For the past three years, my tech coverage has been an elaboration on David Noble's incisive 1997 book The Religion of Technology. Anything I've contributed was a mere update to his core insight — that technology is religious — which Noble himself owed to centuries of previous thinkers. With careful attention to detail, though, he documented the historical evidence, weaving together an incredible story. My job is to add gloomy adjectives and smartass remarks.
This innate spiritual principle is so apparent, you'd think there's no reason to mention it at all, but it bears repeating. Technology emerged from religious culture, and so naturally, our ideas about technology are essentially religious. In the end, technology itself has become a source of religious authority and an object of religious devotion.
For a recent example, see the AI-generated image of Jesus superimposed on the Shroud of Turin. For many centuries, Catholics revered this sacred object according to their faith. Today, they look upon it through an inverted tech-gnostic lens.
Even atheists can't help but see the world with a religious aura. Left to their own devices, they desperately grasp for the divine. I believe it's due to an eternal longing within our souls. They'd probably say that's just how humans are wired.
Whatever. You say "toe-MAY-toe." I say "angels and demons."
At the risk of oversimplification, allow me to lay out four ways the human spirit responds to high technology: 1) the devout believer who clings to techno-optimism; 2) the atheist techno-optimist counterpart; 3) the pessimistic atheist who rejects technology; and lastly, 4) the devout believer who sees the Devil in the Machine....<<<Read More>>>...