshittification hypothesis is that all the terrible stuff we're subjected to in our digital lives today is the result of foreseeable (and foreseen) policy choices, which created the enshittogenic policy environment in which the worst people's worst ideas make the most money:
Pluralistic: Ad-tech is fascist tech (10 Mar 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
A core tenet of the enshittification hypothesis is that all the terrible stuff we're subjected to in our digital lives today is the result of foreseeable (and foreseen) policy choices, which created the enshittogenic policy environment in which the worst people's worst ideas make the most money:
Technocracy | The Paper Pilot
The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology
Care at the Edge of Automation – Topos Institute
Technologies don’t just solve problems, they change us. We invent technologies, and they invent us in turn, shaping our lives and worlds. This is the phenomenon that Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, in Understanding Computers and Cognition (1986), called “ontological design.” It matters now more than ever—along with a second lesson they saw clearly. Technological research is always guided (and sometimes misguided) by deep ontological assumptions about, e.g., the nature of cognition, agency, and communication. If we are to create technologies that truly serve human flourishing and care, we must bring these hidden assumptions into the open and question them at their roots.
AI, Decomputing and the Interregnum
This paper treats AI as diagnostic for the deeper changes taking place in the existing order of things. It uses AI's alignment with both the political economy and with the dualisms that underpin it, including race, gender and anthropocentrism, to highlight the nihilistic character of the current restructuring. AI's scaling and accelerationism are taken as examples of the wider tactics being invoked by hegemonic power to maintain control under changing conditions. From this perspective, the massive build-out of data centres isn't simply a seizure of energy resources but a manifestation of an aggressive and misogynist technopolitics. The paper argues that a liberal push for digital sovereignty doesn't interrupt these dynamics but plays into the hands of emerging technofascism. It proposes instead the prefigurative tactic of 'decomputing', which draws on degrowth, deautomatisation and a convivial approach to technology. It explores decomputing as a means to mitigate both material and relational harms and as a decisive turn towards infrastructuring the common good. The paper concludes that AI is the contradiction that reveals many others, not least the gap between claims to legitimacy and the actuality of destructive violence, and proposes an alternative technopolitics of reciprocity that prioritises care and sustainability.
AI, Decomputing and the Interregnum
This paper treats AI as diagnostic for the deeper changes taking place in the existing order of things. It uses AI's alignment with both the political economy and with the dualisms that underpin it, including race, gender and anthropocentrism, to highlight the nihilistic character of the current restructuring. AI's scaling and accelerationism are taken as examples of the wider tactics being invoked by hegemonic power to maintain control under changing conditions. From this perspective, the massive build-out of data centres isn't simply a seizure of energy resources but a manifestation of an aggressive and misogynist technopolitics. The paper argues that a liberal push for digital sovereignty doesn't interrupt these dynamics but plays into the hands of emerging technofascism. It proposes instead the prefigurative tactic of 'decomputing', which draws on degrowth, deautomatisation and a convivial approach to technology. It explores decomputing as a means to mitigate both material and relational harms and as a decisive turn towards infrastructuring the common good. The paper concludes that AI is the contradiction that reveals many others, not least the gap between claims to legitimacy and the actuality of destructive violence, and proposes an alternative technopolitics of reciprocity that prioritises care and sustainability.
The idea of a "tech industry" has always relied on "computer" being a special kind of medium, akin to alchemy. And if tech demands to be king, AI hype has now elevated LLMs to a king of kings. But the solipsism has hit a dead end. The only way forward is to recognize that computers are not special.
LLMs are just normal technology. But tech is just a normal medium.
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