Pessimism
Some philosophers, like Herbert Marcuse and John Zerzan, hold the somewhat pessimistic view that technological societies are a priori flawed.They suggest that the outcome of such a society would be an increase in technology at the expense of freedom and mental well-being (and probably physical well-being in general, given the dispersion of pollution from technological products).
Many people, including the Luddites and the well-known philosopher Martin Heidegger, have serious reservations about technology that are not a priori flawed.This viewpoint is presented by Heidegger in “The Question Concerning Technology”:As a result, as long as we merely conceptualize and advance the technological, endure it, or avoid it, we will never experience our relationship to its essence.
Regardless of how passionately we affirm or deny technology, we remain enslaved to it everywhere and unfree.”[22] Dystopian literary classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and other works, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four contain some of the most moving criticisms of technology.What’s more, in Faust by Goethe, Faust’s offering his spirit to Satan as a trade-off for control over the actual world, is likewise frequently deciphered as a representation for the reception of modern innovation.
